Peter Loforte, general manager of the Tablet PC team, shows us what is cool about the upcoming Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 software update (code-named “Lone Star.”) This is a free update and will automatically come with the upcoming Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Information on Tablet PC 2005 OS
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Bad performance, and too expensive. I’m gonna keep my $1 paper notebook.
Speeking of microsoft. They are releasing source code. hopefully OSnews will post this. haha i beat em!! http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15948
I think that was up a few days ago http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=7032
“Bad performance, and too expensive. I’m gonna keep my $1 paper notebook.”
I would have to agree with you here… Sometimes you just cant replace your trusty old pen and paper, no matter how high tech (or expensive) some alternatives may be.
@SpookyST… jah when i was in teched last year they had massive discounts on the hp tablet. i had a good look. i was shocked that it understood MY handwriting. loved the portrait mode. could’ve bought it but didnt because i could imagine my legs going numb from the size and the batteries going flat quicker than a laptop
@Steve case
I reckon it’d be good in places where you gotta get messages and checklists and stuff (warehouse maybe?). infopath/tablet combo would kick arse. a A5 sized tablet would be cool
half pda / half tablet.
I don’t think so. My tc1000 was the same price as a high quality notebook, and it is a very nice machine. I will never again buy a standard notebook. The non-detachable keyboard just gets in the way in many situations.
Have you ever tried to use a standard notebook while standing? It is almost impossible. Using a tablet while standing or walking is quite natural.
The weight of 1.3kg without keyboard is also very acceptable. The only thing missing is a reflective display so that you can read it in direct sunlight. But I am sure my next tablet pc will have that.
One thing first : I totally agree that the price range is a bit steep, but after all this is new technology. Do you remember the price of DVD players 2 years ago ? Once a technology becomes mainstream prices will fall.
Now I’ve had a Toshiba Tablet PC for 6 months now and I want to address the pen and paper argument. While it is true that pen and paper will still do it for most people, there are also some advantages to Tablet’s over Pen&Paper :
– not limited to Pen&Paper. Tablets are full computers, that can also be used for browsing (portrait mode is a LOT nicer to read blogs!), drawing, etc.
– searcheable notes : this is for me the main argument. I do a lot of note taking when designing software or addressing technical issues, and the possibility of searching through tons of notes is really essential
– editable notes : how many times did you want to reorganize an idea you are working on ? With pen&paper you have to erase or strike and restart. With the Tablet I can move objects around, resize them, convert them to text, etc…
Now the main downside is the “always-on” problem, but through a good usage of “standby” mode you can mostly get around it (I can make the battery last a full day this way).
Bad performance, and too expensive. I’m gonna keep my $1 paper notebook.
Help. My pen just “blue screened” my pocket protector, and now my paper won’t respond anymore! 🙂
Anyone know if the pocketpc or tabletpc operating system has been ported back to the i386 platform? Gosh it would be nice if I can use an old pentium (rather than upgrading to 2.4GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of RAM, a 120GB hard disk machine, and directx 9 compatible sound card / video card – not to mention the prohibitive pricing of the operating system and associated software) to do simple things like edit documents and use email.
“…tabletpc operating system has been ported back to the i386 platform?>
Ummm, the TabletPC OS does run on an i386 machine, it’s just not available to the general public without the TabletPC hardware.
This news is interesting, given that this site linked to a story that Tablet PCs are quietly dying away:
http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=7024
Are Tablets going or staying? There already have been a few threads about these devices. The consensus was that they don’t seem to be selling too well. Cetainly they haven’t yet had the impact Ballmer and Gates predicted:
http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2167
I’m curious if people reading this thread use Tablet PCs, and if so, what influenced their decision? Are there particular fields that are conducive to Tablets? In another thread, someone mentioned that graphics people might use them, but all the graphics departments I’ve worked in stick pretty heavily to desktops and drawing tablets. Students also seem to use Tablets for note taking and the like, which sounds like a good fit (if your professor can’t stand the clacking of keys all class), but it seems that Tablets are too expensive and not suited to more processor-intensive tasks for a general student population. Does anybody have any personal information or research (as opposed to copy) about these devices? Successes? Failures?
As I said, I own a compaq TC1000 tablet pc (almost the same model as shown in the video), and I am extremely happy with it. I bought it on ebay for 1500$ about a year ago, so it was not that expensive. You pay the same for a high quality subnotebook. If I am careful I can get more than 5 hours of runtime. And even under full load I get 3 hours.
I use it for development work with an external keyboard and monitor, and for sketching and designing, reading documentation and books, browsing the web, listening to music and watching videos in tablet mode.
The only complaints I have is that the display can not be read in direct sunlight and that it is a bit slow. But the tc1100 comes with a pentium m processor, so it should be much faster than the transmeta processor in my tablet. And hopefully by the time I buy my next one, reflective displays will be standard.
So if you can afford it, buy a tablet pc instead of a normal notebook. You won’t regret it.
what they should do was to start selling tablet pcs with a docking station so that it became a screen. say you fold it up like a tablet. insert it into the docking station and presto you have a desktop pc complete with usb keyboard and mouse and so on. need to bring it with you then you remove it from the docking station and fold it into a laptop
Such docking stations exist for the tc1000 series and also for the motion computing models. But plugging in my cordless desktop USB and 17″ TFT is not that complicated, so I did not get one.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/tabletpc/options/expansion_bases…
https://www.motioncomputing.com/store/Default.ASP?WCI=wiInventory&WC…
heh, cute…
maybe my next pc will be a tablet pc
spoke to soon. i would prefer “tablets” that have the ability to be twisted into a laptop pc so that i can use the keyboard when i feel like writeing big stuff…
ok last post, didnt check hp’s page. they have what i want it seems
now if we can get the MXM idea to expand into the ability to exhange everything including motherboard and cpu and i may well change to a laptop in the future
and i dont realy see the problem of cooling as that can be included in the modules
I remember back in the days when National Semiconductor made an offensive, based on the Webpad. They even bought Cyrix and the MediaGX processor for the Webpad (The rest of Cyrix was sold to VIA, that primary wanted the brand). How everybodt laughed at that Webpad, Microsoft laughed the hardest – that was some piece of junk that nobody never-ever would be usefull.
Then suddenly Microsoft made a revolutionary invention, called the Webpad, aeh sorry the Tablet PC …. and the whole world cheered, we have been waiting for decades for simething like this.
Although the price is steep, here is in my opinion the best tablet PC for the moment (and it doubles out as a very good subnotebook) :
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?rcid=-26367&coid=-26385…
As for the person who asked how I use my tablet PC, well I use it mostly for brainstorming software design ideas, as well as general note taking. For design ideas it’s great because it is then very easy to email them for comment to people.
I don’t trust the foldable screens of the acer and toshiba models.
A screen that is integrated with the rest of the machine is much more rugged. The tc1000 without the detachable keyboard is very rugged and resistant to dirt and water.
Presidential influence. Duh!!!
They have their collective head so far up “W”s arse im suprised they arent talking for him. Though they might,, with all the linux is communist/bad for markets/bad for MS crap.
The next version of windows is W’s people control OS. Cant influence the people without controlling their media intake.
Mod me down now.
“Mod me down now.”
Mod you down? I think OS News should leave this post up just to let everyone see how stupid you are. What rock did you people crawl out of?
that toshiba is just what im looking for, now if they would start shipping the docking station as part of the package…
ya you can be modded down… anything her royal highness queen eugenia the spastic doesnt like gets sent to FHIL
Before Cyrix’s Webpad, there was Windows for Pen Computing.