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IBM Tablet Announced

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Jun 19, 2005 10:00 AM
from the check-out-those-pictures dept.
IBM Portables Hardware
Ahkorishaan writes "We heard from an earlier report here on Slashdot that IBM(Lenovo) had filed a patent on a TabletPC, and now they have officially announced the product. Our friends at Laptop Logic have a short review."
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IBM Tablet Announced 50 Comments More /

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  • I know for sure(can't say how) but this will never be officially supported under linux(or *bsd) don't waste your time on something that isn't worth it

    • Linux for Tablet here (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bach37 (602070) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:24AM (#12856287)
      Lycoris (I know, *grown*) has a Linux release for a tablet pc [lycoris.com]. Though this press release is dated 2003.... hmmm...
      • Edit: grown should be 'groan.' Sorry!
      • And, there were even some tablets [about.com] sold with it.

        The thing is, many of the tablets sold with it were rebadged WinXP tablets. The "manufacturer" bought these tablets WITH OS (can you say "Windows Tax"?), then wiped them, put Lycoris Tablet on (Lycoris tax), and marked them up so that they could make a profit.

        Also, I've heard the OS simply isn't up to snuff for a tablet - HWR sucks, primarily, so you're really restricted to an OSK, and those suck as a rule.
        • FWIW, Mandriva bought out Lycoris, so there could be a Mandriva-based Tablet OS sometime...

          Mandrake was one of my favorite distros when I still had a Linux box running - urpmi meant no RPM hell (if you grabbed from urpmi repositories, of course, but with Easy URPMI [zarb.org], that wasn't bad at all). I remember HATING Red Hat. I don't care for Ubuntu. I'm giving Xandros (Open Circulation, of course) a try on Virtual PC, FWIW.

  • Patent? (Score:4, Funny)

    by CMBologna (155447) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:08AM (#12856216)
    But TabletPC's exist already!

  • Is it just me or... (Score:3, Informative)

    by paulius_g (808556) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:11AM (#12856227) Homepage
    I recall seeing their tablet in their online store a week ago.

    I didn't look into details, so it may have been a simple laptop with weird rotating screen.
    • I didn't look into details, so it may have been a simple laptop with weird rotating screen

      For the most part, isn't that what a "tablet" PC is? Not really sure what makes this so earth shaking.

      • It's so earth shaking because it's IBM. IBM is often said in the same breath as "quality".

        Also, some tablet PCs are "slate" type, which means that the screen is permanently open, and there's no keyboard.

        However, this is a "convertible" type. That's a laptop with a screen that twists. It's also supposedly the smallest convertible - basically, the same spec as one of the better small slates, but slightly thicker, and it's a convertible.

        I would NEVER buy a slate, but with sufficient money, I'd buy a convert

  • Mirrordot. (Score:5, Informative)

    by wlan0 (871397) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:11AM (#12856229)
    Uh, /.ed already.

    Mirrordot here. [mirrordot.org]

  • drool (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As an artist I've been waiting for the right tablet to come along. I just wonder if it has the same "laggy" feeling of other tablets I've tried. I don't understand why a tablet would be, since mice aren't laggy at all.

  • What (Score:5, Informative)

    by lemonylimey (745130) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:16AM (#12856248)
    That's not a review, it's a summary of the press release and it's two weeks old. I'm used to commenters not RTFA, but it's getting a bit much when the posters can't be bothered either. You can find the only real review of the X41 Tablet I'm aware of here:

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1823715,00.as p [pcmag.com]
    • An excellent little 'first look' gallery of pictures:

      http://www.tabletpcreviewspot.com/default.asp?news ID=264 [tabletpcreviewspot.com]

      I currently own an X40 and I'd have to say it's the best laptop I've ever used - superb keyboard, light weight and battery life combined with the legendary IBM build quality. The 1.8" hard drive isn't the fastest out there (actually, I'd be suprised if there were any slower) but I'd say that's an acceptable compromise given the pros. I love the tablet concept so we'll see how long I'll be able
    • From the article: "It will also provide 170-degree viewing, an optional integrated fingerprint reader for unsurpassed security, the latest ThinkVantage Technologies for reliability and convenient wireless connectivity"

      Well, it might be a summary, but it looks like they copy-pasted entire sentences from a press release!
          • Grr...

