What are some of the best tablet PCs?

[Fox5]

Any recommendations? I know of Lenovo's new X41(which is very weak), and the Toshiba Tecra(which is rather heavy), and not really any others.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Why is the X41 weak?

 

[Fox5]

It has a 1ghz processor and only integrated graphics, and I believe only a 4200RPM harddrive as well.

It's a laptop/tablet hybrid, but really only has the power for the tablet part of the equation, it's a rather low end laptop.(or you could call it one of the ultraportable laptops, though I think it's a shy bit heavier than most of them)

 

[fbrdphreak]

Intel Pentium M Processor LV 758 (1.5GHz, 90nm technology, 2MB L2 cache) or Intel Pentium M Processor ULV 753 (1.2GHz, 130nm technology, 2MB L2 cache)

What are you talking about? Besides, a P-M 1GHz will be plenty fast for the uses of a TABLET PC. Tablet's aren't designed for multimedia or gaming. Most tablets have integrated graphics now; the heat reduction and lower power consumption are well worth it. Again, tablet's are not designed for multimedia or gaming.
The HDD is unfortunately 4200RPM, but this is (A) common and (B) upgradeable.
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/06/06/2005/277/0/

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Intel Pentium M Processor LV 758 (1.5GHz, 90nm technology, 2MB L2 cache) or Intel Pentium M Processor ULV 753 (1.2GHz, 130nm technology, 2MB L2 cache)

What are you talking about? Besides, a P-M 1GHz will be plenty fast for the uses of a TABLET PC. Tablet's aren't designed for multimedia or gaming. Most tablets have integrated graphics now; the heat reduction and lower power consumption are well worth it. Again, tablet's are not designed for multimedia or gaming.
The HDD is unfortunately 4200RPM, but this is (A) common and (B) upgradeable.
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/06/06/2005/277/0/

Except the idea of the Tablet is basically dead, the tablet/laptop hybrids are the new in thing.
Toshiba has the 6lb Tecra which has a 6600 gpu, along with a higher speed P-M.

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Intel Pentium M Processor LV 758 (1.5GHz, 90nm technology, 2MB L2 cache) or Intel Pentium M Processor ULV 753 (1.2GHz, 130nm technology, 2MB L2 cache)

What are you talking about? Besides, a P-M 1GHz will be plenty fast for the uses of a TABLET PC. Tablet's aren't designed for multimedia or gaming. Most tablets have integrated graphics now; the heat reduction and lower power consumption are well worth it. Again, tablet's are not designed for multimedia or gaming.
The HDD is unfortunately 4200RPM, but this is (A) common and (B) upgradeable.
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/06/06/2005/277/0/

Except the idea of the Tablet is basically dead, the tablet/laptop hybrids are the new in thing.
Toshiba has the 6lb Tecra which has a 6600 gpu, along with a higher speed P-M.

I suspect that you have never used a tablet before. I'm currently typing on a Acer Travelmate with 256 megs of ram and a 800 mhz PIII-M. It does everything I need it to do with a minimum amount of lag. I've used the hp, toshiba, motion (dell) and fujitsu's tablets. I'm waiting for my X41s to come in. Fully loaded they have a 758 low voltage p-m, 2 gigs of ram and weigh less then 4 pounds. If you're really using the tablet for it's "tablet" abilities, this will be more then enough processing power. If you want a game laptop, get a i9300 or xps gen 2.

 

[Fox5]

No possibility for a hybrid of both?
Don't need something with the power of a 6600, but it'd be nice to have better than intel integrated graphics, such as an x300 or ati's integrated graphics

And how exactly is the 4200RPM harddrive upgradable? Buy a seperate harddrive and add it in?

 

[mickles]

Yeah, that's all there is to it.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Fox5
No possibility for a hybrid of both?
Don't need something with the power of a 6600, but it'd be nice to have better than intel integrated graphics, such as an x300 or ati's integrated graphics

And how exactly is the 4200RPM harddrive upgradable? Buy a seperate harddrive and add it in?

If you don't need a 6600 then (A) you aren't planning on gaming and (B) you don't need discrete graphics. Integrated graphics don't put a big hit on system performance and if you get a Sonoma (PCI-E) based system with GMA900 graphics it isn't a big deal AT ALL.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: Fox5
No possibility for a hybrid of both?
Don't need something with the power of a 6600, but it'd be nice to have better than intel integrated graphics, such as an x300 or ati's integrated graphics

And how exactly is the 4200RPM harddrive upgradable? Buy a seperate harddrive and add it in?

If you don't need a 6600 then (A) you aren't planning on gaming and (B) you don't need discrete graphics. Integrated graphics don't put a big hit on system performance and if you get a Sonoma (PCI-E) based system with GMA900 graphics it isn't a big deal AT ALL.

I believe the IBM does have a GMA900.
And I'm not interested in doing heavy gaming on the laptop, that's what I'll have a desktop for, but I'm getting this laptop because I'm going to college, and the possibility exists that maybe I'll be sitting at a table with a bunch of other people and maybe they'll decide to play CS:Source or some other slightly demanding game.(that, and I'm worried about the drivers for the intel graphics, I've heard some pretty bad horror stories for past integrated graphics, particularly intel's)

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Fox5
I believe the IBM does have a GMA900.
And I'm not interested in doing heavy gaming on the laptop, that's what I'll have a desktop for, but I'm getting this laptop because I'm going to college, and the possibility exists that maybe I'll be sitting at a table with a bunch of other people and maybe they'll decide to play CS:Source or some other slightly demanding game.(that, and I'm worried about the drivers for the intel graphics, I've heard some pretty bad horror stories for past integrated graphics, particularly intel's)

Intel's GMA900 drivers are fine. The Extreme2 drivers weren't great, with one particular bug that involved Office 2003, but they were fine for integrated graphics. And you are correct, the X41 Tablet does use GMA900.
If you want to be able to whip out your tablet and game on a whim, you don't want a tablet. Tablet's are not designed to be coffee shop gamers, they are designed for functionality and portability.
What you need is a 12-14" notebook with X600/X700 graphics. What you want doesn't really exist

EDIT I believe what you were talking about is this:
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cde...-26374&coid=-29325&poid=295672&seg=HHO
That's about the best you are going to get; keep in mind batt life will be down due to the discrete graphics and it is a "TE" model indicating it shares memory from the system RAM.

 

[Fox5]

The Tecra is still fast enough to play any current games at low res.
Unfortunately, it weights over 6 pounds, which seems like it would hurt its functionality as a tablet.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Fox5
The Tecra is still fast enough to play any current games at low res.
Unfortunately, it weights over 6 pounds, which seems like it would hurt its functionality as a tablet.

Correctomundo

 

[Fox5]

So anyhow, no new tablets coming out in the near future?
How about any price drops? If not, I might as well go order my X41 right now, or are there any IBM price drops I should wait for?

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Fox5
So anyhow, no new tablets coming out in the near future?
How about any price drops? If not, I might as well go order my X41 right now, or are there any IBM price drops I should wait for?

I wouldn't hold my breath on an X41 Tablet price drop

I'm not as up with tablets, but if you check the major manufacturers and see how many of them are using the 855 platform. If they aren't on the 915 chipset, they probly will be soon; hence release coming soon

 

[Fox5]

Hmm, true.
I also noticed that Fujitsu and I believe HP have laptops with similar specs to IBM's Thinkpad, but for lower prices, what's the difference?