Well I tried the ViewSonic tablet at CompUSA. Definitely ugly, though the wide margins around the screen do provide an area for the thumb to grip while holding it. I barely tried the writing recognition, but it didn't work well for me. It also seemed to a bit clunky to get it to recognize/convert the writing to text. Instead of doing it on the fly or with a simple button, it required selecting a lasso, using the lasso to select the text to convert, go to a menu and select the Convert Text menu command. Then it presents you with a window of what it guesses the writing may match, none of which matched what I wrote (which was TabletPC). That certainly left me non-plussed.
My biggest gripe though is that it's still too heavy. A laptop sits on a table or a lap, so the only time the weight is an issue is when you lug it from place to place. With the tablet, you hold it in one hand, not supported on anything, potentially for extended times. Looking up the specs, it appears the ViewSonic is 3.4lbs. Now I'm not a weakling, but I really don't think I'd want to try to hold this up for half an hour or more.