I'm looking at getting a new laptop and I'm considering a tablet PC. Does anyone have experience with them?
Besides basic performance and usability issues, I've got two main concerns. 1) Is it significantly more comfortable reading e-books and the like off of tablet? and 2) If I had a document markup system, say of my own design, would it be easy to integrate the touchscreen functionality into the markup system?
So, Hatrack, what do you got?
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
I don't consider tablet computers to be at the point where they can replace a laptop. The character recognition for writing is slow and inaccurate, and programming for the touch screen is difficult because not all programs and applications support the total functionality.
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
I’ve seen a number of people with the tablets who really enjoy them. A couple of them seemed to be just a laptop that had a screen that could flip on itself. I think it’s really a personal choice thing and what you think you’d like. Just like there are different ways to do a desktop it seems that tablets are really just glorified laptops.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Funny, my company just purchased a Gateway tablet (M280-E. 1.8 GHz, 14" monitor) and I have been setting it up. This particular one has the swiveling screen, so it can function as a standard laptop (not sure if all of them do that). In that mode, it's exactly like using a laptop. We got two styluses (is that right? styli? Can't remember if its a Greek or Latin derivation, dang it.)
Writing on the screen with the stylus that came with it is really pretty cool. And the character recognition is really pretty good. I mean, I fooled around with relatively good to terrible handwriting and its performance was incredible. I wrote "Oil + " which it got as "Oil &". Then I started a 'G' that looked like a 6. It showed a six underneath my writing. But the next letter was 'a'. It's context logic switched into gear and recognized that the better read of the '6' was 'G' and so made the change. I was quite impressed.
There are some things to get used to. Sometimes the writing box closes without warning. And getting a context menu to open can be a bit tricky at first (especially if you accidently drop the stylus and the little button-tab comes out. After that, it keeps falling off. Looks like we'll have to replace it.) Unfortunately, the second stylus as not as good (same make as far as I can tell.) You REALLY have to push HARD to make it do anything (write, click, double-click, right-click, etc). Feels like I am scratching the screen. Gonna get that replaced too.
We've only had it for a day. But so far, it's been pretty cool. Comes with OneNote (of course- which is an awesome program.). And some other stylus related software. Clearly, the point of a tablet is for writing-entry. I have no use for one, so my experience with all it's features is limited. But seems pretty cool.
Posted by RyanINPnet (Member # 8363) on :
I personally have a Toshiba Portege Tablet PC, and it is great. I have had it for the past year or so. It is perfect for college classes. I just flip the screen over and take notes in my own handwriting, or I can turn on the character recognition. The Windows Tablet edition is really good; it has tons of extra features that are cool.
For your first question...yes, imo, it is easier to read on a tablet because the screen has a smoother look to it because of the touch screen. And also because you can fold it over and just hold it in your lap like a book. Mine is also really light for its size, as are most other tablets.
For your second question…Windows tablet edition has a program which allows you to pull up documents and mark them. It is quite handy when editing papers. I am not sure how a markup system “of your own design” could be integrated with a tablet though…
I have been looking at Fujitsu tablets for a while. From what I hear those are the best to go with. But Toshiba makes some pretty good ones as well.
Good luck with the purchase.
[ May 23, 2006, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: RyanINPnet ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
My work computer is a tablet, and I like it very much. The character recognition is really quite good, and I can always use it with a keyboard if I want to. My next personal laptop will be a tablet--albeit one with more bells and whistles than my work tablet.
I'm a teacher, and one thing I've discovered this year that I like to do is connect my tablet to an LCD projector via an 80211 AirProjector, and walk around the room completely wirelessly. I write my notes in MS Notepad, rather than on the board, and the students see it in full color on a faux notebook paper background. There are several reasons I have found I like delivering notes this way. I have PDF copies of their textbook pages, and I also make PDFs of my study guides and stuff, and so when I go over questions from either of these sources, I can use Acrobat's camera-cut-and-paste-thingy to copy the problems onto my notes, and work them there. In addition, I can easily show interactive graphs using Geometer's Sketchpad on the screen without having to set anything up, because it's all already set up and in use. If I want to graph a function by hand, I have an assortment of coordinate systems already in files and ready to go (such as this one I drew for graphing trigonometric functions) and it's much better than hand drawing a plane, or breaking out a special dry-erase board. I can also draw directly onto MS Office files, and highlight stuff I think is important. This past year, I had a hospital homebound student, and writing notes this way made it possible for me to easily print them out afterward and share them with her teacher. In fact, next year I am toying with the idea of making them routinely available specifically to students who are absent. (Give me a few minutes to fool around, and I'll show you what I mean.) Finally, I love writing notes this way because it allows me to walk around the room while still writing "at the board." This means I can see who is and is not paying attention, and I can see who is answering example problems correctly at their desks (rather than only getting feedback from the limited number of kids I can call upon).
If you give a lot of presentations in your line of work, I wholeheartedly recommend a tablet.
I do find reading slightly more comfortable on the tablet. I also like how lightweight and manageable my work one is. (Though, as I said, when I buy myself one, it will probably be bulkier.) And if you ever use Photoshop or Illustrator or Fireworks, it is a million times better when you are holding a stylus directly to the screen!
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:If I had a document markup system, say of my own design, would it be easy to integrate the touchscreen functionality into the markup system?
