In working with a recent customer, Craig Pringle, found that “slates were the ones to capture the hearts and minds of the customer“–convertibles did not.
For my daily work I use a convertible Tablet, but recently I too have been yearning more for a slate. I’ve even started programming more with a slate in mind.
agree…agree…agree
I work for state government agency that is one of few that is actually a business (makes money and customer service is critical). I was responsible for implementating a customer service process that I based on the pen tablet system. All systems I have put out in the field are the slate format (Motion computing). We have implemented Gateway 275/280’s internally for IT staff. I find myself doing more and more on the slate (Motion 800) although I have Gateway at my disposal. I use Journal for all meetings and even send the hand written meeting notes via email. I am playing with some forms development packages now to replace paper forms and clipboards.
I only wish there were better ways to sync work between multiple Tablets are you describe. Generally I try to minimize any copying between machines. It kind of works well, but I’m still hoping that some better sync facilities will appear in Windows someday.
I’d love a slate, but I’m sticking with my M200 until there’s a slate with that kind of resolution. My keyboard has been broken for almost a year and I’ve barely even noticed.
Cool….a Toshiba slate. Personally, I’m dreaming of the day that I can rip off the display on my Tablet convertible and walk around and use it as a slate. Toshiba I think was demoing a concept like this a few months back. I think it would be a killer idea. The HP TC1100 was the closest thing to this ideal. Too bad it’s days are numbered.
But to your point, the display is one of the most important things to me in a Tablet and I’m also hooked on the Toshiba M200’s high resolution display. It could be better though. I’d like a display with a wider viewing angle.
I really like the various Compaq and Motion Computing model slates I’ve used. I’d recommend embracing the tablet UI and avoiding a convertible.
And if you need a notebook, get a notebook. The convertibles I’ve used – predominantly the media darling IBM Thinkpad X41 – has far too many tradeoffs to make them a good bang-for-the-buck value either as a notebook or a tablet PC.
In particular, the overpraised X41 is sluggish even with the RAM bumped to 1GB and the keyboard – the entire reason for buying a ‘vert – is really only passable. The lack of a Windows key is a dealbreaker on *any* keyboard for me and the Function key is exactly where the Control key should be. And then there’s that silly TrackPoint nub instead of the standard touchpad interface that nearly all notebooks offer.
Go slate!