Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Second Thoughts Already?

I'm thinking about getting a smaller Tablet PC instead of getting a UMPC. I say this because of the following three items.

No attached keyboard: At first I didn't think this would be a problem. I've seen quite a few bloggers use the very portable collapsable bluetooth keyboards and felt that would be more than sufficient. Then I thought about actual usage. If I'm stuck in an airport sitting in a chair at the gate or laying on my couch like I am right now, I would have to prop up the UMPC on my lap and then setup the keyboard. That's two items to balance. A convertable Tablet or any laptop has everything attached so its easy to just open it up and type away. I know some of the newer UMPCs have the slide out keyboards but those appear to be for thumbing text. I'm a decent typist and get alot out of a real keyboard where I can use all five of my fingers.

EVDO: I use Verizon's EVDO and like the fact that I can use it almost anywhere, no hunting for available WIFI connections. I use a modem that fits into my pc card slot on the Acer. UMPCs such as the Samsung don't have the pc card slot. A way around this is to use a phone that is EVDO capable and either connect with a sync cable or with bluetooth. The problem with this is I don't want to have to buy a new phone. At work I use WIFI but away from the office its EVDO.

Vectoring: While I don't take many notes, I don't want to worry about vectoring when inking.

These three items haven't stopped me from still considering a UMPC but a Fujistsu P1610, the small, light weight Tablet that James Kendrick has, is starting to look better and better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this series. I've been going down the same road as you, wanting some sort of portable device, but not really sure what would work best. I've gone from looking at smartphones, PDA's, the Nokia Internet Tablet, to these UMPC's. In the end, I'm pretty much thinking that a really small laptop is also the way to go.

That Fujitsu looks really nice. However, the models that I really like is the Sony TX series. Less than three pounds and exceptional battery life (4-7 hours).

I look forward to you conclusion, because it will probably be in line with what I eventually decide to do.

Alex said...

Thanks for the comment t man. If I go with a Tablet I'll definitely check out the Sony TX series.