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Well, here in Sweden the techs at Microsoft are forced to work with a tablet. (i.e. they are not allowed to use pen and papper...) Nice huh....

# posted by Anonymous 9:46 PM

Does Star Trek count? ;)

# posted by Anonymous 10:20 PM

The only tablet PC user I know of is Gabe (born as Mike Krahulik) over at the wonderful http://www.penny-arcade.com/
He likes it because it's good to do digital sketches on the road. Or something...

# posted by Grey 12:41 AM

The FEMA inspector who came to evaluate the hurricane damages to my home here in Central Florida used a tablet PC to enter the data. It must have been good to do so as I ended up with a much needed check from FEMA.

# posted by Anonymous 2:59 AM

I've seen plenty of them, and I personally know 3-4 people who use them as their primary computer, including my brother. Incidientally all the executives at his tech company are issued one. While his particular model is a bit underpowered (only 1Ghz) he likes it a lot.
He let me have the run of the store with it when he first got it, and I liked it so much I considered buying one. Using an actual pen from time to time is VERY helpful. There are some meetings where typing may be too loud, but a few notes are not a problem at all.
And by adult do you mean non-students? Last time I checked 18-22 y/o college students were still adults. I personally still spend some time on college campuses here and there and I've seen them all over.
In fact tablets are the main Windows based computers sold on some campuses.

# posted by Anonymous 4:35 AM

Tablet users other then Jerry Pournelle?

If Micro$oft wants tablets to sell, then they have to bring the price down.

# posted by rg 4:54 AM

I know one professor from Caltech/CS and one PhD guy from Australia, they both use tablets (Toshiba and HP respectfully) as their "main laptops"

# posted by Anonymous 6:38 AM

The form factor that HP / Compaq had where you could swivel the base around one way and it was a laptop and another way and it became a tablet was a good idea. Sometimes you do want to take notes etc. while standing, and doing so with a laptop is a pain.

But as mentioned, if they want to move these things they need to take out the TSS (Tablet Sucker Surcharge). I can see them being a little more expensive because you need a screen that can accept input, but the premium they are charging currently is ludicrous (up here in Canada it's about $1000 CDN for equivalent specs - no thanks).

# posted by Anonymous 6:56 AM

Three people use a tablet at a 400 person publishing firm. As a 100k plus traveler, I have sat next to one person on a plane with a tablet. I have seen three other travelers with a tablet pc in the airport this year.

However, while sitting in the airport lounge, I often use the keyboard for fast email so one would not know I had a Tablet. On the plane, more often than not, I use the computer in pen mode due to space restrictions.

Finally, the true tablet pc benefit for me is capturing my handwritten notes and storing everything in one place. Most non-users do not understand the true benefits of this.

# posted by Anonymous 7:05 AM

I used one at work, it was actually pretty hand for meetings.
I'd like one for myself, but won't pay the premium over a laptop.

Hal

# posted by Anonymous 7:11 AM

I have seen one person who uses a Tablet PC regularly as their "main" laptop on the road and in meetings. Of course, this person is a Microsoft marketing representative ... and the tablet in question is one of the ones that is "convertible" - the screen can flip around to convert it into standard laptop configuration.

# posted by Anonymous 7:12 AM

Got an email this morning from a guy with a tablet PC. His handwriting was terrible.

# posted by Bill 7:20 AM

Bleh. I type faster than I write, and I gave up doodling in high school. Don't get me wrong. I like having choices, and I admire the best tools for a job. I've got an Inspiron 700m 12.1" widescreen notebook that is ideal for traveling, impromptu computing and projection, a 15.4" D800 that is a good general workhorse, and a fast-as-hell 10lb 17" WXGA desktop replacement I use for math-intensive tasks. I also have a Danger Sidekick phone which you can have when you pry it from my cold dead fingers. But I'm totally with Alice. Tablets answered a question that very few people were asking.

