Improving your tablet's performance

[Caryatid]

This my first post here - Hello all. Forgive me if I am repeating previous topics.

I started with a TC1000 when they were new to the market. Very soon discovered the slow response of the Transmeta chip and set it aside in my private museum! Since then I have amused myself by buying broken TC1100's and refurbishing. I resisted W7 for a while but once correctly set up find it works extremely well.

The display problems which arise are caused by fatigue damage to an area of the board around the keyboard latches after years of opening and closing the keyboard. Unless you are a dab hand with circuit board repairs or want to swap motherboards around there is no fix for this.

Tip. If you have a working TC1100 take off the keyboard and never use it again. It will then go well for years. If you want the keyboard either buy a mini USB keyboard or leave the machine set up on the stand designed for it.

Like many others I long to pop a nice big capacity SS drive but not yet found a neat way to adapt to the PATA connections. I know there are SATA adapters around but the boards on them look a bit wide for the drive space and not sure if the pins match up properly. So at present I use two old Seagate Momentus 7500rpm drives which are superb. If only they were still made.

Obviously I am stuck in about 2005 and happy to be there. Other laptops are several Thinkpad T23's and three of the magnificent Sony Vaio VGN-A497's which work and feel like Rolls Royces!

Is there something I'm missing. Nothing else made since has tempted the money out of my pocket and I pride myself I am very green by keeping using up old laptops. Maybe it is because I have drawn the line at gaming so I don't really need what is on offer in the way of speed. Of course my favourite car is a 1951 Peugeot but I do also run a later one on the sly...

[GerardSamija]

From the bits I've read this week, HP's second tablet along the 500 line seems like a great bet. Sooner or later some must leak out of the 'vertical' channels and allow for purchase by non-corporate types. I am very happy with W7 on both my TC1100 (with small but perfectly usable 16GB SSD) and my Asus 901. Both of these see regular use. I like the TC for movies and obviously for graphics fun with Sketchbook Pro and the like. For everyday office and communication stuff the netbook gets more duty. My Android phone fills in the blanks here and there. I'd like to have an all-in-one and hope a wicked slate does become available soon, as I'm sure the TC is getting tired and the 901 seems to be cranky in its old age now and then, especially the left mouse button. But I'll wait. And yeah, I ditched the keyboard of the TC1100 right away. I prefer stylus use with that one, and use an external rubber mat type keyboard with it once in a while as needed.

[Steve S]

<<...Is there something I'm missing...>>

Cary: I wouldn't say that you're "missing anything," exactly, but the tabletPC scene has improved somewhat since 2005. As a fellow TC1100 user, I understand completely your loyalty to that device, and up until recently, I have also been hard pressed to think of reasons why I shouldn't continue to use it. But time and technology move on, and a 3+ pound tablet with a Pentium processor is now definitely behind the power curve.

A couple of suggestions that you might consider in terms of dipping your toe into current technology:

<> Fujitsu Q550: Slim and light at about 1.5 lb., the "Q" is an interesting blend of lower-end processor, excellent display and long battery life. Combining both pen and touch input, the Q is excellent for "sofa-surfing" if not the speediest slate on the block. Careful OS settings can noticeably improve performance.

<> Asus EP121: Combines a large, 12.1" WXGA screen with an i5 processor and a 2+ pound weight to give you desktop performance in a package that's markedly lighter than the TC1100. The computing power makes battery life an issue, though; depending upon power management setting and usage, battery life can be 3+ hours or as little as 1+ hours. Even so, the EP121 set the standard for mobile computing during the first part of this year.

<> Samsung Series 7 Slate: Just out, and having a few teething problems, the S7S is the new gold standard. Smaller and lighter than the EP121, the S7S has a next-gen i5 and an excellent, bright screen. The few early manufacturing problems seem to be on their way to being fixed and the S7S should be the slate to beat into the first half of next year.

I suggest that you at least consider one of these newer slates. I don't think you'll be disappointed...

[Caryatid]

Well Steve, I will look at the specs on these slates but I don't feel any frustration yet about the performance of the TC1100 - that's the thing that stops me moving on. It actually performs very quick and slick. It is also a very cheap option. Battery life no problem with a stack of spare HP batteries.

In fact I must be getting old because I begin to wonder whether I want to play with these toys any more - the charm is wearing thin as I look out of the window and see the trees waving at me
and the dog begging to go for a walk. Really the ideal is when the actual hardware becomes almost irrelevant and invisible. Even Bill Gates lost interest and went off to Africa to do good!