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Experiences with my first Tablet PC and other stuff.
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There was an excellent posting on the Tablet PC Buzz forum for doing a clean install of Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005 without requiring the Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005 disk.
Check it out at:
http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=32497
Disclaimer: I have not tried the outlined reinstall so I can not speak to it's accuracy or any problems it may introduce for the use of your tablet.
Even if you do not do a reinstall, there is lots of useful information contained in the post.
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I've been looking for a good cordless phone to use at home for work. I tried many, but none of them could meet all of my requirements. One simple requirement I has was to be able to use a corded headset for many hours. This essential meant that the phone had to be on A/C power and not battery power while I was using the headset. Many manufactureers say thrie phones can go 6+ hours on battery; however, this has not been my experience. I needed a cordless phone base station that had a headset jack (never found one) or a cordless phone that could sit in the charging station while it is being used (never found that either, they all hung up while in the charging station).
I finally decided to purchase a corded phone in addition to the cordless Panasonic phones I already owned. My main requirement was that the corded phone had to have a headset jack. I went to Staples to see which phones had this feature. Long story short, I purchased and returned a Panansonic corded phone which did not function well with the headset plugged in.
While searching online for a corded phone, I came across a phone brand I had not heard of AASTRA. Several models had the integrated headset jack and I wound up puchasing the PT-470.
The phone is simply fantastic. It's solid and well designed and everything functions as you would expect. I've used alot of phones, corded and cordless, and most are disappointing with regard to some function of the phone. If you are in the market for a solid home office phone, check of this phone or one of the other Aastra models.
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First High School to Offer Students ThinkPad Tablets
RALEIGH, N.C., November 9, 2005 — Lenovo today announced that Saint Mary’s School, an independent all-girls’ college preparatory school in Raleigh, is the first high school to deploy ThinkPad X41 Tablet PCs to students and faculty. The writable slate and unique functions of the ThinkPad X41 Tablets will help students and teachers discover new ways to work, learn and interact in the classroom and on campus.
...
http://webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?SESSIONID=&aId=5491
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Since I received my X41T I have been demo'ing software. Two packages I've been playing with are ritePen and PenOffice. I started with PenOffice and thought I had found a winner; however, while doing my research I read a lot of good comments about ritePen, so I decided to give it a try. The handwriting recognition was so much better that I decided to go with it over PenOffice.
What these packages do - they both allow you to write anywhere on the screen without bringing up the Input Panel. Coming from the PocketPC world the input panel never "felt" right. Moreover, having to bring up the Input Panel to do gestures just seemed stupid. The recognition in ritePen is dramatically better than PenOffice. In general, correcting mistakes is easier and quicker using ritePen. The one exception I found to this was when I needed to change the recognized text because a correct suggested alterative was not displayed. In this case, it was very difficult to make the correction. The good news is that ritePen almost always displays a correct alternative to a mis-recognition
Pen Office is a much more feature rich package. It also includes the ability to execute commands/macros by writing a word aid then circling it. It's very useful and very powerful. ritePen does not have this feature. I missed this feature so much that I downloaded PenCommander (a product by the same company that contains the macro functionality without the other PenOffice functionality). Sadly, ritePen and PenComnander did not play well with each other.
For me, ritePen's recognition was so much better that I have decided to give up the gesture/macro functionality for now.
For a good review of ritePen, check out:
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From the Review:
Editor's Choice
The Lenovo ThinkPad X41 Tablet wins the Editor's Choice award for being the most comfortable to use and also for having excellent communication offerings from gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, and Wireless a, b, and g support. Its super light for a Convertible and the build quality is second to none.
It's down on processing power compared to the rest of the field but it's no slouch.
Article at:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/notebooks/0,39023407,39217760-1,00.htm
Tested:
Fujitsu Stylistic T4020C
Lenovo ThinkPad X41
Acer TravelMate C310
Toshiba Portege M200
Hewlett-Packard TC4200
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I've had a little time to play with my exchanged X41T and things have been going very well. I've installed the following software: Norton System Works; Norton GoBack ; M/S Office; PhatWare PenOffice; PDF Annotator; Avant Browser; Tweak UI and some M/S Powertoys.