# posted by Sean 7:23 AM

I'm a tablet user, and I love it. Capturing notes electronically in your own handwriting, and being able to search them is brilliant. The form factor is also great. Being able to comfortably stand in line, sit on the couch, lay in bed ,etc. while consuming content on your tablet is also great. BTW, I'm writing this on my tablet.

Rick
http://www.lobrecht.com

# posted by Anonymous 9:13 AM

Yup. Weaned myself away from my desktop. Took a year or so. Also means I have a wireless keyboard and mouse in the office and a 19" flat panel screen hooked to the slate's docking station. And I sometimes take a keyboard in my luggage.
But it's fantastic. VNC hookups in meeting rooms and classrooms mean that I can go wireless with my PowerPoints from the slate and annotate them, then push them up to the web. Slick. Fast. Easy.
Don't you wish you could?

# posted by Anonymous 9:40 AM

I use one as my primary machine. It's 3lbs. and very thin. I can use it for field notes. I can mark up my students' manuscripts and give them back rich annotations, all via email, without going to paper. (Yes, ink in Word is visible, even without a tablet.) I can sketch notes, getting to the visual essence of things that would be difficult to describe in words. I can dictate long passages of text with great accuracy, even on the run. I can lie in bed and browse. I can annotate presentations while I make them, work up Visio diagrams, clip and mark up web pages and other screens, and even indulge some amateur painting. And of course, I can do everything a notebook does, with keyboard, etc. I would never give this machine up (unless Alice succeeds in getting it killed off as "annoying!")

# posted by Anonymous 9:48 AM

Great idea...poor execution. Microsoft didn't think about what they were doing and it's just a bad delivery for the most part. The interface is clunky. The hand writing thing does not work like it should. Just a real bad job on the Microsoft front. The hardware is way too pricey and I agree with Alice.

I would like to see this in every laptop, but I don't see it catching on. Your right, Tim Russert was a monkey with his tech toy. It was more annoying than anything else.

I had a tablet to demo, but after the third one I decided not to demo any more. They were just too hard to use, and the developers of XP didn't think about how people would be using them, they just made and OS fit and made you work through all the design problems.

# posted by David 9:49 AM

Hahah, talk about opening up a can of worms, already a million strong and growing. But I can say one thing, your Christmas sale prediction is wrong, dead wrong, as the consumer models hit in Spring 2005. And with a new OS, vertical hits enmasse, major Enterprise deployments in lockstep and with MSFT on-the-game even post-Longhorn, the Tablet won't die. Consumer is still weak, but such takes awhile, and needs OEMs that target consumers at the general and retail levels. Everything is just now starting to hit a stride, and I am not sure where you travel, as I haven't traveled half as much as you have and I have seen them all over. I think your perception of a Tablet runs towards the pure Slate model.

But basing the usefulness of the entire Tablet platform, merely on Tim Russert's performance, is to not even know what is available. :) But compare it to 2000, when his 'Tablet' was an eraseable school marker-board, now it was whiteboarded, rebroadcast and hashed in with other stats. If that's jumping the shark, more of it.

Christopher Coulter

# posted by Anonymous 9:54 AM

http://www.poynterextra.org/TimsTablet/

# posted by Anonymous 9:58 AM

::waves:: Yep, I'm an adult who loves the TabletPC, use it every day for everything from surfing, coding, email, etc.

# posted by Kathleen 11:19 AM

Me too - got mine as a tool for work, but use it just as much at home...

# posted by Linda 11:31 AM

I posted this on the second follow-up post I did on tablets, but wanted to make sure everyone saw it. here goes.....

Whoa Nelly! Let me go over this again. First, I am not anti-niche products. I love them. I love signing for my UPS deliveries on a pen-based handheld. I love the computers they use to check cars. I would love to see my doctor use one of these to pull up my latest medical records and graphically chart my physical condition. (Well, maybe that part is something I can skip.) I even love non-Windows PCs, especially as servers, and my beloved TiVo is Linux-based.

