This is a handsome and very usable Tablet PC, thanks to its excellent screen and keyboard. Battery life and performance are both a little disappointing, though, and the price becomes steep as you add in the options.
Dell, characteristically, has bided its time before entering the Tablet PC arena. Tablet PCs have been around for several years, but have struggled to become mainstream despite support from top-tier manufacturers such as HP and Fujitsu Siemens.
Dell has been circumspect about the format, but saw the building of Tablet PC functionality into Windows Vista and Intel's low-power Santa Rosa platform as key features in prompting entry to the market. The result is the Latitude XT. (Source: Sandra Vogel, ZDNet UK)
Students also should pay attention to this pen. There is probably no better gadget for taking notes in class, except perhaps a Tablet PC, which allows you to write on the screen. But Tablet PCs are expensive and more difficult to use than the Pulse, which works with standard Windows PCs. You can also use it in a more limited fashion without a PC. (Source: Peter Svensson, The Associated Press, Nasua Telegraph)
Posted Thursday, June 19, 2008 by ChrisD Rating: 3.08Comments (0)
Being of the most rugged and stable PCs out there, Lenovo computers play a critical role in supporting the behind-the-scenes operations during the games, including powering the Start/Time Clock and recording real-time stats. Thanks to the small-size & touch-screen display, the Lenovo ThinkPad X60 tablet makes it more efficient for the recorder to input the data for every play. A total of 675,000 stats are recorded each NBA season so imagine the accuracy and stability that is required. (Source: Thai Tan, Laptop Logic)
Posted Wednesday, June 18, 2008 by ChrisD Rating: 2.81Comments (0)
The Flybook V5 mini-notebook is one of those gadgets that looked promising at its CES announcement over a year ago, but we'd recently lost track of it because of its low profile (plus, a certain 'eye-phone' or something, keeps getting in the way). But after a few months of getting in a nice run in Europe, the tablet Flybook is now available in the U.S. just as the mini-notebook craze is heating up. But there's a potential problem at hand: It's close to $3,000. (Source: Jose Fermoso, Wired Magazine)
Posted Wednesday, June 18, 2008 by ChrisD Rating: 3Comments (0)
Also wanting a piece of the pie is Nvidia, which announced chipsets that include processors targeted at mobile Internet devices including sub-notebooks such as the Asus Eee PC.
According to ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet, AMD's notebook division brand manager Scott Shutter said during the recent Computex show in Taipei that the UMPC market does not have the demand yet to warrant the company's attention. (Source: Vivian Yeo, ZDNet Asia)
The Virginia Tech University bookstore has Fujitu's newest Tablet PC posted: the T5010 Tablet PC. This is the T4220's successor. The specs look quite interesting, sporting a 13.3" WXGA LED backlit screen and built-in camera. The T4220 (previous model) has a 12" screen with a SXGA, so there is an obvious change there. The processor is not known at this point. Priced at $1999, available for pre-ordering at the university bookstore if you are a student there, and looks to be available in August. They will be displaying models during their July orientation.
Expect official news from Fujitsu on the T5010 soon. (Source: Rob Bushway, GottaBeMobile)
Microsoft let Origami Experience 2.0 out of the consumer cage, making it available as a free download to UMPC owners. Back in January, the software was released to OEMs for potential inclusion in their units and I believe the only device to see it so far is the HTC Shift. That's almost ironic to me because I look at OE2 like tweaked version of the SnapVUE software included with the Shift. In any case, you can grab it now if you have a UMPC running MIcrosoft Windows Vista; just like the original, devices running XP are out of luck. (Source: jkOnTheRun)
Posted Monday, June 16, 2008 by ChrisD Rating: 3.28Comments (0)
The increasing popularity of Asustek Computer's Eee PC has resulted in a significant impact on the development of UMPCs (ultra mobile PCs), which may force High Tech Computer (HTC) to adjust its deployment of UMPC products, according to Peter Chou, president and CEO of HTC.
The focus of HTC's development will continue to strengthen users' Internet experience through mobile devices, Chou said without further elaborating on the company's UMPC strategy. (Source: Daniel Shen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES)
One of the key features of the new Origami Experience 2.0 (downloadable here for UMPC owners with Vista) is a more sensible approach to presenting Internet Explorer 7 to a user with a smaller screen: It folds the key features of the Web browser into a toolbar that hugs the upper edge, and that auto-hides either when not in use, or when a Web page is fully opened.
A 277-panel slideshow released late last April of an internal beta shows menu selections, such as Favorites and History, presented larger and more pictorially -- much more appropriate for users with touch-screens or trackballs. The design principle this time around appears to be finding new ways of making PC functionality convenient in a smaller package, rather than miniaturizing the desktop PC experience and preserving as much of it as possible in the process. (Source: Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews)
Copyright 2001 - 2007 Chris De
Herrera, All Rights Reserved A member of the
Talksites
Family of Websites
All Trademarks are owned by their respective companies.
