Tablet PC Blog - blog.tabletpc.com.au
Australian Tablet PC information resource
It’s great to see Tablet PCs getting some promotion in the Aussie Education market. There is little sign of them in retail outlets in New Zealand, even specialist computer stores. I’m still convinced if the benefits were better marketed more people would pay the Tablet premium. My experience is that people are amazed when they actually use a Tablet, it’s just that they [still] don’t know about them!
This HP Promo video does show a couple of tests I’d probably avoid with the Tablet (same model) we have at work…
It looks lovely, but then you see at all the compromises in spec and wonder…
If Apple are so smart why can’t, or won’t, they design a user replaceable battery?
I’d rather have one of these
UPDATE 2008–01–17: And then you read Sony did it four years ago.
Tablet PC site GottaBeMobile have announced their picks for 2007. The winners include the HP 2710p Tablet PC.
We recently got one of these at work and I’ll post a full review once I’ve spent a bit more time with it. First impressions… it’s a gem!
2007 GottaBeMobile Awards Winners Announced!
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2007 GottaBeMobile Awards. These winners were nominated by and chosen by the readers and staff of GottaBeMobile.com. Congratulations to all winners, who will also get their very own Splotch
Tablet PCs are five years old (!) but will 2008 be the year they finally take off? They currently have only a small market share but there seems to be a resurgence with new major players, like Dell, entering the market. Will that be enough to take the Tablet beyond “niche”?
People love using them!
In my experience, once people try a Tablet they are both amazed and delighted by the pen UI. It's not ideal for all types of work but great if you’re not “the worlds greatest typist” or work on graphic, rather than text/data, documents. For many tasks the pen/ink UI is far more intuitive than keyboard and mouse.
Tablet PCs also bring your “analog” scribbles into the digital world. Scratching in a notepad means you just have a note in a pad. Inking the same note in software like MindManager, or OneNote, makes it search-able, sharable and “keeps it digital” with all the benefits that provides. How do you backup that vital paper notepad or diary?
In a meeting/sales environment a convertible/slate being used with a pen doesn’t present the barrier created by sitting behind a normal laptop. However, while many champion the “pure” keyboard-less “Slate” form factor, I think a Convertible Notebook is still the best compromise for most.
So why don’t they sell?
There is a price premium but I think the real problem is potential users just don’t get the chance to try them. I just visited a large specialist computer store which sells all the major brands. All their Notebooks were prominently displayed yet no sign of a Tablet Convertible or Slate*. They were available “to order” but who is going to order one without experiencing the benefits of the Tablet UI? If a specialist PC store doesn’t bother what hope is there of seeing a Tablet in the appliance or department stores where most people buy their laptop?
Will “touch” will be the tipping point?
They are just starting to arrive on the market but pen/touch tablets seem like a real advance. Manipulating digital objects directly with your fingers may be the feature that makes the difference. Only problem is you also can’t try a “touch” machine if it’s only available “to order”!
The problem isn’t the technology!
I doubt it’s even the price as most dealers would happily sell a higher priced machine if they could.It gives them more margin on the finance or “extended warranty” where they inevitably make their real profit. The problem is both marketing and availability. If they aren’t there to buy, people won’t buy them! The last five years has proved that.
5 Years of Tablet PC: Marketing - GottaBeMobile
What if they threw a party for The Five Year Anniversary of the Tablet PC and nobody came? What if even the guest of honor stayed away?
Well, it certainly seems that Microsoft and Tablet PC manufacturers want this anniversary to pass without any real noise or attempt at celebration…Recent Releases;
HP readying new Pavilion tx1400 series convertible tablets - Engadget
Toshiba unveils the Portege M700 tablet with touch capabilities - Engadget
* There was one sad lonely UMPC but at double the price of a entry spec notebook, even though “discounted to clear”, I suspect it will be there for a while.
This post by Blog Maverick made me laugh:
Quotes from "I Forgot How to Write!" - Blog Maverick
“I was sitting in a meeting the other day and decided I needed to take some notes .“
“This particular meeting for some reason I couldn't go the digital route so I can had to go 1900s and actually handwrite my notes.”
“What a disaster. I couldn't write.”
