HP Compaq Tablet PC TC1000

Introduction
------------

Tablet PCs where officially launched on November 7th 2002 with a Keynote speech made by Bill gates in New York. The basic principle was to combine a laptop and graphics tablet, so that it is in effect possible to draw or write notes directly to the screen. Despite the initial good press and hype surrounding it however sales of these devices were sluggish and are only now beginning to pick up. The ...
...Software were not up to scratch. The later has largely been solved as new software and patches have been released (more later on upcoming developments). The former however has only fairly recently been solved by the second generation of Tablets which solve almost all of the hardware problems. This tablet unfortunately belongs to the first generation and although had problems it had already anticipated many others and had already fixed them (lots ... more

Introduction
------------

Tablet PCs where officially launched on November 7th 2002 with a Keynote speech made by Bill gates in New York. The basic principle was to combine a laptop and graphics tablet, so that it is in effect possible to draw or write notes directly to the screen. Despite the initial good press and hype surrounding it however sales of these devices were sluggish and are only now beginning to pick up. The main reason for this is that initially the Hardware and Software were not up to scratch. The later has largely been solved as new software and patches have been released (more later on upcoming developments). The former however has only fairly recently been solved by the second generation of Tablets which solve almost all of the hardware problems. This tablet unfortunately belongs to the first generation and although had problems it had already anticipated many others and had already fixed them (lots of which other manufactures have borrowed.) Hence the title of my review, the best of a dying generation.

Hardware Features and Problems.
--------------------------------

Processor: This Laptop comes with the Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 1 GHz. 1 GHz may seem fast, however clock speed does not directly correlate with processing speed since this is simply the clock frequency the transistors are operating at and this says nothing about the number of transistor or architecture (how it is laid out inside essentially). Taking the clock frequency to mean speed is clearly absurd since a single transistor can have a clock frequency of several 1000 GHzs. Unfortunately in this case this is a quite slow 1 GHz even when running at full speed, and it often throttles the speed even slower to conserve power since this processor is not very energy efficient. This processor is fine for word processing but is certainly to slow to run most games or very complex spreadsheets.

Memory: This tablet comes with 256 MB SDRAM installed. This is frankly way to little. Even if using this just for work I would recommend adding memory to get this up to 512 MB since even when you are word processing you may in fact be running up to 20 programs e.g.(virus scan, firewall, auto updating software, various windows processes etc). However luckily this is not much of a problem since it only costs around £40 to buy another 256 MB of ram. One can easily buy more memory from the crucial website, which has the useful feature that you say what model of computer you have and they will show you the compatible ram. The install procedure is fairly easy and is explained very well in the manual.

Storage: This is a good point of this table, it comes with a 30 GB IDE hard drive. This is plenty of space for a laptop both for work and plenty of music or whatever.

Graphics Card: The graphics card is an AGP 4x NVIDIA 16 MB GeForce2 Go. This is plenty if you are working or watching films (either on the screen or external display) although this is very limited for playing games. The Go after the GeForce bit means it is for laptop and hence runs slower, it is about the same speed as a GeForce 256.

Screen: The screen on this tablet is a bit of a mixed bag. It is a 10.4 in TFT screen (active matrix) with a max Resolution of 1024 x 768 and max Colours 16.7 million (24 – bit). The resolution and colour of this screen is fine, the main problem is the small size and the speckally layer in front of the screen. The screen is small which is a bit annoying especially if you are trying to use the tablet like a pad of paper. Most other manufactures opted for 12 in screens. Although I do appreciate this laptop is trying to be small it would have been nicer if Compaq had opted for a 12 in screen like most of the other manufactures. The speckally layer is there to make the tablet pc pen work. Compaq opted to use a different pen technology to more less every other manufacturer which makes this layer necessary. This layer sometimes makes the screen look a bit blurred or fussy but generally it is ok. One element which is very, very good about this screen is that the medium between the screen and pen is hard glass. This largely protects the screen from damage as opposed to many of the other tablets where you can even se the ripples as you write, which is disturbing and braking the screen.

Sound Card: The sound card is nothing special just a generic make, however it is sound blaster pro compatible so it is not too bad. This tablet also comes with a built in microphone, which is again fine but not great, and a pair of stereo speakers which are quite good quality and can be impressively loud for a laptop.

Connectivity: This tablet comes with three main built in forms of connectivity. These are ordinary network (RJ45 10 / 100 Mb/s), modem (standard 56 Kb/s) and a built in wireless card (802.11b 11Mb/s). These are particularly important especially because of the lack of drives (more later). The most useful of these is the wireless card which is built into the body of this laptop with no protruding parts. This works quite well but the range is slightly reduced from a system with an external aerial. It is especially useful if you wish to surf the internet but do not want to have cables trailing to the tablet. Both the modem and wired network port are completely standard with no distinguishing features.