            2.6 hrs on the 4-cell, up to 6.3 hrs on the 8-cell (twice the capacity - FWIW, from what I've heard, almost everyone with an X41 has the 8-cell).

            The "extended-life battery" is something that plugs into the docking connector. Not necessary if you've got the 8-cell.
            • Replying to myself, because I realized that what I said made little sense...

              Chances are, the 4-cell number is estimated normal, the 8-cell number is theoretical maximum.

  • Who is going to make the money? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Crimson Dragon (809806) * on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:17AM (#12856253) Homepage
    Well, it looks like IBM will continue to have business relations with Apple, just not what they intended [thinksecret.com]!
    • What do you mean?

      Apple has been awarded a patent on the design - not the concept. The same seems to be the case with IBM/Lenovo.

      Patents can be applied to industrial design as well as solutions to a problem. The only way IBM/Lenovo would need to talk to Apple is if they included any of the features in the Apple patent and I'm sure they won't have as IBM designs are very black, matt and angular while Apple's design is glossy, white and curved.
  • Wildstrom at BusinessWeek likes the X41 [businessweek.com] a lot!
  • i love how IBM's thinkpads still look nearly the same as they did 15 years ago and they still look cool.
  • I love IBM ThinkPads. If cost were no object, a ThinkPad would be my first choice for a notebook. Now having said that, I just can't find that much use for these Tablet PCs. My handwriting is atrocious, so I'd rather type. If I need to draw a picture or diagram I'll use a piece of paper and scan it in later.
    • My handwriting is even worse, but the recogniser does an unbelievably good job of reading it. It's funny to look at people's faces when the computer converts what they've just written (and I can't even read) with 100% accuracy.
      • Maybe I'll have to give it another try. The last time I used handwriting recognition was with my Pocket PC 2002, which didn't hardly work at all.
      • (This is all assuming that the recognizer that comes with Office 2003 is the same as the one that the Tablet PCs use)

        I've actually played around with O2K3's handwriting recognition with a mouse, which means it's all even more atrocious than normal, with about 95% accuracy. That's pretty cool.

        If I had the money, I'd get one of these, but I don't, so I'm sticking with an X21 that I'm getting.

  • Lame Links (Score:5, Informative)

    by fm6 (162816) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:59AM (#12856391) Homepage Journal
    TFA isn't a review -- it's just a rehash of the IBM announcement. Plus it's on a site with zero Slashdot compatibility. Wny not link the IBM/Lenovo page [ibm.com] directly? Probably because the submitter wanted to promote his site.

  • Is IBM even in the business? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Sunday June 19 2005, @11:11AM (#12856444) Homepage Journal
    I thought IBM sold off their PC and laptop business??

    • They did. IBM still sells the laptops on their website. Infact part of the deal was to use the IBM name for the laptops. If you look on their site, you'll notice the true manufacturer is listed in several places.

      I decided never to buy IBM computers again after the sale. I don't have a problem with a chinese company owning ibm's desktop/laptop divison, but I do have a problem with the chinese government owning a large stake in it. (I'd also have a problem with my government owning a stake in a company)
  • In case you want to read the article, here it is...

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  • Will IBM realize whom to sell Tablets? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by danimrich (584138) on Sunday June 19 2005, @11:21AM (#12856513) Homepage Journal

    I hope IBM will make Tablet PCs useful for college students, for the education market and for artists.
    Current Tablets are not very attractive because of

    • short battery life (if you're going to use your tablet for classes, you need more than 2 hours--anything over 4 hours would be best)
    • high price tags
    Tablets are currently targeted at executives, but there are surely a lot of students, graphics freelancers etc. around who would possibly buy a Tablet if it were useful and affordable.
    • Gee. I never knew I only got 2 hours out of my tablet... I guess it might be the exchange rate and all.