*But* Tablet PCs were not marketed that way. They were marketed to the mainstream laptop-owning business user as a better laptop alternative. I didn't come up with that plan. I didn't see the ads for the disabled and how these devices help them, I saw no college student jotting notes in class, or the doctor making rounds efficiently thanks to his tablet. I saw a targeted effort to get Joe and Jane mainstream business user to make their next laptop a Tablet PC. And guess what, those people just didn't want them.

Why?

The current crop is incredibly overpriced and while it is cool to send handwritten emails or jot down a note electronically, the biggest drawback to all of these devices is still battery life, screen quality, price, and weight. That's how business people buy laptops, and that's why business people are sitting this round out. Add that's why I think they should.

I do believe we will have a smarter tablet, just as we have better and better laptops over time. I love watching DVDs on my Thinkpad when I fly, and carrying around my music library on my hard drive, but it took the airlines putting in in-seat power connections, and the Penium M chip's improved battery life and integrated WiFi to make me truly love my laptop. (I used to hate every second when my laptop was 8 pounds and had dial up, a small screen, and the battery life of a gnat. It's going to take all of those factors and something extra to make the tablet take off.

Consider this and then I will pipe down: The Palm Pilot (I still have one of the originals) was the breakout product that made the PDA a real category. When I was at Computer Shopper we used to do these endless PDA round-ups with Sharp Wizards and software only "PIM" schedulers, and the category was a mess that few cared about. Enter the Palm and BOOM, it just took off. You could feel the excitement. Look at the way people got in a frenzy when someone added a crappy digital camera to cell phones.

What I am saying is that today, few people own and use these products - look around and tell me that is not true. Some people genuinely love their tablets, some still love Sharp Wizards, and maybe Apple's Newton. The 3Com Audry may be chugging away in someone's kitchen (Mine is boxed in the garage), and I even lugged around the Momenta Pen computer runnnig Windows 3.1 with Pen Extensions back in the 90s. And let me tell, you, the current crop is just not there yet. When it is, I will applaud and gladly switch. Till, then I am telling you to wait. Get one down to $499 and we'll talk.
--Alice

PS - one thing I didn't cover was how KEY the OS is. Palm made an OS developers went wild over and started a whole new world of add-on PDA Apps. Blackberry is the best OS I've seen for high-end email (but has crappy add-on apps). The tablet is a good idea, but I'm telling you, it's close but no cigar territory for me until Mirosoft irons out the OS bugs and all the other factors get better.

# posted by Alice 11:54 AM

For those with complaints on the OS for Tablet PC, please keep in mind that it got a serious overhaul with Windows XP SP2, which supposedly majorly upgraded most features, especially the recognition software.

# posted by Cyrus 12:55 PM

I am an auditor-my partner and I use our tablets everyday. Key uses include notes to Excel spreadsheets and Word documents.

# posted by Anonymous 1:22 PM

I love my Tablet PC. I hate that a stupid TV appearance (which had **NOTHING** to do with Tablet PCs or technology) is getting so much attention. It's embarassing that the Tablet PC community is so starved for mainstream attention that something like this is generating so much "buzz".

But again, I own a Tablet PC and I use it all the time at work. Recently, I've found that it is less useful for most of my programming tasks. Granted, I do own a slate and I do have a penchant for raw power and large high resolution displays, both of which the Tablet PC lacks. Even the most stocked up Toshiba Portege at twice the price of my Toshiba Satellite pales in comparison.

But when I look around at most of the people here at work that have a laptop, I see usage scenarios that would fit perfectly with the Tablet PC. Just that nobody is advertising them correctly. Don't ask me how, I just know it isn't working. :)

Josh Einstein
http://www.josheinstein.com

# posted by Anonymous 1:33 PM

I bought an EO back in the day. I did like the penpoint interface. I wonder what ever happened to penpoint. It was slow and heavy and funny lookin' and thing have not changed much

# posted by Anonymous 3:08 PM

I agree that TabletPCs are too expensive, but ever since I have seen this demo: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=7603#7603 I'm thinking about getting one...

