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Friday, March 03, 2006 

Temptation

I'm not sure what originally piqued my interest in getting a tablet. Could be, I just figured that if I'm going to get a new notebook, it might as well be a tablet. But we had a guest presentation at my university by two people from another university who were using tablets in the classroom. One application was using them to replace the digital whiteboards that are becoming so common. You can hook the tablet up to a projector, and ink on your presentation while showing it to the class. Then you can save the inked-up presentation They had Gateway Tablets. I looked online and Gateway had a decent tablet for $999, so my interest level was definitely up. After several weeks of thinking about a new "toy," I justified my thought process by thinking of all the useful things I could do with a tablet, such as the example above...

I travel a little but not much, and I'm frugal. That is, I want this computer to last a long time (say, 5 years). So I definitely was not considering a slate, and weight is not really an issue. I started searching the web for reviews and came upon Tablet PC Review Spot.com and the Tablet PC Buzz forums. Based on features and price, I quickly narrowed my options to two manufacturers: Toshiba (likely the Tecra M4) or Gateway (CX200S or CX200X, available online). Luckily for me, I knew a former student who owned the Toshiba, and I have a current student who owns a Gateway, so I was able to try out both. Here are the comparisons on issues I found important.
  1. Cost: If you timed it right and watched for specials, etc., The M4, nicely configured was about $1700, while a similarly configured Gateway could be had online for $1300 (I had already convinced myself that the $999 Gateway CX200S was not powerful enough to last me the requisite 5 years). Winner - Gateway.
  2. Display: The M4 has a 14.1" SXGA+ (1400x1050), while the Gateway comes with a 14" widescreen format WXGA (1280x768). The extra resolution on the M4 was nice, but I hate the tiny icons and fonts that come with high resolution displays on Windows XP (I always change the dpi on my desktop from Normal to Large), so this issue for me is minimized. Yes, the higher resolution would be nice, but for me, the WXGA was enough. And yes, the M4 has GeForce video with dedicated 64MB versus the Gateway with integrated Intel video and shared memory; but I'm not going to play games on it, and the video in the Gateway is upgradeable to a 64 MB ATI Radeon if desired. Winner - neither.
  3. Other hardware: CPUs (Pentium M 740, 1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB), memory (512 MB), hard disk (60 GB 5400 rpm SATA), optical drive (8x DVD+-RW), and wireless ( Intel PRO\Wireless 2200 802.11b/g) are identical. Neither has bluetooth, though the Toshiba has it as an extra cost option; I could get a PC card add-on for the Gateway. The M4 does have GeForce Video Winner - neither.
  4. Digitizer: The M4 uses Wacom technology, which has native pressure-sensitivity support in Adobe applications (Photoshop). The gateway uses Finepoint technology, which doesn't. Since I don't even use my copy of Photoshop Elements much, this is basically a non-issue for me. Winner - neither.
  5. Stylus: The Gateway's stylus is larger and feels much more like a real pen to me. The M4's seems more like a child's toy. Winner: Gateway
  6. Keyboard: This is important to me. I am a power Windows user, and I like my Windows logo key for shortcuts like -E to open Explorer. The Toshiba's Windows logo key is strangely placed at the upper-right of the keyboard, and shrunken down like the half-height function keys. Other keys are rearranged also. Yuck! I would have to remap the slash or tilde key as the Windows logo key (that is, assuming I could find the instructions online for hacking the registry to remap keys). The Gateway has a full-size standard Windows keyboard. Winner: Gateway
  7. Local availability: This is the kicker. Before Christmas, I had looked at Toshiba and Gateway tablets at the local Best Buy. In mid-January, Best Buy had stopped carrying any Toshiba tablets, and had a new model of the Gateway: the CX2618. It has almost the same specs as the CX200X available online, with one big exception: 1 GB of RAM instead of 512 MB. And it was on sale for $1350 ("regularly" $1499.) Winner: Gateway!
So, I thought about it for a day or two, and then I left work early one afternoon and rushed to BestBuy to get it. (An aside: nothing is ever quick at Best Buy. It must have taken half an hour for the floor employee to get a manager to give him approval and a key to get me the box...). Out of box experience that night was great. Next time, I'll write about what software and driver updates I installed and what had to go immediately (so long, McAfee).

Yes, I'm adding a comment to my own blog, just to see if it works. Is anyone else out there?

Michael, there is someone out here!
I also use a Tablet PC (but on the other side of the lecture room!) as I am presently completing my Masters degree. I am on my second Tablet PC. I had a Compaq TC1000 for 4 years (until I dropped it once too often) Now have HP TC4400, as I cannot imagine life without one!

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