[Gongo]

So I'm going back to get my MBA in a few months (YAY). but that means i'll have to give back my laptop to my company when i quit (BOO).

I need to get a new laptop and was thinking about getting a T60 Tablet thinkpad. The primary reason for this is I can get an employee discount when I buy a thinkpad... so as i'm going to be poor soon, I need to save money.

my question is, because i'm going back to school, I'll be doing graphs and whatnot.. I figured a tablet thinkpad would be great.. I can type my notes and just whip out a graph right in the middle of my notes. This laptop will basically be only used in a business sense because I already have a gaming rig.

anyone have bad bad experiences with tablets that would deter me from getting one?

[gangaskan]

personally, I've had experience with tablets, i don't like them. when you have to install apps on 6 different tablets it gets redundant, also you have to write very very clearly if you want to do type stuff with tablet edition. if its a laptop that can swivel into a tablet, then i might look at it. the ones we have at work are HP's with a very thin keyboard and a eraser mouse. maybe thats why i don't like them lol


but the question is .... do you really want a tablet? they will be a little bit more expensive i think. right now i have a insprion 1501 for school, i cant be any happier with it

[illuminati11_13]

It might just be cheeper to invest in a laptop + wacom combo. Plus then you could use it with your main rig if you had a use. You could also avoid gangaskan's issues that way.

[Gongo]

the X60t's are tablet swivel laptops so I can be typing notes in laptop form and then whip out the pen and draw a graph in the middle of my notes. I thought about getting a wacom but I need mobility and carrying 2 pieces of equipment just isnt for me. and a few hundred extra doesnt bother me (employee discount from IBM)

[illuminati11_13]

Originally Posted by Gongo

the X60t's are tablet swivel laptops so I can be typing notes in laptop form and then whip out the pen and draw a graph in the middle of my notes. I thought about getting a wacom but I need mobility and carrying 2 pieces of equipment just isnt for me. and a few hundred extra doesnt bother me (employee discount from IBM)

Well in that case... Go right ahead. Though you might want to stop by BestBuy (or someplace similar) and try to get a feel for it on some of the models they have for show. See if they have the models in which you're interested.

[Knacko]

Tablets are great for school. The only problem is that they are crazy overpriced for what you get. My 4-year-old entry-level laptop has better specs than some tablets out there costing $1000+. I'd suggest buying a used tablet (*cough* TC1000) off eBay and put the rest towards a decent desktop. I bought mine for ~$450 a year ago and I haven't had any problems yet.

[Valk]

I think you will like it, just get the QXGA version for a nice high res screen. you dont have to write too clearly either, mine will pick out from horrible scribes ha.
I would highly advise against getting a used tc1000. get an 1100 if you really wanna step that far back. the 1000 doesnt have a pressure sensitive pen *uses a battery too* and is powered by a transmeta cpu. the machine maxes out at 768mb ram and even with that much, its pretty slugish for anything other than taking notes.
the 1100 is a pentium M version of the same thing with a ULV 1.2 ghz dothan, a wacom penabled screen and a max mem of around 2gb. those are very popular and now you can get them on ebay really cheap.
I got a tc4200 for about the same price: dothan 1.73ghz, 1.5gb ddr2 and a 12" wacom screen. its fast enough for photoshop/open canvas drawing in high resolution, playing back .h264 video content and even some light gaming, but it can be converted into a notebook with the swivel keyboard.

I got it to test out if id like the tablet, since i wanted one since the standard was unveiled and im liking it quite a bit. Paid like $650 usd for it, and when i have money next year for a new one, i can still sell it for a lot since the tablets hold their value well

The x60 is a GORGEOUS tablet for sure. high res screen and a solid build quality. I think though, in that size you might consider the R1F from asus. then you get a built in optical drive but you have to put up with a 13" widescreen. Personally, that one is 1280x800, so its a little bigger than my 1024x768, but feels cramped when writing in portrait mode. the x60 will give you the option of getting a 1400x1050 12" display *which might be hard to read but god damn* but it will only be available on the pricier units.

after my experience, id definatly stay away from a pure slate tablet as your first one too. there are a LOT of times when its much more convenient to just sit down and type **** out. It feels like your writing on a phone book in slate mode, but really does add that much needed versatility.

[Gongo]

so i read that the OS for tablets especially the ibm tablet suck and are hard to patch... any truth to this? I've never really used a tablet before and only played around with them in the store so i'm not too familiar with the OS.

