small, lightweight and good for taking notes

[oomgosh]

1. What is your budget?

$1500

2. Do you prefer a Slate, Convertible or Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC)?

Slate or ultra mobile

3. What size Tablet PC would you prefer?

* Small and light ~ 5" to 8.9"
* Compact ~ 10"

4. Which country do you intent to purchase from?

USA

5. Do you have any preferences to brand loyalty or dislikes?

No

6. How many hours battery life do you require?

Minimum of 5

7. What do you intend to use the Tablet for?

Primarily: Taking notes, reading pdfs
Secondary: Portable media center(watch movies and listen to music when traveling)

8. Do you have an OS preference?

No

9. What software and tasks do you intend to run?

Software in order to be able to take notes and read pdfs and play movies

10. Do you intend playing Games. If so please list.
No


Screen Specifics

1. Do you prefer standard or widescreen?

No preference


3. Do you require an Indoor only or Indoor/Outdoor screen option?
See explanation below for guidance.

No preference

4. Do you require a Passive or Active Digitizer?
See explanation below for guidance.

Active preferred, but passive is fine

5. Do you require Wacom or Finepoint Technology?
See explanation below for guidance.

Wacom only

Component Specifics

1. What size Hard Drive and Memory do you require?

Hard drive: Minimum 40 GB
Memory: Minimum 1GB

2. Do you require an Optical Drive?

No

3. Do you require ability to add a second Battery or Hard Drive (Modular Bay technology)?

2nd battery preferrable

Misc
1. Other non specific items ~ please add other items you require not covered above?

2. Additional requests ~ anything other you wish to take into consideration?

[Chocobo]

The Fujitsu Lifebook t2010 is pretty much the only "light and small" tablet that has Wacom active digitizer and is close to your price range.

[oomgosh]

Thanks for the quick response. Would leaving out the Wacom and going passive open up my options? I look forward to hearing any other input that anyone might have too.

Thanks!!

[leaftye]

Are you intending to give up your requirement of "good for taking notes", because that's what you'd be doing if you went passive. You definitely want active all the way.

[oomgosh]

How "poor" would note taking become if I went passive. I would still be willing to consider passive.

[leaftye]

It'd be like using a PDA. I used PDAs for years, but after using active, I don't ever want to use a passive screen again. When you use active, you can use the slightest of pressures to write, but you'll need more with passive, and you risk unintentional writing caused by touching the screen. If you have any doubt, go to the store and try it out. Frys usually have Fujitsu tablets, and would probably have an HP passive tablet as well.

[zunq]

I think the only choice you got is the HP TC1100(NOT TX) which has an active digitizer. GOOD LUCK finding one though. If you want a passive then the P1610 is the way to go.

[leaftye]

Isn't the TC1100 from several years ago? My squadron ordered about 10 of those. I had the displeasure of setting those things up. Those things were so slow that it literally took all day to do a clean install, configure network and security setting, install the Windows updates, and install office and office updates....all day...and they were all done at the same time. Rebooting took approximately 10 minutes. I believe we paid over $3000 each, but they were so unusably slow that most of them became paperweights after a week. They had the potential to be great, but they needed MUCH more speed.

[pibach]

yeah, tc1100 is slow but zung is right, its the only active digitizer <12". Can get these at around €800 at ebay.

[pibach]

It'd be like using a PDA. I used PDAs for years, but after using active, I don't ever want to use a passive screen again. When you use active, you can use the slightest of pressures to write, but you'll need more with passive, and you risk unintentional writing caused by touching the screen.

I think this is not generally true. For example my x51v PDA (passive) is much better on the pen compared to my x61t (active). You have to press a bit, that the x61t regognizes the pen click, and often and irritatinly it does not accept fast clicks. The x51v recognizes it always. And is 100% accurate. And has no lag. Also the softer surface gives a better feel. Also it is not grainy. And finally you can even ink better on it (I do that with Calligrapher) although Vista recognition works a bit better, but I think this is only because of some integrated dictionary (recognition engines should be the same).

My guess is that for vectoring issues some manufacturers intentionally reduce the sensitivity. But this should be tunable. My x51v, for example, got much better with a new WM6 update.

There should be also a 3rd digitizer option, I think it is capacitive (opposed to inductive), as used on touchpads. The iPhone is using that. Don't know if this works for a pen though.