I've been happy with the performance. The only real complaint I have is with the clicking disk. The screen is great, the battery life is great and it does not get too hot. PenOffice has been great. I haven't enjoyed the TIP thing. I was use to writing anywhere from my Pocket PC and now I have that functionality again. It also lets you create and execute macros (scripts) by writing a word (you define) and the circling it. I've created macros like "mydocs" (opens My Documents), "f" (forward in browser), "b" backwards in browser, "g" (google shortcut in browser). TIP is more accurate and I use that when I have a lot to write.
If you never heard of GoBack I recommend it highly! It let's you rollback your computer to a previous point in time. A bad software install or upgrade becomes a non-issue. It's saved my butt on many occasions. My only note is that it doesn't always play nice with IBM's Restore and Rescue software. This is due to the fact that both like to start prior to Windows. I will probably write more about the few minor issues at a later time.
Speaking about IBM's Thinkvantage Software, I believe it's very under rated when people compare tablets. It's a big value add for the X41T.
That's it for now, more to come... stay tune...
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UPS delivered my X41T and OneNote software today. My DVD/CD-RW and Memory upgrade are being held hostage in LOUISVILLE, KY for customs clearance. My fingerprint reader works now (on battery and AC power). So far I'm pretty happy. I ran a disk surface analysis and everything is fine (my first X41T had some bad sectors which caused the GoBack install to fail and messed up the boot block).
Once I get the optical drive I can start loading the rest of my software.
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One of the things that annoyed me when I had my original X41T was the disk clicking made by the hard drive. A post on the tabletpcbuzz might have discovered an explanation for this issue (snippet from the original post):
I read in a German Thinkpad-Forum that the X41 HD clicking could have this reason:
Some of the used Hitachi HDs have defective Caches. When no working cache is found the HD has always has to write directly. Therefore this clicking.
A German guy found this out with a tool: either with Sisoft Sandra or Hitachis Drive Fitness Test a defective cache (or non-existent cache) can be detected.
It seems that IBM and Hitachi already confirmed this defect. Both HD (40 and 60) shall have defective caches.
The entire thread is available at:
http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=28538&whichpage=1
Everyone in the thread who has run the diagnostics reported having 0KB of Buffer (cache). Definitely worth keeping an eye on this thread.
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My original order took 5 weeks to ship and then sat in customs for 1 week (Lenovo originally said 2 weeks when I placed the order).
Looks like exchanges at Lenovo do get a higher priority. My order (created on 9/19) went to a status of "Shipped" and it was invoiced (these are tell tale signs that everything has shipped).
I will probably get an email on Monday. The Lenovo website only gives one tracking number, which clearly is not the X41T as it is only 2 LBs and shipped from NJ (I assume this is OneNote). Hopefully the Tablet won't spend a week in customs again due to Lenovo paper work issues.
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I'm back in the Lenovo queue. They received my RMA'ed X41T and accessories last Friday and generated a new order. Lenovo says when you do an exchange that you are placed at a high priority at the front of the queue -- what ever that really means. Here's my current order status:
At least I know not to expect too much this time. They said it could be 2 days or 2 weeks or possibly up to 4 weeks. Gotta love Lenovo [8-)]
Waiting patiently -- this time...
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I am now considering the M200 and I have also looked at the T4020. It is coming down to the following things, in order of importance:
1) Quality
2) Screen
3) Heat
4) Weight
5) Performance
6) Keyboard
7) Other features - BT, Biometrics, internal drive, etc
(Q)uality - if the thing is always broken then all the remaining items don't matter.
(S)creen - You spend all your time looking at it, it better be good. So clarity, brightness and resolution are important. Most tablets are 1024x768 which I think is to low... but that's what you get with most.
