Tablet PC Proving Useful
A few weeks back, Geeks.com sent me one of their patented Emails of Temptation. Inside those emails are a whole series of refurbished and otherwise deeply discounted geeky gadgets and toys. They're tempting, because often the stuff the offer is the first time I've seen a given bit of technology priced below my threshold.
Such was the case with the tablet PC's they had in that particular email. 1.5Ghz/512MB/40GB Toshiba tablet PC's for $499. Now, I've wanted a tablet for quite a while. However, they've pretty much all been in that $1500-$2000 range. Since most of the ones that I'd consider a decent general purpose laptop are on the top end of that range, I've been reluctant to buy one. However, at $500, a tablet can be a secondary machine, useful specifically for what a tablet is good for.
That's exactly what I've been doing with this thing since I got it. I keep it in the "tablet" form rather than the laptop form all the time. If there's any temptation to flip it over to the laptop form, I've been taking that as a sign that I should get to a regular laptop or desktop machine instead.
That's been a reasonable course of action as far as I can see so far. Everyone seems to have a tendency (myself included) to centralize our computing. We find a device that meets 60% of our computing needs and we spend a great deal of time trying to make everything else work there as well.
The tablet is really good for:
- Taking notes. OneNote is pretty good software. The same is true of most of the apps that were built for the "Ink" technology. I can write questions on top of requirements documents, make adjustments to wireframe screenshots, and otherwise write on the top of documents. And, after writing a question on a document, if I get a satisfactory answer, I can erase the note. This turns these documents into truly working documents.
- Drawing diagrams. I do a lot of whiteboard diagrams to explain technology and potential solutions in my consulting practice. This thing is now a portable whiteboard with the ability to save and share the results. No more erasing one board to get room to keep going.
- Reading documents, ebooks and feed items. The portrait orientation and pen interaction for flipping through longer documents just feels right. I need to buy/install tools for annotating PDF like I can Word docs, etc. and I'll get the really nice ability to notate in the margins on those as well. And, Google Reader is much better on the tablet than any device I've used it on previously.
- Graphics editing. I don't do as much of this as I used to, but it's an obvious use for one of these. Being able to draw and sketch right on the monitor surface closes that huge gap that's been there in all other forms of drawing on a computer and makes the interaction much more normal.
- While I haven't yet used it for this purpose, I'm betting that doing screencasts with a tablet will work better than other methods.
- Similarly, hooking the tablet up to a projector would give you that sports-style ability to easily point out what you mean and turn any flat white surface into a whiteboard without having to mess with the markers.
What this thing *isn't* good for:
So, how I've been using the tablet is entirely as a secondary machine as an enhanced replacement where I'd normally use a legal pad or other paper notebook. It sits next to my primary desktop setup and carry it to meetings where I'd normally just go with paper and pen.
And, I have to say it really works for that well. It arrived fairly well beaten up. This was really the kind of refurb that Geeks.com often sells which is to say that they're fully used items, not just open box items that were used for a day and then returned. However, it's been a great way to realize that I can make great use of a tablet as part of my arsenal.
This also reveals just how far they have to go before these things are truly usable. Windows for the tablet environment is pretty much just windows with a Wacom tablet slapped on it and it feels like it. While that's enough extra functionality to derive quite a bit of utility, it's not enough to make it a good device for the general public to use.
I suspect the difficulty in re-designing the UI patterns to actually work with just a pen or a pen and a finger are why we haven't seen an Apple tablet. However, the iPhone and the recent Microsoft multi-touch interfaces may be moves in that direction. However, to make a computer truly usable in that environment will take much more than turning the pen into a mouse. You've got to ditch the whole menu approach (your hand ends up covering the cascading options), and get much more in tune with natural gestures than this setup is.
Beyond that, I'd also like a much slimmer device, and ditch the keyboard altogether. The "normal" laptop bits make it much bigger and bulkier than it needs to be. That's obviously a legacy of trying to be a full-on laptop and tablet in one. One more the actual size/thickness of a legal pad would be better, but that's just a matter of time.
Overall, it's proving to be even more useful than I thought it would be
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:26 am
How have you found the tablet PC for not just standing in as an electronic whiteboard, but tidying up your diagrams as you go? Found any software to do that? Like you're drawing a UML class diagram, and you draw a box with a couple of lines across the middle dividing it into thirds and write some identifier in the top third - and it converts it into a nice box with squared off lines and typed header? Draw another box and an arrow joining them and it's converted into another nice tidy box and line? I'd like to be able to do that but haven't found anything anyone can demo that does it…
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I haven't used it for that purpose, mostly because most of my diagramming is just to get clarification on how things are related and how they'll be structured and not so much for officially documenting that architecture.
I have heard that such a thing exists (at least the draw-a-square-and-get-a-real-square functionality), but mostly in basic drawing tools.
I'd suspect that anything that would do what you're asking would have to be pretty task-specific in order to not end up putting some other symbol in instead.
June 24th, 2007 at 3:03 am
Now the key question: what's the battery life like?
June 24th, 2007 at 7:03 am
The battery is actually in the 3-4 hour range, which is remarkable for a refurb/used laptop. Typically, the fine print on a purchase like this reads that the battery might not even hold a charge. I fully expected to have to buy a replacement battery, but this thing has a great battery.
I have also used external batteries in the past and they work great when you keep them in the laptop bag and plug them in when you toss the laptop in there.
I rarely need to actually use a machine for 8 hours straight, but often can't get to an outlet for that long. The external battery sort of serves as a "portable" outlet.