da tablet
Wow what a nice day. I need some chairs for my little back yard, need to start thinkin about things to do outside. Ya ya ok so anyways, Seattle went well, Microsoft was cool, data was good and all is well. Now what about the dang tablet dan?! Good question... Heres what we know so far.
Uneasy Experience
This is my first laptop experience. I've never had one before and leaping into something like the TC1000 its spun me around a bit. First its a laptop, but then theres this whole tablet thing. A pen driven world. There have been several times where I've thought the GUI should be more pen friendly. With a mouse you have four fingers at work finding what you need and the firth one hovering to strike, theres more forgiveness if you dont get it just right. With a pen I feel like I need to be dead on when clicking a 4x4 pixel icon to close something. Basically I need more room to get what I want. Big places for my cursor to land vs what feels so tiny now. Somehow the whole frickin xp is set up to tiny text details view mode too so im slowing getting the hang of how to get it all switched over. I never really cared much in mouse mode but in pen mode, I need more. Its important because right now i'm dangerous with my lumbering pen skills. This along with my poor hand writing isn't helping me take the jump. I've learned that simple things like "selecting all" can be really whacked. Maybe my pen skills just suck for not jumping into PDA oh so long ago. Still I thinks important to note similar people will have to make this kind of jump and is the interface really pen friendly. I'd say no at this point, but given time i'm sure it will get better. As for my handwriting, i've been playing a "handwriting" game on the tablet to help me improve my skills and figure out what are my troublesome letters. Like "k" that never gets read well, "u" is fine, but never "k". I feel like I could use some lessons in good hand writing. The screen and everything on it are just so small, and I thinks party due to how you interact solely with a pen and the other is the way you can have xp run, like in old 2000 like mode or xp mode. I've tried both looks and xp mode gives you more.. whats the word.. presence that what yer doing is happening and yer soo tiny on the screen, but i still haven't reached a comfort level on it just yet. But theres another factor..
Phantom Stylus
My stylus appears to be messed up. It sometimes stays "left" mouse button clicked on. Like you write the word "hello" and at the end of the "o" you lift up your pen and you're still writing. Now everywhere you go the line keeps drawing and its really messy and it makes ya wanna scream. After some research I learned i was not alone in my screaming. So off that goes to Compaq and I'll get another pen back soon. Meanwhile I have back up styluses on the way. The problem is intermittent but it happens enough to start effecting the rest of my experience. Like selecting multiple mp3s for playback only to realize that you've actually copied them to the desktop. isn't that fun! Bad pen!
Me, Myself and Journal
So far I've spent most of my time in Journal. Taking notes in meetings, messing with concepts, which by far is the coolest use of the tablet I've found yet. Just getting ideas down in a visual way is nice. We had to sketch out a floor plan of a store for a project and then figure out paths for consumers and ideas for observations etc, and the tablet really helped us to get those ideas down quickly and pass the screen around so everyone could jot down comments etc. It was odd having that flexibility. Unexpected or something. Aside from Journal I've messed with the magazine reader, neat.. a few games, neat... and the franklin planner, neat.. but nothing has totally wowed me yet. I haven't really bust open the options on this thing yet, i've kept it pretty clean so far. I'll get into some of the more creative stuff as time goes on.
The Good News
The good news is multiple battery modes, long lasting life and solid connections. I've projected on this baby, i've had it run all day on one battery between meetings and its really worked out well. I've done wireless, lan, yadda and it all seems to be handling it well. I've messed with the audio recording, I love that part, and now i'm on the search for a bluetooth wireless headphone set and soon i need some sort of webcam that rests off the device as well. Maybe troy or clint can find me a compact flash camera, that'd be great. Or a bluetooth webcam. Hmmm or maybe this thing. Hmm then i need a tv! Can i get a tv tuner card for a tablet? LOL that'd be cool! Hmmm i probably could get a card. Thatd be an interesting rig.
Overall tablet is cool, I dig, pen needs fixed and thus i shall be well. I got an update for the transmeta chip, some new code morphing, ya thats it and it boots up a bit faster now wee. Its not a powerhouse thats for sure but its doing well so far. There were a lot of tablets at Microsoft, obviously so. The Fijitisu was probably the only one I though was neater than what I had. And basically I use the tablet in slate mode the most, so i'll be thinkin more and more about just slate tablets vs convertibles. Compaq/HP is already in route to release a second tablet soon. Very cool. Here to stay baby.