Ever since I had to PRINT UPPERCASE at Tech (three years when nearly all work was handwritten) it's all I have done. Now if I write, which is rare, it's all u/c block scrawl as I have forgotten how to write cursive. At school I got good grades for “Technical Drawing” but always with a comment about my poor printing. I even remember one teacher saying I couldn’t consider being a draftsman without improving it. I still remember Mr Price as I enter text into design software!
Technology sorted out the drafting printing but hasn’t helped my handwriting...
If I ever get a Tablet PC it will have to be a convertible with keyboard! Now I just have to learn how to type faster…
As it’s an evolution from “the drawing board” combining CAD/BIM software and Tablet PC seems natural. I wonder why it hasn’t been done by the major market players? In the early days hardware was a real limitation but newer tablets like the Lenovo X61 or Toshiba M400 have reasonable performance for portable use. I don’t see them as workstation replacements, rather an ideal way to take your design on-site or to a meeting where using a mouse isn’t practical.
I’ve tried mark-up with Autodesk Design Review (ADR) on a Tablet and liked it in-spite of the application’s User Interface (UI) not being very Tablet friendly. That was with ADR 2007 but, sadly, the newer free ADR 2008 makes more use of fly-out tools for mark-up formatting which are harder to use on a tablet. Even with the current UI the speed & ease of pen input for non-precision sketch/mark-up leaves a mouse/keyboard combo for dead, especially in the field where you can’t use them at all.
I’ve also played with AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture and Revit on a Tablet PC and all were usable, if not really viable full-time. There’s no perfect UI but for many environments & tasks the pen/tablet is far more natural, dare I say fluent, than the mouse & keyboard. I was surprised to find AutoCAD’s UI and command “logic” (selection/command sequence) worked better than the smarter object based applications.
Revit’s dialog heavy UI was the least accommodating which is a pity given the power of it’s engine to assist design. I’d love to see that Building Information Model manipulated with a Tablet friendly UI as a conceptual design tool. You wouldn’t want to do detail design work – lots of text or precision dimension entry – but for knocking around a concept the tablet & pen is the most natural human interface, at least until those surface displays with direct manipulation become affordable.
Thanks to “GottabeMobile” I found an application from Evodia which shows what “concept sketches” become with some smart software and a tablet. It’s software for Electrical Schematic design and looks brilliant. I can only say “looks” because the website is in French (my ignorance prevents me reading that) and I don’t have a machine to try it on as the Tablet PC’s I’ve used were loan machines. Donations to the “Tablet for Robin” fund accepted in the tip-jar 
I’ve seen all sorts of software used for this – Excel, Visio, AutoCAD/Revit MEP – but none an Electrical Engineer, who can drive a pen faster than a mouse, could use so fluently. You get the speed of a scribble with the power of software assisted design & layout. Imagine that with a conceptual Building Information Model. The pen may not be the ultimate design tool but it’s mightier than the… mouse.
Via GottaBeMobile.com - Using a Tablet PC for Electrical Sketching
“When you see how quickly someone can sketch out the schematics for a house, you have to wonder why electricians would ever choose to go back to paper.”
Finally I’ve had a chance to try a convertible Tablet PC as a Design/Sketch/Review tool.
More to follow…
In this conversation about Autodesk University 2006 from the Autodesk Discussion Group Melanie points out that to get the most out of AU you need to:
“TAKE DETAILED NOTES!!!
These classes are INTENSE...”
Later on in the thread there is a comment that it would be essential to take a laptop but as Jason mentions:
“I found that in most classes, it's WAY too packed to even consider bringing out a laptop.“
My first day there, I was like you - WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!! By the second day, I realized that I was too busy writing to pay attention to what was being said and done on the screen, so I paid close attention, took the handouts with me, and made notes after the class on them. No need for transcribing the class, they record some of them, and the handouts are really sufficient.
I agree with these points but my approach to this information tidal wave was to adopt Mind map techniques. I use software for creating them on the PC but didn’t take a laptop to AU as couldn’t be bothered carrying it 11,000 km to AU (Vegas 2004), then another 11,000km around the MGM Grand while at AU. It feels like you walk that far in the 4 days….
