I am considering a new notebook for work, something in the 12-14" range. I find myself taking paper notes often enough, and I am very disorganized when it comes to loose papers. So the thought of a Tablet PC appeals to me in that I could digitize most, of not all, of my notetaking. Other than that, what benefits does it have?
Is a Tablet PC a gimmick or can it enhance productivity?
- Thread starter TechnoPro
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The tablet pc, if used correctly and consistently, is a GREAT tool that can definately help you out.
That said, for all the gizmos you may have, for all the technology you may rely on, what it wall really coems down to is nto the capabiltiy of those tools, but whether or nto you take advantage of them.
benefits:
they are basically notebooks, so having access to wifi and everythig nthat goes alogn with that such as time-wasting you tube or, perhaps, a research website.
MS one note is a nifty note takign program that basically acts as a set of notebooks, so when you write on the tablet pages, you can organize them categorically etc.
character recoognition is available so, assuming that you don't have average handwriting these days, it should be able to turn your writing into editable text.
there are other supposed perks like art programs and the like, but from my vantage point, the main thign they offer is the pen and paper functioanlity.
You can do anythig nwith a pen and paper, and having that in digital form can open up a great deal of possibilities
That said, for all the gizmos you may have, for all the technology you may rely on, what it wall really coems down to is nto the capabiltiy of those tools, but whether or nto you take advantage of them.
benefits:
they are basically notebooks, so having access to wifi and everythig nthat goes alogn with that such as time-wasting you tube or, perhaps, a research website.
MS one note is a nifty note takign program that basically acts as a set of notebooks, so when you write on the tablet pages, you can organize them categorically etc.
character recoognition is available so, assuming that you don't have average handwriting these days, it should be able to turn your writing into editable text.
there are other supposed perks like art programs and the like, but from my vantage point, the main thign they offer is the pen and paper functioanlity.
You can do anythig nwith a pen and paper, and having that in digital form can open up a great deal of possibilities
I wholeheartedly agree with the latter part of your statement. I've spent a lot of money on gizmos where I did not leverage them in the least as far as their true potential. Case in point: PDA's. They are great, but along came the SmartPhone which has truly catapulted my productivity.
In any case, what have your experiences with a Tablet PC been like?
Thanks for the edit! Good info. there!
I do not havea tablet pc for a few reasons
1) no $$...
2) the school I want to go to REQUIREs you to purchase THEIR model tablet, so buying twice is not something that I want to do
BTW, I try to keep my smartphoen as far away from me as possible when at classes...I usaully hide it in my bag under every book I can find.
See, I have a laptop as it is now. An older 15.4" HP that works ok. It's bigger than I would like for the sake of convenience and portability. I need something that I can stash in my briefcase. It has no integrated WiFi or BT, but a card and a dongle take care of those. Battery life is down to nothing now (unit is 3.5, maybe 4 years old), so it has to be plugged in. You get the picture...
Point is, I have something, so to spend the $2,500 or so I am planning on, I need to see some ROI of sorts. Just having less paper to deal with would be huge, and the idea of a more portable device would be great. I could get more done while out in the field... All of the sudden, the "Buy Now" button has started to glow.
I always thught it woul be kind of hard to take down text notes on a tablet because of the writing surface, stylus tip size/touch screen resolution and general awakwardness of the shape (ie not flat/light as a paper_
It's clearly a gimmick...to me. I see no how that I would be able to enhance my productivity using a Tablet PC. In fact, I think I'd lose productivity.
And I thought the same thing until I staretd researching it more. From what I gather, it's nothing like the units where you sign your name on a touch screen (like a POS device.) Those suck, clearly. From reviews I've read, even people with so-so penmanship can write fairly well on tablets. Some fo the screens have textured surfaces that give some resitance under the stylus.
That's the pathetic truth. Msot of use have grown up with pen and paper, cursive, mechanical pencils.
For the mean time, even as technophiles, we face the arduous task of tryign to adopt technology without hurting productivity.
While many devices promsie increases in productivity, peopel find themselves strugglign to achieve previous levels of productivity for some times.
It's not about that . It's about not being as familar with one note as you are with a pen and pad. You will invitably come to a juncture whereby all work is halted because something goes wrong with your tablet pc solution. Dealing with that is more time consumign and more distractign than bummign a pencil off of a classmate because your's broke or whatever.
With pratice, patience, and consistency, you have the potential to make use of thetablet in quite an impressive way.
Realzie however, for it to be effective, you must LEARN HOW TO USE IT BEFORE GAME-TIME and realize that the tablet, in an of itself, is the MEANS BY WHICH YOU CAN PRODUCE and that it will not produce better works out of thin air
That's where tablets actually ahve some use.
Don't even get me started about trying to type in ANY course in an engineering curriculum besides english.
edit: may I have your Dad's tablet? ;D
Yeah, the active digitizer tablets are very accurate. The digitizer is often made by Wacom, the same company that creates graphics design tablets. It is very different from the touch screens you find on PDAs. The resolution on my machine is quite high (1400x1050 crammed into a 12" screen), but I've never had any trouble selecting anything.
Re awkwardness, I actually prefer using the pen over the touchpad or the pointing stick. At least on my Toshiba Portege M200 there is gesture support. So copy, paste, close application, etc. are all just a quick stroke of the pen while holding the side button down. It makes editing things very quick.
I recently bought one at work for one of my employees on a trial basis. Things to consider: Figure out what hardware you would normally want on a laptop and then go up at least 2 or 3 levels for what you need for the tablet. Memory and processors really take a hit on these thingsd. Its a performance hog and our regular dells that cost about 2/3 the cost were outperforming it.
Not all programs can handle the ink plugin. The Wordperfect suite is one of them but not many people rely on it so it probably isn't an issue for you. Only the most recent (or two most recent-I can't remember) versions of MS Office can handle ink.
Durability feels like an issue but so far I've been proven wrong (I'm hopeful that I will be proven wrong). I've seen several hinges on regular laptops crack and break and the ones on teh Toshiba seem weaker. I'm not sure how its going to handle in the long run.
Not all programs can handle the ink plugin. The Wordperfect suite is one of them but not many people rely on it so it probably isn't an issue for you. Only the most recent (or two most recent-I can't remember) versions of MS Office can handle ink.
Durability feels like an issue but so far I've been proven wrong (I'm hopeful that I will be proven wrong). I've seen several hinges on regular laptops crack and break and the ones on teh Toshiba seem weaker. I'm not sure how its going to handle in the long run.
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