The New Toy

I’ve been enamored of the Tablet PC concept for a long time…well before the technology was ready for prime time. The idea is simple. A device with sufficient computing power for work while traveling, that is as convenient to use as a tablet of paper, and small enough to be carried from meeting to meeting without dragging an armload of extra crap with you. My Apple Newton had fantastic handwriting recognition that it’s taken the PDA and Tablet folks over a decade to mirror.


It could also surf the web with a REAL brower way back in 1995. But it ate 4AA batteries a week and didn’t really interface with any of my other equipment. It has since been retired to the the Mad Builder's ever growing Museum of Old Computer Tech. I've used other PDAs since. The Visor Edge Platinum by handspring and the Sharp's Linux based Zaurus (which had some rather cool potential when you plug in the wireless card and load is up with l33t H4x0r t001z. ;>).


This my friends is it, the latest addition to my hardware arsenal, the HP TC1100.
It is an amazing tool. It’s light (3lbs), its handwriting recognition is the best I have EVER seen (2 mis-reads in over 2 weeks, even with my unreadable scrawl), it is no more cumbersome to carry than the leather portfolio with notepad I frequently carry, it is easy is a convenient as the notepad of paper I’ve been carrying up until now. I can write notes (without immediate translation to ASCII text if I prefer) and make sketches at any moment just like I would with a pad. One nice things is that the display is glass which makes a MUCH more comfortable writing surface that the, not plastic/mylar screens I’ve seen on other tablets. Add onto that the built in 802.11b/g/a wireless (or perhaps stick on wireless broadband services as I am contemplating) so you can be connected virtually anywhere, with all the programs and resources of a full PC, and you have my dream gadget. There is also a very slim yet still usable keyboard that can be carried attached to the slate if feel like typing a much larger document than you would rather write longhand. The only negative thing I have to say about it is there is no built-in CD/DVD ROM. I have to dock it or plug in the slimline external if I need to access data on CD/DVD. However, since no other Table / Slate on the market near this size and weight has one either, its one of those limitations of the technology I can live with.