I'm not sure what you mean by "markup system." Do you mean a way to comment on existing documents?
.Net had tablet support, and it should be pretty easy to integrate basic functions into a .Net markup program. I'd guess other languages would be more difficult.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
I'm highly interested in this, Mr. Squicky and Dagonee.
Would there be a way to make standard editor's marks on a Word document using the stylus and have those converted into Word's Markup system*?
*Not that I'm in love with Word's Markup system, but it what is used in my world.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Click on "Rotate Counterclockwise" in the upper right to see it correctly.
Aaaaaaaaah! Partial fractions!
Edit: Those notes made a hell of a lot more sense than when I learned that in calculus.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
That's 'cause I'm a pretty good teacher.
(This post hand-written on my tablet. )
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I never doubted it for a second. Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
That is sweet, Dag.
Now I want a tablet pc.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
This is what I don't get about tablets:
Is the touch screen easier to write on than those little screens you sign for credit cards? Because whenever I sign one of those, it looks like my name was written by a drunken chicken with a lampshade on its head.
-pH
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Yeah, I would say so. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe because the surface is bigger than just a couple of inches across, so you're not in a situation where the writing surface is a few millimeters higher or lower than where you are resting your hand? Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Will it get messed up if you're left-handed? Because then your hand drags over...or is it somehow connected to the stylus?
-pH
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
IIRC, when I calibrated the stylus, it asked me if I was left-handed, so I assume it accomodates. However, unlike a PDA, my tablet is not based on a touch sensitive screen, but on a sensor in the stylus itself. So hand contact with the screen does not do anything.
(My biggest problem is accidentally trying to use a pen on my regular laptop!) Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Heh. I had a heck of a time with one of those credit card screens yesterday, ph. Glad to hear that I'm not the only one.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I was just looking over this thread to see if MrSquicky ever posted in it again, and I've got to emphasize my disagreement with THT's post. Word-recognition on mine (which I am again using now) is instantaneous, and at least 90% accurate. On the occasions when it gets a word wrong, I tap on the transcribed word and it gives me a list of alternatives, and the word I meant is on that list at least 80% of the time. When it's not, it's usually a non-standard word, like say an uncommon name (such as MrSquicky) and then I have three options for entering it. I can click on it and overwrite the computer's transcription letter by letter (by hand), or I can switch from word-recognition to letter recognition mode, or I can pull up a touch-sensitive QWERTY keyboard. In any case, slowness is never an issue (except insofar as I type much faster than I hand-write).
As far as programs supporting the touchscreen stuff, that is virtually never an issue, because the writing recognition stuff is embedded in the OS, not in the applications. Granted, MS Word and Powerpoint have some really cool tablet features that, for example, Acrobat does not, but without those features, I'd be no worse off than I would be with a traditional, non-touch-sensitive PC.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
quote:The character recognition for writing is slow and inaccurate,
I don't know where TheHumanTarget experienced this. These aren't PDAs. All the tablet PCs I used could recognize clean cursive writing, and they adapted slightly to different writing styles.
My experience with tablet PCs (as a salesperson) was good, with the exception of one model. We sold Toshiba, Averatec (that was the one that sucked), and a couple of others I'm not wasting time remembering. All except the Averatec had good battery life. Most of them used a Centrino processor, too. Read a plethora of customer reviews to get an indicator of battery life.
Pros: Good handwriting recognition Lightweight Smaller
Cons: Smaller screen More expensive
As Jay said, it's a matter of personal choice.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
The screen on my work tablet is perhaps a tiny bit smaller than my widescreen laptop, and substantially larger than my wife's laptop. It's also larger than the previous laptop I owned, which is still in my burgeoning Obsolete Technology Museum.
Posted by Hamson (Member # 7808) on :
Does anyone know if tablet's can recognize uncommon symbols, such as a letter with an umlaut on it, or the symbol for square rooting something?
Also, I was reading an article in the Circuits section of the New York Times a couple of months ago about nifty tablet unique applications such as a program that when you wrote in a math problem, it would solve it automatically for you. Has anyone had any experiance with some really cool programs like that?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I have a program like that on my tablet. I'm not on the tablet right now, so I can't look at the name and tell you, for comparison purposes. The one I have, I found cute but ultimately not useful. If I want a calculator while I'm keyboardless, I just bring up the normal calculator; it's frankly easier to use with the stylus than with a mouse and keyboard--it's just like a regular calculator.
As for special characters, I suspect that there would be support for this if you set up your computer for a non-English keyboard. My tablet (set to English) does not easily handle this--I would pretty much just have to use Character Map. Remember, though, that you do have a keyboard when you get a tablet; when I want to type in Spanish, which is faily often actually, I just use the keyboard.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Again, when I have time I'll take some screen shots of that calculator program.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Okay, Hanson: the freehand calculator program I have is called the xThink Calculator. Here is a screenshot:
My markings are those in black, and the answers, such as they are, are in blue. You can see why I'm not big on this program. It doesn't interpret my writing well, and in the end . . . what's the point? It doesn't really take advantage of the tablet to add greater ease or functionality. It can evaluate trigonometric functions, logarithms, and radicals, but that's about the extent of it. Despite the graph paper background I had on it, it is not a graphing calculator, nor can it do anything useful with graphs or geometric figures I draw on it. Posted by Hamson (Member # 7808) on :
Lol, that's funny Icarus. Thanks for the response.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
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