GearWERKZ TechBlog

If you've been peeking the pics and catching the occasional tweet from the GW Twitter feed, you'll know that I recently added an HP 2730p TabletPC to the mix. The unit functions as my main work laptop, since I feel like working on anything other than a TabletPC for project management is a reduction in productivity by definition. While I am putting in my first few weeks with the new piece of kit, I've been considering why I use Tablets. Additionally, since I had to shop around and select the HP, I also had time to take a look at what's on the market and put myself in a frame of my mind for providing a few recommendations.

Follow up:

I started the search for the HP due to my experiences at the time with my Motion LE1600. I went to to the LE back in February after I felt like being on the Dell XPS M1330 that I was on was not giving me what I needed since it was not a TabletPC.

I wanted something cheap, since I wanted the selling price of the M1330 to pay for the new Tablet. New Tablets were almost entirely out of the question, so I started my search with used units. My last tablet had been a Gateway CX2618, so having completed a tour of duty with a convertible, I wanted a slate.

I wanted the ability to carry the slate to meetings, preferably in an executive portfolio that kept the TabletPC disguised in transit. I also wanted to be able to easily hold the Tablet at home to take quick notes around the house (phone messages, grocery list notes, things to do, etc). I thought that, in being a slate, the device would be light weight, thus keeping my flyaway weight for trips low.

Getting into a slate is no low cost prospect. It is simply not happening for less than $2000. Without $2000 to spend, the only used slate on the market that could be found for my price-range at the time was the LE1600.

The LE served well, but by this summer it was causing me some concern. As my number of emails for just this year reached pretty high numbers, sending the LE through my PST archives to find an email was a laborious process that punished the Pentium M 1.5GHz processor and 1.5GB of RAM it was equipped with. Since it is my work PC, time is money, and I could not afford to be hampered by performance.

I was also having video problems that were of particular concern. The TabletPC spec is supposed to allow for a Tablet to be seated in a docking station and, upon removal from the dock (a "hot" removal while the Tablet is up and running), the display should re-orient itself and allow for inking without the need to monkey with the display settings or reboot the machine.

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