I’ve adopted the map format for nearly all hand written meeting/conference notes. You can capture a lot with minimal writing as the structure & relationships can convey much of the information. It works really well for computer related content like AU as many topics may only require key words and their relationship. I find the advantages over linear list format notes are:
My note maps break most of the rules of Mind Mapping, even incorporate other forms like concept mapping, but it doesn’t matter. There is no time or need to think about rules and layout; just do what works for you!
As an example the scrawl below is the notes, 4 note pages from the AU handout book, from just one session with Ted Boardman on Viz/Max Materials. Ted is a brilliant teacher conveying a huge amount of information in the session but he’s also a great speaker so you don’t want to miss that aspect while frantically writing. He, like many AU tutors, provides good handouts but there is something about taking your own notes to make the sessions more memorable & relevant.
I’d like to blame the terrible writing on “packed conditions” but my print is that bad all the time! The layout reflects the way the maps grew during the session. Sometimes I’d revisit the topic and add extra notes just by linking with a line or capture comments in a thought bubble. I don’t know how you’d do this as rapidly or easily, in a non-linear manner, with conventional list format notes.
To give an idea this single topic about Specular Highlights (below) is shown in raw note form and as later transcribed to a MindManager map. The result conveys a lot of information, much of it from the relationship and structure, with minimal writing.
The map below shows Levels 1 & 2 of the complete notes from the session. The arrow points to the “Specular Highlights” topic seen fully expanded above. MindManager is great for this sort of overview while also holding the full detail should you need to drill down into a topic. The map has 245 topics and 912 words. The session was about 90 minutes so I wrote 2 – 3 topics/minute, many of them only one or two words, yet feel I captured all I needed without missing the real reason for being there – to see a Max/Viz legend at work.
So, do you need to take a Laptop to AU to just for notes?
I’d say no paper is fine but a Tablet PC/Origami + MindManager, with ample long-life batteries, would be nice as offers the same pen interface and eliminates the need to transcribe it all later 
UPDATE 13–10–2006: Ted has a class similar to “Materials & Beyond” at Autodesk University 2006 – Look for DV25-1 ~ All Dressed Up! ~ Design Visualization ~ Ted Boardman.
I don’t know much about the Alias product range but this demo by Chad Essley is rather compelling. A talented artist, digital sketchbook and tablet technology makes for a powerful combination.
Microsoft have posted the NZ Tech-Ed presentations.
Andrew Wilcox is blogging from a music festival using MindManager and a Tablet PC
Crop Log 2006 - The Fairport Cropredy Convention 2006 - Unofficial Web Log
What is a CropLog (nothing to do with farming), it is a map log (sort of blog) of the Fairport Cropredy Convention, an annual 3 day music festival with generally folk, folk rock, rock and blues performers.
It finishes with Fairport Convention performing Meet on the Ledge written way back when by Richard Thompson backed by all their pals.
This CropLog is being created using MindManager Pro 6 on a Tablet PC and exported to the web pages using Map4Web from MindBusiness.
Interesting article on Tablet PCs enabling information rich field work.
Mapping the Future of Field Geology - ScienceMatters @ Berkeley
In 1818, William "Strata" Smith ushered in the modern practice of field geology with his publication of the first hand-painted, color geological map of England and Wales. Two centuries later, the tools haven't changed much. Recently though, UC Berkeley geologist George Brimhall and his colleagues have developed mapping software that they hope will bring field geology kicking and screaming into the digital age."You can load satellite images, detailed topographic maps, and field data onto the tablet PC so you can view a huge amount of 3D geospatial information while you're outside," Brimhall says.
Recently I blogged about digital design of Aircraft using the title “The end of paper flight?”.
The odd thing is that many flights, especially in light aircraft, are totally dependent on paper – thick books of charts and flight instructions. It seems rather primitive to have pilots carrying hundreds of bits of paper, searching for the right chart when they probably have more important tasks to do!
It appears that hassle is about to end as electronic ink, digital paper, takes to the air. eFlyBook is a small, electronic notebook for use in the cockpit which uses a passive, paper like, digital ink display and stylus, pen like, entry for searching.
