Disclaimer

The content of this blog is my personal opinion only. Although I am an employee - currently of Nvidia, in the past of other companies such as Iagination Technologies, MIPS, Intellectual Ventures, Intel, AMD, Motorola, and Gould - I reveal this only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I may have towards my employer's products. The statements I make here in no way represent my employer's position, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of my employer. In fact, this posting may not even represent my personal opinion, since occasionally I play devil's advocate.

See http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcxddbtr_23cg5thdfj for photo credits.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

ISO New Tablet PC

(Posted originally on LinkedIn's TabletPC forum. No responses, so I'm looking.)

I'm about to start shopping for a new tablet PC, and am looking for recommendations.

This will be my 5th tablet or pen based computer. Unfortunately, my satisfaction runs only 50%:

1) Compaq Concerto (GOOD)

2) Epson EHT-400c (BAD)

3) Toshiba Portege 2505 (GOOD)

4) Toshiba M400 (BAD)

Unfortunately, my most recent TabletPC, the Toshiba M400, was decidedly unsatisfactory. Way too loud. Too many trips to shop. I have given up using it, and am giving it away to a relative. I bought it sight unseen (and un-listened-to) from Toshiba's website --- a mistake I swear I will never make again. I suspect that I erred in choosing the highest frequency (and hence hottest) CPU around.

I hope that my next TabletPC will be more satisfactory.

My wife quite likes her HP Pavillion tx2500 TabletPC. I may get that, although I usually want a higher end TabletPC - larger screen, more disk space.

My wish-list:
* convertible - keyboard attached
* as many pixels as possible - e.g. 1400x1050, preferably larger
* good display management, handling docking/undocking changing display pixels
* ability to drive at least one external monitor, independently - I often use my portable PC docked, using an external monitor and the portable PC as an extra display.
* big disk - at least 250GB, preferably 500GB
* I am highly likely to want to run at least 2 or 3 virtual machines on it - my company's work environment (Windows), and my personal environment (TabletPC, but also Linux) - and hence need lots of space. E.g.my Toshiba M400 had toolittle disk space, and I needed to upgrade it.
* Preferably processor made by my employer -I must show at least a modicum of corporate loyalty.
* Fingerprint a nice to have


Blue-sky wish-list:
* accepts video input, so it can act as a second display for some other laptop

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