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FoxBlog - Buy a Tablet PC

Yes, I agree with Craig (and Scoble). The Tablet is still a better bet - the only problem? It's still not available or displayed enough in Canada.

Case in point: someone calls me:

Q: What laptop should I buy?
A: Nothing but good things to say about Dell laptops, UNLESS of course (I say) they want to be able to go into a meeting and treat it like a notepad - in those cases, they want a Tablet PC.
Q: Oh yeah, that would be really cool! (who wouldn't say yes to this?). Which tablet should I buy then?

Hmmm... Now the real question. I lean towards Toshiba because they have a good track record with laptops but realistically, we don't see enough Tablets here in Canada (and I'm in Ottawa, a fairly heavy hi-tech area) to make a real good judgement call on it.

In addition, the pricing is broken down so that it becomes one of:
A: Well, the Dell is priced at $xxx and gives you x,y,z. A tablet only gives you x and y but also a,b and c for the same price.

Boy, I wish Dell would make a Tablet or someone would just send me one so I could become an advocate for that company. A local refurbisher makes Acer Tablets for approx. $1999 Cdn which seems reasonable until I compare it with an $1999 Dell Laptop which has twice as much capacity, albeit without the Tablet.

Final A: Go to a store and try the Tablet. If you like it, go with a known name (Toshiba or Acer).

For someone who lives so close to the US, it's amazing we don't get the market penetration on really cool technology.

(besides, if I wanted a Mac in my home, this is definitely the one I would want. The Mac is still pretty much the only computer that can look good in a living room (with an exception perhaps for a Media PC, which is hidden)
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Comments

Ted Roche said…
"Boy, I wish Dell would make a Tablet or someone would just send me one so I could become an advocate for that company."

I'll send you a copy of Fedora if you promise to become a zealot. :)

Tablets are a solution in search of a problem. Third Microsoft attempt at Pen for Windows. It's still halfway between a powerful notebook and a PDA - too big for a pocket and too underpowered for a desktop replacement (for you and I, anyway). No question there's a niche, and each generation gets better, but the touchscreen premium still seems high for most of the use cases my clients have.
September 1, 2004 at 10:10 AM
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