Table or lightweight Notebook
 

So many choices!!!

Anyone have any experience with Table PC's, particularly the Thinkpad X series. Am considering either the tablet or the X41.

Want light travel weight and will live with a 12.1 inch screen. BUT am worried about tablet durability and whether screen is easily scratched. Main need is long battery life.

My IS group is pretty firm on Thinktank. Has had good experience from durability and security standpoint. If you all have other recommendations, let me know.

One of my partners is pushing for the tablet, but I could never master the Palm writing system. Is a table easier to write on?

Do you mean Tablet PC? The thread title made me wonder if you are trying to make a decision between buying furniture or a new Notebook.

Oh well, to a UAVirgin tablets are furniture. Since I was taught never to write on the furniture, to me a tablet is papers bound together or taken in the obvious context of my message by non virgins, a Table PC. Also, a notebook (not necessarily notebook PC) is a tablet. I'm confused (nothing new) where our virgin got the furniture idea.

When we try to be funny instead of helpful we waste bandwidth and everyone's time. Sorry fellows but the virgin started it!

Now if anyone is using a TABLET PC, let me know how it is working for you.

Check out:

http://www.tabletology.com lots of travelling going on with tablets
http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/

Tons of real life info on all kinds of brands of tablet pc's. Good luck. You'll be surprised at how far tablet pcs have come along.

Many thanks. Just what I needwd to get started. I am in favor of the X41 notebook and believe tablets equal added weight and trouble. But I never used one and am interested in the thoughts of others.

I have a Toshiba 3500 (around the first generation series, I can't remember if there was one model before this one) and have been using it for at least two years. I love it. It's small and I can write on it or switch it to tablet mode when in a space limited area (i.e. travelling in Y, ugh).

They are slower (slower processors) but it performs well for the tasks I use it for, documents, e-mail, internet, remote access. I play a few games and movies on it too and it works fine.

The new ThinkPad X series is long overdue and I've been eyeing one to replace this unit. I just wish I could see one in person rather than looking at a web page with all the specs. ThinkPads definitely have the best keyboards and durability...I have three older TP's which still are ticking after several years of use and travel.

I have recently replaced my ThinkPad T42 with a new X41 Tablet.

Even with the 8-cell battery the unit is quite small, light and comfortable. The edge of the battery actually works well as a handgrip while in tablet mode.

Hardware wise, this is one of the best engineered laptops I have ever used. This is the first Lenovo ThinkPad I have ever seen, and it appears that they have actually managed to increase the build quality. Other than having to get used to the small backspace key and the position of the delete key, the keyboard is better than the one on the T42

My biggest complaint was that out of the box the X41 Tablet is very slow. After removing all of the pre-installed software which I did not need, and applying all of these tweaks:

http://www.kadaitcha.cx/performance.html

The machine is now humming along nicely and performance is back on par with my faster T42. If any of your intended applications are disk intensive, it is important to note that the 1.8" hard drive in this system is fairly slow.

Once I got over my fear of scratching the sreen I have come to enjoy the tablet's excellent stylus performace and suprisingly accurate handwriting recognition.

Bonus: If the PAX in front of you reclines their seat, you can watch a movie with the screen flipped over and flat, or flipped and slightly tilted up.

Hope this helps. Good Luck!

Ars Technica just did an "unreview" of the x41. It's very entertaining, and makes a lot of good points about the x41, as well as XP Tablet version.