      Seriously, I get 3-4.5 hours from my tablet, depending on wifi use and whether I record the lecture or not, double that with an external battery (I leave it to recharge in my backpack, with the zipper open). And I just checked, my M200 would now be around 1500 USD. For a powerful (P-M 1.5-2.0 GHz) 12" with a 1400x1050 screen and a discrete graphic accelerator, I don't think it's that bad. If you want to g

  • Tablet PC fallacies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nostriluu (138310) on Sunday June 19 2005, @01:03PM (#12857007) Homepage
    I've had a Toshiba M200 for almost a year. Its a very popular tablet. It weighs a bit more than this new Lenovo, but has a higher screen res (1400x1050) and a faster CPU and probably hard disk (mine is a 60GB 7200 RPM drive). It also has a tilt sensing accelerometer, but I'm not aware of any cool applications for that. :)

    Just to swipe at a few fallacies:

    1. As a tablet, its a decently powerful machine. Pentium M @1600 mhz is a nice chip, and it supports up to 2 GB RAM. I used to disdain notebooks and always go for custom built desktops, but its been my full time workstation since I got it.

    2. It was more expensive, but not much more than a comparable good quality notebook. Certainly not cheap though.

    3. Battery life is up to four hours.

    4. Getting Linux to run on it is a pain, but that has more to do with laptop power management functions and other non Tablet details. Several people (who have more dedication/knowledge than me) have gotten theirs running fully, including pen input.

    For my *nix needs, I currently use CoLinux; I can run a CoLinux instance (which is running X, Gnome, and server stuff like Apache and Mysql), Eclipse on the Windows side, a bunch of Firefox browsers on both sides (which use the most memory), VNC @ 1400x1050x16 into the Linux side, and assorted shells and its still comfortably usable for dev with 1 GB of RAM.

    5. I almost never use the pen for text input, but the convertible form factor is very handy (for example, when on a train/plane or reading on the couch) and using the pen is a nice alternative to the mouse/trackpad (I do wish it had a trackpoint).

    6. All the Journal/Onenote stuff seems interesting, but I haven't really checked it out since it doesn't have much to do with my main work and I don't feel particularly inclined to commit to anything from one vendor.

    The speech integration is cool, and after MS did an update I notice it responds to some words especially well (it favours pronounciation of "United Nations").

    7. It has a dedicated button to take you to Windows Task Manager (where you view and kill processes). The button icon represents a toilet plunger. Very apropos. This is probably to cover for the fact that there has been a memory leak problem with the MS tablet software 'tcserver' for some time that MS has refused to fix. After a week or so of operation it gobbles up a bunch of RAM. Go Microsoft.

    Note I'm talking about a convertible, not a true tablet, which don't have an attached keyboard and are lighter. If any of the above sounds good to you or you just like trying new stuff, you might want to consider a similar device.

  • Vendors miss the boat on tablets... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WareW01f (18905) on Sunday June 19 2005, @03:05PM (#12857580)
    My personal annoyance about the "tablet PC" market is that latter part... the "PC". When they first started the craze way back in 2000 or so, I thought, it would be a cool idea. Meaning just a tablet Something with a nice, readable screen (digital paper was all the buzz as well) that I could use to read normal 8.5x11 documentation on. Maybe take notes, but that's it You know, like a tablet of paper. Simple, thin, low power. Kind of an over grown PDA. I don't want the PC part, I have a nice desktop for when I'm at my desk and a pretty swell laptop that I do work on in a more mobile fasion (read coffee shop hacking). The missing piece is the tablet. Something to take with when I walk away from both. Something I can read on the bus, or curl up in a chair with.

