Want a Tablet PC for Note-Taking

[aztekxero]

Hey everyone. I'm a first year university student in engineering and was looking to buy an affordable tablet pc to be used mainly for note taking and as a digital binder. I'll use the template posted to make things easier.

General Questions.

1. What is your budget?
approximately $1800 CAD or so

2. Do you prefer a Slate, Convertible or Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC)?
I suppose convertible, although I don't know what a UMPC is.

3. What size Tablet PC would you prefer?

* Mainstream ~ 12.1"

4. Which country do you intent to purchase from?
Canada

5. Do you have any preferences to brand loyalty or dislikes?
Not especially.

6. How many hours battery life do you require?
It has to be able to make it through my typical 8 hour day. It will be used during about 6 of those hours and during the other 2 hours, it will be in standby/sleep. I would prefer not to have a really bulky battery.

7. What do you intend to use the Tablet for?
It's going to be used almost solely for note taking with either gobinder or onenote. It will pretty much be a digital binder/notebook.

8. Do you have an OS preference?
Windows

9. What software and tasks do you intend to run?
GoBinder, Microsoft Office... Nothing intensive.

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

Screen Specifics

1. Do you prefer standard or widescreen?
No Preference

2. What resolution do you prefer?
Not XGA

3. Do you require an Indoor only or Indoor/Outdoor screen option?
Indoor/Outdoor preferable, but not a deal breaker. I would be happy with just Indoor if it keeps the cost down.

4. Do you require a Passive or Active Digitizer?
Active

5. Do you require Wacom or Finepoint Technology?
Umm... Not sure


Component Specifics

1. What size Hard Drive and Memory do you require?
Hard Drive - 80gb would be fine
Memory - 2 gb preferable, 1 gb acceptable

2. Do you require an Optical Drive?
No

3. Do you require ability to add a second Battery or Hard Drive (Modular Bay technology)?
No


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?
Weight is very important - ideally I would like less than 4 lbs. Also, I tried a cheap tablet at Best Buy. It was an HP for $800 or so, don't remember the model number. But I tried writing in OneNote and found it to be very unresponsive. I had to push pretty hard for the screen to detect writing. Is there a setting to adjust the sensitivity or was it just a poor quality screen? This is very important to me as I tend to write very lightly.

I think that's everything. Thanks for the help everyone!

[Benjamin Chin]

UMPC

This stands for Ultra Mobile Personal Computer. This breed of PC is midway; while being (usually) larger and more powerful than PDAs, UMPCs are typically less powerful and smaller than the common 12.1" tablet notebooks.

Fujitsu T2010 for light-weight & long battery life

Solid built quality, long battery life with good customer service. Worth the money considering your application in university.

Depending on where you intend to buy from, the price may start near to your upper budget limit and depending on the configuration you want, may well spill over your $ 1,800 mark. However, do not be discouraged. Check out for lower prices from other sites similar to :

http://www.nextag.com/T2010/search-h...D7DFDD0F4E6B39

Touchscreen

You wrote about "... an HP for $800 or so, don't remember the model number. But I tried writing ... and found it to be very unresponsive". Given your description and the price of that HP, it was likely to be a HP Pavilion series touchscreen notebook.

If you intend to use the tablet feature intensively in school, a touchscreen is strongly NOT recommended as :

a) Sensitivity. It lacks the sensitivity to capture lighter strokes of your writing, requiring constant pressure. This results in you writing slower than you would otherwise on conventional paper. You may also end up having to do more corrections as a result of the touchscreen not capturing the characters in your writing correctly. (Waste of time.)

b) Vectoring. Given that touchscreen is pressure sensitive, resting your hand too firmly on the screen while you write can cause the digital-ink to "smudge"; again needing to spend time on correction.

Other light-weight & long battery life tablet(s) around your budget

You may like to consider the well made HP Compaq 2710p within the HP business series (unlike the HP Pavilion series) which starts from $ 1,599.00 to $ 1,749.00. Click :

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en...-80117014.html


rgds,
Benjamin Chin
14 Nov 07

[aztekxero]

Thanks very much for the reply. I'm hearing alot of good things about the Fujitsu t2010. Sounds like that may be the one.

I also looked on the best buy website and I'm almost certain that the model I tried out in the store is this one:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodde...11&catid=20356

The HP TX1218.

It was extremely hard to write on. This one uses passive sensors instead of active I guess? (touchscreen, so you don't need the stylus)

[Benjamin Chin]

You are welcome. All the best.

[chinesefireball121]

You might want to consider purchasing via the US. Generally speaking laptops are cheaper there, especially with the strong Canadian dollar. Be careful about taxes though

[aztekxero]

That is a thought - Lenovo was selling tablets for around $1600 USD on their US site and $2300 CDN for the same thing on their Canadian site.

[Benjamin Chin]

Considered differences in tax rates / configurations / promotions ?