(H)eat - what good is a tablet if it's too hot to hold (or uncomfortable to hold)?
(W)eight - what good is a tablet if it's too heavy?
(P)erformance - it needs to be snappy enought for the tasks you want to do.
(K)eyboard - I need a keyboard at work, what good is a crummy keyboard?
Other (F)eatures - I really want bluetooth, biometrics would be nice and an integrated optical drive would be nice (but most dont have it).
Picking a winner in each category:
Q S H W P K F
X41T + + + +
M200 + +
T4020 + +
Now all this is subjective and clearly the priotities are different for everyone. Base on reading the posts in the 3 related tabletpcbuzz forums I've seen the following patterns:
1) The X41T appears to have the best quality. Funny coming from me as IBM could not resolve my fingerprint reader issue; however, a google search did not reveal anyone else with my issue. I read many complaints regarding quality in the toshiba forums. Really not so many in the Fujitsu forum, so perhaps it unfair to make the IBM the winner in this category (but I also base this on comments on previous ThnkPad owners).
2) The M200 has a wide angle 1400x1050 screen. I have read that it may not be as bright as the others, but wide-angle hi-res makes it a winner for me.
3) I have read too many complaints in the Fujitsu forum about it being way too hot. I have read many compaints about the Toshiba too. The faster processors and disks come at a cost. Most people have been happy with the X41T in this area.
4) The X41T is the winner here. The other to are about 1/2 pound heavier (comparing against the 8-cell X41T battery).
5) Performance is the where the X41T comes in last. A slower processor and slower disk puts it in 3rd place. I gave both the M200 and T4020 a plus here. I would believe the M200 would be better (esp with the graphics card), but I have read negative things about the M200's performance.
6) The keyboard on the X41T is a pure joy! It was the best keyboard I ever used. I don't believe I read in the other forums that the keyboards were bad; however, it's was not something that people made extermely positive comments on (like users of the X41T).
7) The fact that the Fujitsu has a built in optical drive has to make it the winner in this category.
For me, the perfect tablet does not yet exist. If I could have an X41T with a WA 1400x1050 screen, faster processor and hard drive with only a marginal increase in weigth and heat, I think I could be a very happy camper. Yes I would like an integrated optical drive; however, if I consider the number of times I actually used the optical drive on my current Laptop, an external one is adequate.
This was an excellent exercise for me... I believe I may be closer to a decision (I might just let the X41T exchange continue unimpeded).
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I started my blog on blogspot, but I am relocating here.
Here's part of the last entry:
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I did like the X41T overall, so after talking the CS rep, I thought I'd give it one more try and I'm doing an exchange. I had to return everything so that my 30 day return clock would start over. Of course that means that I will be waiting for everything to be delivered again.
This is a good thing as it gives me time to look at other alternatives. If I decide I rather have something else, then I will just cancel the new X41T. So thinking about what I liked about the X41T:
- Size
- Fingerprint reader (really just cool, not actually needed)
- Keyboard (best keyboard I ever used)
- IBM value added software
- Support is in the US (Sorry, but offshore support sucks)
- Convertible (a slate would be cool for personal use, but a keyboard is really essential for work).
- Screen was bright and clear
- Bluetooth
and what I did not like:
- A little pokey (i.e. slow)
- Resolution (looking at web pages in portrait mode was alittle disappointing).
- Warmer than I thought (perhaps cooler than other tablets?)
- Lenovo the company
- The graphics shared memory
- The well known disk clicking noise
Given my likes and dislikes when I look around, the only options (that I know of) for a higher resolution screen are the Toshiba M200 and Fujitsu T4020; however, only the Toshiba has a high resolution wide-angle screen.
I don't think my perfect tablet exists yet. They all have tradeoffs. In the end I may just pick the X41T again.
The saga continues...
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To read all about my X41T experiences, check out:
http://tabletpcblog.blogspot.com/
It's good to be among fellow tablet users :-)
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