# posted by Anonymous 5:42 PM

I work at a tech company. One of my directors goes to meetings with one of these. A fine guy but the kind of talks to his Blackberry. He hasn't figured out that one can easily type at 70 wpm and can easily write at 10 wpm. The pen-email you show is another example of using the wrong technology because you can. The letter is slower to type and far less useful than text. Try copying and pasting from a bitmap...

There may be uses for them, but Neither voice nor stylus will be able to beat the utility of a keyboard and a mouse in this century.

# posted by James 6:28 PM

As far as notebooks go, I've felt about them much the same as Alice seems to feel about the Tablet PC. After reading about how swell the Table PC makes arranging notes go, I have been almost Jonesing for them, kinda wishing to relive my college days so that I can have the satisfaction of arranging them perfectly and NEVER having to erase them with a pencil again.
So, I somehow have a wish to own one, moreso than I've ever wanted to own a laptop (which sound like friggin' boat anchors to me, seeing as how my Sony Clie is so great, but then I don't do Excel spreadsheets on the go and so forth . . . ).
So . . .I really want these things to catch on to get revenge on my school days, kind of. And, well, if the price would just come down, then maybe I would try one, and be really happy hitchin' it to my car's back bumper or something, if nothing else became of the whole sordid affair :)

# posted by Lalanovich 8:53 PM

Figured I'd chime in since everyone else has. I like the concept, but it is of little use to me. I type fairly fast (70wpm). My handwriting, on the other hand, is an abomination. I have a Palm for the calendar and addressbook, but it's a waste of my time to use it for any real text entry. I would much rather type. Writing is painful and frustrating to the extreme.

If it's good for other people, though, more power to 'em. I don't see any reason to wish for its extinction. If you don't like it, then, you know, just .. don't buy it.

I will say that I've never seen ANYONE use one of these things in the real world, and the Tim Russert photo is hilarious. They are overpriced. But one could argue that iPods are, too. If enough people are willing to pay for it, it stays on the market.

And it's still on the market.

# posted by Terry 5:56 AM

Attacking things will always get more attention, but from your follow-up post I think it is clear that you are not really aware of this market, and just tossing in barbs from the sidelines, easy enough to do, but hardly serious analysis. Firstly you said, that they were “marketed to the mainstream laptop-owning business user”. That I would like to see. So far, if much marketing unto itself, it has all been in the vertical space. Microsoft's intention was to market to the (badly-named) “Corridor Warriors”, but they never really have, mainly focusing on developers/vertical solutions and playing the 'start-up group' game, always whining about money and manpower. Ask anyone, ask the press, ask the diehard fans, most feel the Marketing has been quite dubious, perception-wise at least. Education and Health Care have been huge, if you can't see that, you haven't been looking. The corporate-exec sprinting around with a Tablet is more the grand weak area. In short, you have it backwards, the vertical and developer push is there, with everyone pressuring a more horizontal move.

http://blogs.msdn.com/evanf/archive/2004/06/10/152608.aspx (See last comment)

Secondly, you are stuck in a time warp, prices have come down, and will continue to, and battery life with many models (Scribbler and Fujistu) TRUMPS laptops. And bay battery and hot-swapping tech a serious value-add. Many models do need to continue to improve but your scenario is 1st generation and does not reflect the current landscape. And if you haven't tried the new 2005 OS (which I strongly suspect you haven't), I encourage you to do so, as it is a serious serious improvement. As for your underpowered arguments, most models, with exception of some low-heat req's in Slates, equals and, in some cases, trumps laptop CPUs. Centrino/Dothan and such is the standard. And weight levels run from a light 2 lbs to 4.5 lbs (more for Rugged models, obviously). And many models have DVD's.

Get one down to $499? A Tablet is a laptop, it is not a new PDA. $500 is dream world. But even so some 1st and 2nd Gen's going for that on eBay and such. As for prices, that is a consumer argument, if enough value-add, corporates worry not so much about inital price, but in long-term ROI. Think like a CIO, not like a retail consumer. But OEMs *will* have to focus on such pricing factors to impact consumers, but that push is coming, in Spring 2005.

