Extract From Byte Magazine - June 18 - Tablet Computers

[Steve Bildermann]

As BYTE is now a subscription service I thought some people might enjoy reading some extracts.

The "Whoa, cool!" factor for tablet computers is high, but I see no evidence they're flying off the shelves. Whip one out in a crowd, and you'll certainly get attention, kind of like walking into a room with a digital camera three years ago. But getting people to actually shell out cash for one appears to be a tough sell.

Most people using tablets today are the same folks who've been using them for years, such as medical, insurance, and law enforcement professionals who need to fill out forms on the go. I saw not a single tablet at the recent PMA photography conference, whose audience should theoretically fit the early adopter profile for this kind of device. Obviously something's wrong with this picture.

I've poked at several pen enabled devices over the past few months, and I'm surprised to report that my two favorite tablets aren't really tablets at all, at least officially. One is Fujitsu's superb LifeBook P1000 ultralight clamshell, and the other is Handspring's Treo 300 phone/PDA/e mail messager. Although not marketed as such, each is really a tablet that outperforms every "official" tablet currently on the market in terms of true functionality. I'll get to them in a minute.

What's Missing

To eventually succeed in the mass market, tablet computers must excel in three key areas: interface, weight, and battery life. Let's look at interface first. The biggest single factor that differentiates tablets from regular portables is that the primary interface is a touch sensitive screen instead of keyboard and mushpad.

I'm a huge fan of touch sensitive screens. I'd be very happy if all screens were designed that way. Unfortunately, the touch screens on most tablets on the market only respond to a specific pen (usually a Wacom), which if you lose, it's too bad for you, because your tablet becomes instantly useless till you shell out fifty bucks for a new one.

Annotating and sketching on documents and filling out forms with a pen is all very nice, but there's no way I'm going on the road without a keyboard. Not only can I type much faster than I can write with a pen, holding a pen for long stretches literally cramps my style.

Toshiba's Portege 3500 and HP's TC1000 tablets feature keyboards that flip and rotate to integrate into the tablet, which is more or less the right approach, in my opinion. The down side is that their keyboards make these models considerably heavier and thicker.

All the other models I've looked at use detachable keyboards, a solution I hate. That's one more object to lug around, which is a pain for a take anywhere device. It's a particularly sore point with me because of the number of times portable keyboards have slipped out of my backpack and whacked my big toe. A worse problem is that this setup doesn't work at all in many situations, such as when you're jammed into an economy airplane seat, or even sitting on a chair. For a real exercise in frustration, try using a tablet/keyboard combo in bed.

Three hours of juice is about average for most of the current crop of tablets. Some yield a little more, some a little less. That's simply inadequate for a device that should make it through a full day in the field.

If you want a keyboard, your tablet's going to weigh around four pounds. That might not sound like a lot, but I guarantee that propping that weight on your forearm all day will strain your shoulder and back.

I've spoken with several journalists who love the tablets they've tested, but until a two pound model with an integrated keyboard and six to eight hours of battery life appears, few people with have an incentive to go there. Fortunately, I recently discovered a tablet that's not a tablet that suits me fine: Fujitsu's LifeBook P1000.

Fujitsu's Lifebook P1000

Except for the fact that it's not marketed as such, the $1,199 P1000 meets all my requirements for the perfect tablet. It has a touch sensitive screen that's not input device specific (you can use any stylus, your finger, or a toothpick), it's very light (2.5 pounds), provides great battery life (up to nine hours with an optional high capacity battery), and has a keyboard. It's also got adequate power (an 800 MHz Transmeta Crusoe chip), built in wireless 80211.b, and runs Windows XP.

The P1000 is one of the most productive computers I've ever tested. It measures 9.1" x 6.5" x 1.3", a format that makes it usable virtually anywhere, even if you're standing up. Its bright 8.9" 1024 x 600 resolution screen folds back 180 degrees, on the same plane and nearly flush with the keyboard, delivering exactly what I'm looking for: namely a tablet with a keyboard that's very light and thin.

Despite its small footprint, the P1000 is a serious computer. It comes with 256 MB RAM, a 30 GB hard drive, and an 8 MB ATI Rage Mobility M graphics card. There's an RJ 45 Ethernet port, two USB ports, and a Type II PC card slot. The Crusoe CPU doesn't require a fan, so the machine runs quiet and cool. I had no trouble testing a variety of applications with it, although editing a big multilayered Photoshop document will slow it down.

The P1000's TFT screen is nice and bright. To get the full nine hours of battery life Fujitsu advertises, you'll have to dim the screen way down. I was able to ootz between five and six hours out of the extended life battery with the screen set to eighty percent brightness. With an extra battery, you should be able to get through almost any imaginable situation. The built in 80211.b doesn't seem to draw as much power as various wireless cards I've tested.

Ergonomics

The system features a nearly instant On/Off standby capability. Close the lid and it automatically powers off. Open it and you're up and running in seconds. The system will slowly trickle drain in standby mode, but this fault is likely more to be laid at Windows XP's door than Fujitsu's (power management is one area Apple's OS X is superior to Windows XP).

The P1000's keyboard is small but well laid out and perfectly usable. I like the placement of the DEL key in the upper right position and the Forward Slash/Question Mark key to the right of the Up arrow and under the Enter key. I'd like a little more clickability to it, but that's a personal preference.

This device is perfect for writing, annotating documents, or displaying images on the go. Jack Kerouac would have loved one. Like most computers in this size and weight class, there's no CD onboard, so you'll need to get an external one to load software. A docking station option to charge it in overnight would be nice. So would a good transflective screen for better outdoor viewing.

