Tablet Computers . . . dumb or dumber?

My good friend (Kickstartnews Contributing Editor) Mario Georgiou and I disagree on the usefulness of tablet computers. He likes them - I don't. While the iPod Touch/iPhone are probably the best currently examples of how a highly responsive touch screen should work, the option of a hardware keyboard option within the same form factor seems to escape the priority list at Apple. So we're left with the heavy, awkward and rather powerful notebook-sized laptop tablets. What I want (hmmm, make that, what many tablet computing fans want) is a tablet which combines the best of all worlds in a form factor that is not much larger than the best netbooks. They're coming. They're here. The HP EliteBook works extremely well and it almost qualifies as an ultralight. With a 12.1" screen, it's very portable - bigger than a netbook; smaller than a typical laptop. This should be considered by business travelers as a great all around workhorse. The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 clocks in slightly heavier than the HP, but noticeably tougher for business use, travel, college/university use and so on. It's our best buy. Lenovo had a few quality control problems which began a couple of years after it took over the ThinkPad line from IBM. Time, focus and attention to detail have put the ThinkPad line back near the top of the heap. The HP Pavillion tx2500z is the least expensive of the good quality 12.1" tablets PCs. It's tough to beat for home use. The Asus Eee PC T91MT netbook tablet has the typical 8.9" netbook screen, but rather than a hard drive for storage features 16GB of SSD/Flash memory. Useful for certain - at home, traveling, and for casual use just about anywhere. Limited storage capacity and the slightly underpowered Intel Atom processor will limit its popularity. A good little machine nonetheless with almost 5 hours of battery life and very light weight.

Toshiba Announce Four New Portégé Models

Toshiba Canada unveiled four new Portégés; the ultrathin Portégé R600, which has a Core 2 Duo CPU, 2.14-pound shell, a nine hour battery life; The Portégé A600 which has almost the same specs, but also has a GMA X4500 graphics controller; the Portégé M750- a Tablet PC which features their excellent twisty screen and finally the Tecra R10, which features a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo SP9400, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 200GB 7,200 RPM hard drive and the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 150M GPU.

Motion Computing Launches C5 and F5 Tablets.

Motion Computing has launched a couple of new tablets. The C5 mobile clinical assistant (MCA) and the F5 semi-rugged tablet PC look to be units aimed clearly at specific applications. The C5 is a tablet which features integrated mobile broadband and solid state drive (SSD) options that will make it look very appealing to users and buyers with medical applications in mind. certainly The F5 is a semi rugged tablet which will do well in industrial and commercial environments. It also comes with an additional 80GB hard drive without any additional costs. For more information on both devices visit Motion Computing.

Fujitsu P1610 Tablet Announced With 3G HSDPA

Fujitsu announced the ultra-portable Lifebook P1610 tablet PC. This tablet includes embedded 3G WWAN, UMTS / HSDPA, EDGE / GPRS / GSM and Bluetooth connectivity. This Windows Vista-ready unit also features a Transflective WXGA TFT, 1280×768 pixel LCD, a Core Solo processor, up to 1GB of RAM, and an 80GB HD. Weighing inat around 1 Kilo it also has a generous 4-hour battery life. I'm going to take a look at this baby myself, hopefully it uses wacom enabled pen tech as well...