After 30 plus years of failed Pen Computing attempts with weird OS'es, this is the real break-out, as everything else was long dead before now, and this run is, only now. gearing up for serious speed.

“Microsoft’s Tablet PC, the first Dynabook-like computer good enough to criticize.” - Alan Kay. (Source: Steven Levy, Newsweek - “Bill Gates Says, Take This Tablet”, April 30, 2001, pp.67-70)

Christopher Coulter

# posted by Anonymous 6:04 AM

PS - A historical background, fyi. :)

http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5564

Christopher Coulter

# posted by Anonymous 6:16 AM

While I personally don't need or want a tablet (as a s/w developer, I need powerful CPU's and at least 2 monitors) tablets do have an advantageous form factor for certain applications.

The tablets could work well for people on a shop floor who are say, doing inspection work. Plug in a cheap 1-2MP digital camera, and you've got a very fluid and powerful portable solution for inspecting products on an assembly line or shop floor.

Combine with Wireless, and you've got easy centralized data storage of said notes & photos. It's all pretty cool if you know how to apply the technology.

For the most part however, I agree with Alice, that for general use tablets aren't really here yet. Microsoft has made some positive steps forward, but I don't like the $1000 premium for such a device, and it had better be the tablet/laptop combination type unit if a business is going to purchase it. (see argument of handwriting vs typing speed)

# posted by Anonymous 11:07 AM

What I don't understand is why there is no marketing effort aimed at graphics users or mechanical designers. All it takes is a little hands-on with a Wacom Cintique to persuade an artist or other graphics oreiented type that the tablet is a good idea. The Cintique is too expensive for not including a computer and tablets are a bit too expensive as well. It is far cheaper to get a tablet and a laptop but then you do not get the benefit of on-screen drawing.

A true tablet such as Motion's coupled with a really good graphics (and cheap) bundle would be a killer combination for this particular niche. I personally prefer a keyboard for text but for drawing a "draw-on-image" tablet is the way to go (not that there aren't response-time and paralax issues with the current generation).

I agree that it is not a mainstream alternative, but for those that think visually it makes complete sense. This "niche" is not small and is not well represented in the technical community. Many of them use Macs at this point so I suspect that a tablet Mac would do better than a tablet PC.

# posted by Anonymous 12:45 PM

I am a graduate student who owns a tablet PC/notebook convertible from Toshiba, and I can say that having the tablet functionality is definitely helpful.
As a teaching assistant, I have to provide notes and assistance to the students in computer background and design courses. Often examples and samples are posted online in PDF format, for the students to print out and complete. It is too time consuming to print out the paperwork, write in the answers, scan the papers back into the computer, and convert them to PDF for posting. Additionally, it takes too long to type the entire problem solution into the computer and draw diagrams in paint or an equivalent. With the journal feature, I can just write the solutions into the samples (after cutting from the PDF) and draw the diagrams, just as if using a piece of paper. I've been able to get solutions to entire sample exams out to the students in less than an hour after starting them, where it would have taken me at least four times as long if I had to type or twice as long if I had to scan everything in.
Note taking is just the beginning of how to use the tablet. I actually don't use it for notes in my classes, preferring to use the conventional paper and pencil. I definitely see its uses in things that are given in paper format, but need to be in digital format by the end for distribution, though.

# posted by Anonymous 10:13 PM

My wife was issued one to use as her work computer and she absolutely loves it.

She is able to bring it home and use our home wireless network to access her work server and take care of problems from home, all while listening to beethoven.com and playing mah-jongg.

She wouldn't trade it for any other computer she's seen. While she does like my Apple Powerbook - she still thinks her Acer Tablet rocks. She loves using it in meetings and having all her fellow workers drool over it. Through her using it around her work place, several other employees have opted for the tablet route, and more are showing up around her office.

While she has noticed that it is a little slower than a comparable desktop, she feels the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, especially when she uses it to troubleshoot problems in the field. She has also commented that more IT workers are using it around her office too.

Bottom line - she wouldn't give it up for anything except maybe a more powerful tablet. She loves it.

# posted by Anonymous 7:36 PM

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