A lot of folks really seem to resonate with the P1000's format. Regular tablets may have a big gee whiz factor, but I was amazed at how many people asked me where they could actually buy a P1000 while I was testing it in the field. Fujitsu is missing a good bet by not making the P1000 widely available through mass retail channels. I've no doubt they'd sell zillions of them, especially at its $1,199 price point, which is half the price of a "real" tablet. The P1000 is one amazing bit of technology. Highly Recommended.

Handspring's Treo 300

Another kind of tablet that's not billed as a tablet is just about every handheld PDA ever made, going all the way back to Apple's Newton. Today, "PDA" is really just another term for a small pen enabled tablet capable of running word processing, image editing, and Web browsing software. With telephony and wireless capabilities, true multifunctionality in a single lightweight and small computer is finally possible.

Handspring was the first company to jam a telephone, e mail device, PIM, and Web browser into a single device. Their latest offering, the $499 Treo 300 (or $299 with new Sprint service) continues to be the only handheld on the market I've found that performs all four of these functions, and does them all well. Kyocera's $699 7135 phone/PDA comes close, but it doesn't have a full keypad, and Palm's $549 Tungsten W requires an earbud, which isn't always convenient for receiving calls.

The Treo 300 runs the Palm OS, has 16 MB RAM, weighs in at 5.7 ounces, and has a backlit QWERTY keyboard. Its battery delivers 2.5 hours talk time and 150 hours standby. The PCS Sprint network averages 50 70 Kbps, maxing out at 144 Kbps. It has pretty good coverage nationwide.

The Treo 300's screen is bright indoors, but hard to read on the street. It's not as crisp as HP and Toshiba CE devices, but it's still up to the job. It did a fine job displaying Web pages with the included Blazer 2.1 Web browser. Checking e mail and reading The New York Times online while standing in a grocery checkout line is a pretty neat experience.

The phone component is pretty full featured. It has speakerphone and mute capabilities, and you can place calls on hold and conduct conference calls. It's also got 16 channels of audio on ring tones.

I have a few peeves. The Treo's plastic construction feels flimsy to me, when compared to a device like my old HP Jornada 545. The Jornada's larger screen was also much better for showing pictures. Unlike most PDAs, the Treo doesn't have a media storage slot. It fits easily into a shirt pocket, which is pretty neat, but I turned it on by accident several times in my jacket pocket, which is not.

The lack of a charging cradle is serious omission. With a device this small and light, charging it with a power cable leads to sliding across surfaces and that can result in falls and breakage. You can remedy this by purchasing a cradle for fifty bucks, but that should come standard. Economies like this keep the price below the competition's, but I'd personally rather pay an extra fifty or a hundred bucks straight out for something a little more rugged.

Overall, the Treo 300 is very well thought out and implemented. A few days ago Palm acquired Handspring, which should keep the Treo line's hardware and software at the head of the pack. The competition's heating up, but the Treo 300 is still the best in its class.

[Taro Toporific]

As BYTE is now a subscription service I thought some people might enjoy reading some extracts.

The "Whoa, cool!" factor for tablet computers is high, but I see no evidence they're flying off the shelves. Whip one out in a crowd, and you'll certainly get attention...

Whoa. Didn't I just read this a few days ago. Yes, I'm sure I did and I don't have a BYTE subscription. I'm having Alzheimer's Moment 'cause how else could this post be bumped up on the FG Thread List and be labeled "June 18"??????

Anyway, the touting of the "Fujitsu's Lifebook P1000" sounds like my idea of a real keitai except for the "very light (2.5 pounds)" weight

great battery life (up to nine hours with an optional high capacity battery), and has a keyboard. It's also got adequate power (an 800 MHz Transmeta Crusoe chip)...There's an RJ 45 Ethernet port, two USB ports, and a Type II PC card slot. The Crusoe CPU doesn't require a fan, so the machine runs quiet and cool

[Steve Bildermann]

Didn't I just read this a few days ago. Yes, I'm sure I did and I don't have a BYTE subscription.

I don't think so.

I post them once a week. Last one was June 11 by Jerry Pournelle who was also talking about tablet PCs.

It started

Lisabetta, My Love

I love my Tablet, but I will admit that until I got the new morphing code I was muttering that if I get a chance to get a Tablet PC with the same features and a faster CPU, I'll take it. Lisabetta was great for everything but online work, but the combination of the slower CPU, Windows XP, Tablet PC software, and Office XP was enough to try one's patience.

This current one is by By David Em

The "Whoa, cool!" factor for tablet computers is high, but I see no evidence they're flying off the shelves. Whip one out in a crowd, and you'll certainly get attention, kind of like walking into a room with a digital camera three years ago. But getting people to actually shell out cash for one appears to be a tough sell.

I thought it would be good to show different opinions.

[Taro Toporific]

I post them once a week. Last one was June 11 by Jerry Pournelle who was also talking about tablet PCs.

Lisabetta, My Love

This current one is by By David Em

Lifebook P1000"

I thought it would be good to show different opinions.

"Lifebook" vs "Lisabetta" ... Dang, no wonder I'm having an Alzheimer's Moment.

The important point to me is that notebooks (and desktops) are getting WAY TOO hot and noisy. I'm against one-hand typing on moral grounds so most keitai options are out for me. My question to everyone is... What I really need a under 1 kg mobile computer thingie with:

keyboard or 2-thumb board
1 mega-pixel videocam
flat-rate EdgeH or something keitai wireless modem card
voice recording, and
well Hell, and let me wetdream that VoIP would be possible too.

I hear that some PHS phone is offering flat-rate VoIP? Anybody know about the status of that flat-rate ??TUKA?? service?

I suppose I could kludge together with duct-tape some kind of Frankenstein iPAQ-modem-and-flatrate-PHS device but there has GOT to be a better way.

[Steve Bildermann]

Yep, that mental instabilty thing can be a real drag.

It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts