<p>Excellent post, michuncle. After posting my above message, I googled for a while and found out about most of the things you have mentioned, but thanks for the other useful pointers!</p>
<p>Hmmm.... Now, I am very tempted to get a tablet instead of a laptop for college. Money isn't a HUGE issue for me, but I am still concerned about the stylus technology. </p>
<p>I visited my friendly, neighborhood Best Buy, and I was informed that they stopped selling tablets because the technology was quirky. They said it was in development. Does this mean that it may be a bad time to buy a tablet?</p>
<p>squashed, there are "convertible" tablets available. Basically, it's a super-light laptop with a stylus-enabled screen. So you can rotate and push back the display and it becomes a tablet PC. Push the display up and rotate it and the keyboard becomes available. That's what the first tablet pc (toshiba prot</p>
<p>And those are not "quirky"?</p>
<p>I wouldn't know... haven't used em. I think the should be fairly sturdy... and going by the pictures i've seen, it's not 'quirky at all' ... see</a> for yourself
another</a> pic</p>
<p>Both Best Buy and Circuit City have had problems knowing how to properly display and explain Tablet PCs to the public. </p>
<p>Their standard displays were designed for regular laptops and had a security bar that prevented you from lifting them up much. These bars also made it difficult to try out Tablets (when you can find the pen). My experience with the sales staff was that they werent that knowledgeable about most the computers they were selling anyway. </p>
<p>Handwriting to text recognition was a problem with the original XP Pro software. Recognition was greatly improved with Microsofts Service Pack 2. Needless to say, I dont think Best Buy or Circuit City updated their computers </p>
<p>When the clerk said quirky, he may have meant people had problems translating their handwriting to text. Firstly, you dont need to change your hand written notes to text (i.e. what youre reading now on the screen of your computer). The beauty of Tablets is that you can take hand written notes in class or in a business meeting and keep it that way. You can also search your notes using the Find command. Secondly, the way Tablets were anchored to the display stands made it very difficult to write on the screen. This left a lot of people wondering how well Tablets would work. And you can change the settings on Tablets to reflect whether you are right or left handed! Try that on a spiral bound notebook (lefties know what I mean which is why I switched to legal pads in college).</p>
<p>Hopefully, stores will have the new Toshiba Tablets soon. If not, youll need to go online and check them out. This is no different from looking at Dell or any other Internet based seller.</p>
<p>Awesome. Thank you for clearing that up.</p>
<p>IMO, tablets are a waste of money. You can get a lot better value (large hard drive 1+gig of ram, optical drives) by buying a regular laptop. Anyways, hardly anyone brings their laptops to class so it's not like you'd even use it for that.</p>
<p>Thanks for making my point. Regular laptops are pretty much useless in a classroom situation. Typing can be distracting in a quiet classroom. Some laptops have loud fans. Battery life may be a factor on long days. Large laptops may not fit on regular classroom desks. And laptops are totally useless in math, science and engineering classes where you need to draw or write down equations, formulas and diagrams. </p>
<p>Well, that leaves you with the library, the campus coffee shop, outside (if your screen doesnt wash out in direct sunlight or if its not too cold, snowing or raining) or back in your dorm room. </p>
<p>Lets start in your dorm room. Plugged in, you might as well have a powerful desktop so you can play games (Half-Life 2 comes to mind). If your laptop can play games, its plugged in as well with all its power settings set to max. Buy a powerful desktop and you can save a pile of money over an equivalent laptop. Alienware laptops allow you to easily upgrade the video card (maybe Voodoo does as well dont know). Then there are the Alienware prices </p>
<p>The library: do research and type your papers. Score one for the laptop. Score one for the convertible Tablet PC which is a laptop which can also allows you to write on the screen in Tablet mode. </p>
<p>Outside: Great in California or Florida not such a good idea in Michigan where the weather is variable. </p>
<p>Coffee shop: Great for laptops and Tablets alike. Everybody has a laptop (or so it seems in coffee shops). But Tablets are sexy and a great conversation starter. Guys/Gals take note. Hard to hold a conversation with your screen in the way no eye contact. Tablets? No problem. What is THAT? Why, let me give you a demo. New friends.</p>
<p>So: A Tablet PC can do everything that a laptop can (except for playing games well) plus enables you to take great notes in class. Class notes or games? Any parents want to weight in?</p>
<p>"Some laptops have loud fans. Battery life may be a factor on long days. Large laptops may not fit on regular classroom desks." ... "if your screen doesnt wash out in direct sunlight or if its not too cold, snowing or raining"</p>
<p>michuncle, I think tablet PCs have all of those problems as well. There goes half of your argument.</p>
<p>seriously, for 1500 dollars... get a centrino notebook... my sister has a toshiba and it does wonders... the tablet pcs have a tendency to have dead pixels and low power... centrinos are the equivalent but cheaper...</p>
<p>Almost all Tablet PCs have Intel Centrino processors which give you excellent power, battery life and reduced wattage requirements (less heat generated/less noise from a fan running). In the classroom, Tablets are being used in Tablet rather than in notebook mode. Since youre writing rather than typing, your power consumption is lower and your fan is less likely to be running. Typical Tablet screens run from 10 ½ to 14. Most are around 12. This is about the same size as a spiral bound notebook. The 14 models in Tablet mode is the same size as a legal pad. Some screens do wash out in bright sunlight. The Fuji Tablet has a special coating that allows you to use it outside. If this feature is important to you, there are choices. </p>
<p>As for price, Toshiba is introducing Tablets in the $1500 range. And their screens are no less subject to dead pixels than regular laptops. In fact, because Tablets allow you to write on their LCD screen, the screens have to be more robust than on a regular laptop. If dead pixels are a concern, buy the extended warranty. Read the fine print! Most manufacturers have strict guidelines on how many dead pixels your screen has to have and their placement on the screen before they will replace it.</p>
<p>Tablet processing power isnt much of an issue unless youre running software or games that need the juice of Intels 600 series processors. If you need a 3.2E chip or faster, then you need a regular laptop or desktop system. If youre a serious gamer, youll need to look elsewhere. Otherwise, Tablets have sufficient power for your school work as well as the ability to play movies and music cds </p>
<p>3 is the maximum # of dead pixels allowed by most manufacturers.</p>
<p>thanks for clarifying all that michuncle... it is probably a viable and economic solution, maybe just not the road i would take... but then again i am impartial to processing powers and overloaded gpus...;)</p>