[Valk]

I use XP tablet 05 and havent had issues, just with themes. my old Style XP killed one of my user accounts but I fixed it.
its basicly XP pro.
the auto-tip doesn't work with all apps, but tablets have a input button that opens it, so its not so bad.

[Moto7451]

Personally I've never been able to do anything with a window's tablet that I couldn't do quicker with a KB & mouse. YMMV

[Gongo]

Originally Posted by Moto7451

Personally I've never been able to do anything with a window's tablet that I couldn't do quicker with a KB & mouse. YMMV

except draw diagrams and graphs. which is really the reason i'm leaning to a tablet/pc. although with the reviews being so mixed I'm wondering if i'm making a mistake...

[Valk]

this is why you buy a convertable because you will still use your tablet pc as a notebook a good 75% of the time, but when you are in a situation where you need to take down graphic info, you can flip to tablet mode and sketch it out.
it gives you a lot of versatility on how you can use your computer and when since there isnt always room for you to open it up to type stuff out.

i use mine for pretty much everything. Daily internet browsing, downloading torrents, watching those movie torrents on my lcdtv, playing some light games like ragnarok and ffxi, taking notes in math classes which would be otherwise impractical to take on a laptop, copying diagrams ect, drawing in photoshop/open canvas ect.

I havent had a problem with anything in xp tablet aside from my old version of style xp killing my user account, just made a new account and updated the style program to the newest heh.

I run xp pro on the desktop and havent noticed any difference in usability. the writing functionality does take a bit of time to work into. start out doing your graphs ect, and slowly use it more as a writing tablet too, but if you need to take a LOT of text information down at a time, you will still be flipping it into laptop mode.

[Gongo]

yeah that's what i figured valk. i'll primarily be using it in notebook form taking notes.. but whip out the stylist and wham.... 5 graphs perfectly placed in my notes. I think i might wait a little longer and hope that the santa rosa chipset comes out

[-maddog-]

Tablets are nice, but I wouldn't rely on them for note taking.

[Valk]

If i could have spent the money on it, i would have got the asus or an x60 but i had like... $700 to burn on a lappy heh, so a used one for me. I still use my desktop if i need hardcore power, but for notetaking i have absolutly no issues. hell the only thing my desktop is used for these days is playing games and dumping anime onto from my tablet heh.

some people will suite a tablet, some will not. For me, i get kinda tired of typing out notes and stuff and i like to be able to write and scribble. for me its also considerably faster to point at what i want with a pen than a mouse. especially when you start messing with alternative shells like blackbox.

as for santa rosa, be prepared to shell out for it. and if you can get one with xp, do it. vista is really too bloated for tablet use.

[Gongo]

yeah ive been reading a bunch of stuff on people that get their tablets and immediatly do a wipe to get rid of all the crap. I'll just have to see i guess. I think i'll go to a comp usa that's pretty far from me to play with their tablets.

[hafa]

Originally Posted by Valk

as for santa rosa, be prepared to shell out for it. and if you can get one with xp, do it. vista is really too bloated for tablet use.

I'd amend that to say that Vista is too bloated for some tablets. My Toshiba M400 core2 duo 5600/ 2BG RAM/ 100GB 7200RPM HDD has no problems whatsoever.

I've gotten to the point where I can take notes almost as fast with the pen as typing. The text recognition in Vista Business is fantastic. You can write the nastiest scrawl and still have it recognized, and the automated text selection feature is highly intuitive.

Tablet, all the way for me; I'm through with the limitations inherent in mouse and keyboard...

[fldrice]

Go for it. My tc4200 is awesome for taking notes. Most business tablets and notebooks won't come with a lot of bloatware, so you need not worry about this issue.

[Trap05]

I've had two different Acer tablets and was happy with them. I didn't use the tablet function much but when I needed to it was there are worked as it should. Just make sure you don't cheap out on the ram. Get more than you think you need.

[iii9ix3]

i am in want of a small, super portable laptop and the 12.1" from HP (cant remember the model) is really looking good to me, especially with a nice little academic discount. I can custom order it with a touchscreen (it has a swivel screen regardless is the screen is touch sensitive or no) for only $125 or $150 more, cant remember off the top of my head. Would that be worth it?
I plan on using this notebook to take to class and that whole college thing.