Input: One of the most exciting aspects of this tablet, being a tablet is of course the pen. This pen is comfortable to hold and use. It is extreme accurate to use on the screen, and this pen does not have the problem of huge inaccuracies near the edge of the screen that many other tablets use. The main disadvantage is the pen is not pressure sensitive, or have an eraser. However personally I do not find this a big issue since these are less useful than you might think. These are not included and the pen needs a battery since Compaq opted the FinePoint Innovations Digitizer whereas most of the manufactures opted for the Wacom system. I prefer the FinePoint system since it is accurate and I found the inaccuracy especial on the Acer C100 far more annoying. The other two input systems are a fairly standard Laptop keyboard which is quite comfortable to type on allow a bit disconcerting with the position of the screen (again more later). The keyboard also has an integrated track point as an alternative to the pen, although I in fact end up using the pen as the mouse the whole time since I find it much more natural to use. There are so other minor input systems. The most useful are some buttons on the top of the computer which can be used to help operate the tablet when detached from its keyboard. These are quite useful and can be programmed especially the jog dial. Also integrated into the side of the screen are three programmable buttons which only the pen can press. These are again useful although I would have preferred it if there where more than three of these.

Drives: One thing which people often notice almost immediately when comparing tablets to normal laptops is that almost none of them include any drives at all. The reason for this is two fold, first this is to keep costs down, the second and in my view far more important is to keep the weight of the tablet down since it is useless as a tablet if it is not easily portable. I do not find this lack of drives a problem, however that is the case since I have access to other computers and a LAN easily transfer things from a desktop to a laptop or directly from the internet.

Ports: This computer has a power socket, a headphone socket, two different types of microphone socket, a modem socket (RJ11), a network socket (RJ45), a VGA port (external monitor port), 2 USB 2.0 ports, a PCMCIA Socket (This is the standard laptop upgrade slot) and a Compact Flash Socket. This selection of ports is fairly standard, although the inclusion of the USB 2.0 ports are very nice (these are backward compatible with USB 1.0 ports). Most of these ports are under a cleverly designed flap in the side of the computer that hides them from view and protects them from dust.

Form: One aspect of the Compaq design of tablet which to my knowledge is unique, is the detachable keyboard design which places the computer behind the screen so this tablet can act as a slate type tablet or as a conventional laptop type tablet. I quite like this system since it is often nice to carry it as a slate in ones arm or flat on a desk which you can do with the keyboard but this makes it closer to the desk if you take the keyboard away. The only aspect I do not like is that it means that when it is in laptop mode in order to maintain its balance the screen is placed extremely close to the keyboard which is quite strange for a while until you get used to it. Another slight problem is that the clip mechanism is not as strong as it should be and so after a year of intensive use, I take this tablet to every lesson and may disconnect it several times a lesson, this mechanism is somewhat broken and although works is annoying to use. Overall the design is quite nice and smart fitting in main buttons and features without looking too messy. In addition there is a convenient socket in the side of the tablet to put the pen in which is very easily accessible.

Battery Life, Weight, Noise and Durability: The battery life on this is quite good although nothing compared to the second generation tablets. For me in practice this lasts a good 2 ¼ hours even after a year of use. The battery takes about 2 hrs to charge and is user accessible so it is conceivable to take a second battery and swap them while the tablet has hibernated. This laptop is very light weighing in at only 1.4kg (3.1 lbs) and is very easy to carry. This laptop for the most point is silent although when it becomes hot it turns on a fan which is fairly loud but not excessive and usually turns off after a relatively short period. Generally this laptop is fairly strong and has not broken much accept for the clip, please bare in mind I use this tablet excessively and most people will probably take 2 or 3 years to get to the stage it has. This laptop includes a 1 year warranty, which I have not used but have heard is very quick and efficient.

Software Features and Problems.
--------------------------------

This tablet pc, as all true tablets at present, comes with Windows XP Tablet Edition which is Windows XP Pro with a few extra features for tablet pc. The main additions are an input console, from which you can access an onscreen keyboard or write, there is a program called sticky notes, which is essentially a post stick note replacement, and Windows Journal, which acts like a pad of paper (you can even make it lined or as graph paper) just with a perfect eraser and ability to straighten lines and smooth circles. This software is fine although not perfect. It is not so much problems with features just a lack of them. For a better piece of note taking software I would recommend getting Microsoft OneNote 2003 which is very useful and has clever features such as being able to record sound while writing notes and being able to fast-forward in the recording to the point where something was written. Later this year in late summer Microsoft is releasing a free upgrade for Windows XP Tablet Edition 1 to Windows XP Tablet Edition 2 (codename: Lonestar). I am currently beta testing this and have found it a great improvement over the current OS. It is far more accurate in handwriting to text recognition and has a floating writing input box (hard to explain but good). Slight disclaimer, this beta version is available on the Microsoft website and although I have found it stable be warned that beta versions often contain odd bugs and may brake your computer, just a warning.

Summary, Conclusion and Other Thoughts.
----------------------------------------

Overall I have found this tablet to be good but not brilliant. The real problem is that the second generation is just so much better, they are faster, the pens are more accurate and the battery often lasts over 4 hours. This tablet is currently available for around £1080 and bearing in mind some new tablets will only cost a couple of hundred pounds more I believe it crazy to spend this much money to buy this tablet.
 

...less