Ok, now that I've been using my tablet PC for a while now, I feel like I can make a better review on it.

I absolutely love it. With the built-in wireless, I can just take the tablet out wherever and quickly check my e-mail or surf the web. And I haven't even configured the audio prompts!

The Motion M1400 View Anywhere screen is REALLY nice. I've used my parents' flat-screen and been using my craptop LCD, but this screen just blows everything else away in terms of its brightness and color. I'm not sure if the stock M1400 screens are as nice, but I've never noticed that my screen is hard to see (even in bright daylight). The viewing angle of the screen makes viewing great as well!

I just updated to Windows XP SP2, and the handwriting recognition is getting really spot-on. This is quite amazing.

I really like the handwriting because I'm a messy thinker; sometimes it's good to just scribble down a bunch of notes and thoughts instead of word processing it (or even writing it on old-fashioned pen and paper because I always lose it!)

Because the standard hardtop keyboard from Motion stinks (the trackpad is really sensitive and so when my hands naturally rest on the keyboard the bottom part of my palm keeps triggering it. I was also running out of USB ports (I only get two on the tablet, and no PS/2 inputs for keyboard or mouse) so I went out and bought the Microsoft Elite Bluetooth Keyboard/Mouse. For weird XP reasons, I couldn't get the internal bluetooth working (yet). However, the Elite system came with a plug-in USB key that serves as the Bluetooth receiver for the time being; I'm going to tackle the internal Bluetooth problem soon.

The limitations of the tablet for my daily use? Well, because the thing only comes with two USB ports and one Firewire (which is the 4-pin and not the 6-pin, which means my iPod needs to plug-in via the USB port), it gets hard to manage all my external stuff. Before today, I would plug-in my keyboard and mouse to the two USB drives. Which means if I wanted to plug in my iPod or my flash card reader or my external DVD/CD-ROM drive, I would be without the mouse or keyboard (a pain). Today's purchase of the Bluetooth system will alleviate that.

Once I got SP2 installed, the Bluetooth set-up was really easy; I was surprised how painless it was. The Microsoft keyboard feels nice to use, although the mouse is a bit bulky and heavy for me.

I feel like a real ubernerd; my old craptop is constantly connected to the net simply to serve as my chatting/server monitoring (I leave the top command running through SSH connections to make sure they're not getting overloaded). This leaves my tablet for 'work' stuff.

Posted by roy on October 24, 2004 at 11:00 PM in | 4 Comments

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Comment posted on October 29th, 2004 at 12:29 AM
Are you using OneNote? How are you finding it? It seems like a really cool product... haven't gotten a chance to use it myself.
Comment posted on October 29th, 2004 at 03:28 AM
I absolutely adore it. I just love the flexibility of writing anywhere when I'm planning out something and having it digitally stored.... I can honestly say it's been a LOT easier planning out some of my scripting now when I can just spec it out real quickly on a digital sheet of paper rather than having to word process it ;)
Comment posted on October 25th, 2004 at 12:11 PM
"<i>...Firewire (which is the 4-pin and not the 6-pin, which means my iPod needs to plug-in via the USB port)...</i>"

The Apple store sells Firewire cables that are 4-pin on one end and 6-pin on the other end. I used one for my iPod and old laptop. The speed is exactly the same as a 6-pin to 6-pin.

Anyway, the tablet sounds awesome. I'd love to get my hands on one.
Comment posted on October 29th, 2004 at 03:29 AM
Aye, but I really hate keeping adapters.