Hey everyone, I'm a poor college student who

[RetroMan]

Hey everyone,

I'm a poor college student who is interested in getting a Tablet PC. I'd be using it mainly for writing and drawing, so I'd be using Word, Photoshop, Painter, Sketchbook, etc. I'd like to spend as little money as possible, but will 256MB of RAM cut it? How about processor speed? I have 1gig of RAM on my desktop so 256 seems so puny, but I wouldn't be doing everything at the same time. I am thinking of the Acer C100; they go on ebay for relatively cheap.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ryan Heuser

[Steve S]

Ryan: My personal opinion only. 512MB is the minimum that you should consider for reasonable responsiveness using WinXP. I briefly used a tablet with 256MB, and I considered the experience unacceptable.

I also think that 1GB (1024MB) is about the most cost-effective breakpoint between increasing performance and increasing memory cost. Perversely, many vendors sell their 1GB memory upgrades for 3 TIMES the cost of a 512MB upgrade! I think that sucks, but it's their party. I happen to have 1.5GB in my current tablet, but I have to admit that it's probably overkill on my part.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[rbushway]

I echo Steve's comments. 512 is min. Look to crucial.Com for some good prices on memory.

[stewright]

Agree on this subject too.

256MB really doesn't cut it anymore.

Get 512MB, or 768MB if you want a bit of head-room. 1GB will probably be too much of an expense and you won't get a significant ROI.

[Trev]

I echo everything here, 512mb is really a minimum on tablets.

I would STRONGLY encourage you not to get a first generation tablet. The difference in performance between a first and second generation (pentium 3m versus centrino) tablet more than 50%. Even if it requires saving up for another month or so I would seek something in the Acer c11x series or another second generation tablet. Most second generation tablets can be found for around $800 on ebay.

Check out my website, http://studenttabletpc.blogs.com we have an article on where to find cheap tablet pcs.

[KenMagel]

You could try EBay or the Thread selling used tablets on this web site. There is some risk, but lots of people have been happy getting tablets in this way. There are some good deals on second generation used or reconditioned tablets from these and other sources.

[knowskillz]

Is there a huge performance difference between 512mb and 1024mb ram (for developement) on tablets? I'm considering getting 1024mb but there is a huge price difference between the 512 and the 1024 when I look on toshibadirect's site.

[tqc]

It depends on the sort of development you are doing. When I first got my tablet with 512mb, I found it ok for running visual studio 2003, but once I started doing some java work on it 512 was nowhere near enough.

[RetroMan]

Wow, thanks for all the replies! Regarding first and second gen... I've been looking at the Toshiba 3505, which I've found for around 1k. Is that a good price? It has 1.33Ghz, 512MB RAM, 40gig HD, and an onboard drive. Is that first or second gen?

Also, if that is a good machine, should I be worried about that deal disappearing in a few months? Or should I hold out and save some money up (I think I kind of should.. hehe).

Thanks again,
Ryan Heuser

[tqc]

The 3505 is the first generation one - It's still better than a regular notebook though.