Seems like the only paper in flight will be aircraft like the Barnaby Flyer...*
eFlyBook by ARINC
For the first time, digital FAA flight charts, en route charts, terminal procedures, and other flight documents can be downloaded, stored and viewed easily on eFlyBook, a small, electronic notebook for use in the cockpit. Charts, documents, and other digital content are provided by MyAirplane.com, which uses its award-winning viewer and compression technology to minimize storage requirements without degrading the quality of the documents.
* The Barnaby Flyer is a proper paper aircraft, NOT a dart. With a bit of care when folding it can achieve proper controlled flight, even circle and use updrafts to gain height. It was invented by Capt. Ralph S. Barnaby, USN (Ret), and it first appeared in his book "How to Make & Fly Paper Airplanes" (Scholastic Book Services 1968).
I was about 10 when I read his book as part of a science project on flight. I made many, probably hundreds, and watched one fly for an amazing, stopwatch timed, 3 minutes after launching from a high cliff near Piha. It flew several hundred metres down almost to sea level then climbed, in an updraft, almost returning to the launch point before descending again to the sea – Biodegradable of course!
My Granny used slate tablets in school. It appears Tablet is back although these (PC’s) are convertibles. The evening news reported on Project Chaos – a trial of tablet and other new IT technology in NZ public schools. It looked like they were having fun while learning lots, a good combination!
A couple of posts about Tablet PCs in my other blog may be of interest:
Target Indy Race Team Technology - Scoble's behind the scenes video
This video review is a neat introduction to the Toshiba M400. It’s the first really grunty, maybe even part-time CAD capable, Tablet/Convertible Notebook. It has the processor power (1.8 Core Duo) but uses integrated graphics (Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950) which may be a limitation.
Intel mention CAD use in the spec for this chipset but I’d love to test one, anyone listening at Toshiba NZ?
istartedsomething: Video review of Toshiba Portege M400 Tablet PC
Extra Detail: Written Review
www.tabletpcreviewspot.com - Portege M400 Tablet PC - Speedy to the Core/s
jkOnTheRun gets up close with the DualCor cPC…
jkOnTheRun: Sitting down with DualCor Technologies at the CES.
I had a great opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with DualCor Technologies' President and CEO Steve Hanley to review their new ultra-portable hand-held that is generating a lot of buzz since it appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago. Steve was very forth-coming about the cPC and DualCor's plans for the release of the combination Tablet PC and Windows Mobile 5.0 device. Steve brought two of the cPCs to our meeting and it was exciting to see them both in action close up and personal…
Early attempts with Pocket PC’s for on-site CAD mark-up struggled to cope with memory capacity and performance limitations.
DualCor Technologies, Inc have announced The DualCor cPC – a combination Tablet PC and Windows Mobile Hand-held device which promises to solve that by offering portability, connectivity and power.
It uses twin Operating Systems, XP Tablet PC & Windows Mobile, with twin processors; 1.5 GHz and 400 MHz. This allows full XP applications to run, working as a Tablet PC, but when “off” it reverts to the Mobile OS with full time connectivity, instant on and claims long battery life. Both OS are supported by a 127mm (5”) 800x400 Display, 40GB HD, 1GB RAM + 1GB Flash + full connectivity, allowing it to function as a desktop replacement, in a tiny 165 (6.5") x 83 (3.3") x 30 (1.2") mm package!
So, how would it go with Design Web Format (DWF) 2D/3D CAD data and Autodesk Composer (DWF View/Mark-up) or maybe even a full CAD application?
We can only wait and see but the spec looks good enough to justify testing. I can’t see it as a CAD Desktop replacement, the likely hitch is graphic performance, but as a device to take your CAD Model, in DWF or native format, on the road to site/client/meetings it has great appeal. Add MindManager (for presenting project information) and ActiveWords InkPad (ease of operation) and you’d have a stunning presentation tool. Perhaps it’s worth the cost (said to be us$1500 retail) just to see peoples reaction to CAD/BIM presented from your hand.
If the DualCor cPC lives up to the preview it’s going to be huge, even though it’s small.
jkOnTheRun has exclusive details about the DualCor cPC.
It’s a combination of full power Tablet PC (XP) and Windows Mobile that looks like being the answer to my need to be connected, yet have the power to do real work without lugging too much hardware…
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