    Yes I have a stack of PDA's in my junk drawer. I read quite a bit on a Palm III and I'm up to watching vids on the bus on my PalmOne LiveDrive. It's not the same. I can't sit outside and read (can't see the screen in direct light) and I still end up carrying a notebook and killing trees to print RFC's (laser double-sided, 2-up... I don't need back problems as well as getting stoned by tree huggers)

    Is it a plot by the paper companies? (Or ink/toner sellers?) This is what's keeping paper alive. It's all these reviewers that complain that this tablet is a little wimpy on the processor or that tablet won't replace a laptop. Duh! Not the point. Charging $2k plus ain't going to help either. Let's take a big step back, and work on good old hirez, black and white text folks, you know, like in every best selling book, manual and most all newspapers. Then we can go WiFi and bluetooth keyboards and the mess.

    Am I alone here?

  • Resolution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Insount (11174) * <slashdot2eran@trome[ ]rg ['r.o' in gap]> on Sunday June 19 2005, @03:09PM (#12857610) Homepage
    It still has the lousy 1024x768 XGA display resolution, like all X series ThinkPads. At 12.1" they could pack much more than that at the same DPI as other ThinkPad models (e.g., 1400x1050 in 14.1" and 1600x1200 in 15" for the T series).

    My primary potential use for a convertible in tablet mode is as an e-book reader, for reading and annotating those lengthy PDF documents. A width of 768 pixels is just not enough to produce sharp text when viewing a PDF document preformatted for paper, especially if you want the page to fit vertically too.

    • Re:slashvertising (Score:5, Informative)

      by kinzillah (662884) <douglas.price@[ ... u ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:37AM (#12856334)
      Lenovo has been manufacturing IBM's laptops for quite some time. The only difference is that they bought the division from IBM. They even kept the IBM employees. This was actually something they specifically had to have in the deal. They wanted everything to remain the same, only with a new owner.
    • Think UPS delivery, drug reps visiting a doctor, using it as disply material, etc.

      Anyone who needs to share quick information and maybe capture a signature. Anyone making a stand up sales presentation to someone on the go. Being able to hold the tablet so both can see it is clearly an advantage in these situations.

      • I can take notes and leave them in my handwriting rather than try and convert everything to text.

        If you do that then your notes are not greppable. On the other hand, converting them to text after the meeting concludes takes extra time. This is a good argument for bringing an ordinary laptop, as opposed to a tablet pc, into a meeting. I suppose it's much easier to draw quick diagrams on a tablet PC, but if your notes are mostly textual, best to use the keyboard.

        • On the other hand, converting them to text after the meeting concludes takes extra time.

          Also, I can type a hell of a lot faster than I can scrawl out my chicken scratch. God help anyone else who would have to read that off my tablet too, I wouldn't even want to.
        • Actually, no. They're searchable even when not converted. You know, like, the search tool also does the HWR on the fly? Bringing a laptop in a meeting is distracting: not only is there an additional barrier between you and the other people (visual contact IS important, even in this age), but the noise of the keyboard rapidly get annoying (and I feel sorry for you if your keyboard isn't even slightly clicky :p). My TPC (the M200), otoh, lets me take notes anywhere on presentations, just like on paper, AND bo

      • Re:slashvertising (Score:4, Informative)

        by weileong (241069) on Sunday June 19 2005, @11:15AM (#12856471)
        actually, when I got to use a tablet PC (via my ex-employer), I really liked just sitting down at the couch with it and reading e.g. *cough* slashdot during, say, commercials between programs (or even with the TV off :-). I definitely don't do graphic design (I can't draw :-).

        it's not just useful when you're going to *input* info, but also when you're just referring to stuff without any need to type anything in response.

        it's much easier to wield when there's no keyboard in the way - nice to just have a "video slate" where you can drag-drop links onto firefox tabs :-)

        One thing, though - I've tried quite a lot of tablet PCs, but I find that the *only* one's i've really liked were those with actual touchscreens, and not the wacom-tablet-like RF-sensing screens. And in my experience that means only Panasonic tablet PCs. I don't know about screen longetivity where you actually have to press the stylus onto it etc., but the *feel* is just ... wrong when it's not a physical-pressure-touchscreen and one of those RF-sensing types.

    • Re:Not novel by any means (Score:4, Informative)

      by Deathlizard (115856) on Sunday June 19 2005, @10:54AM (#12856377) Homepage Journal
      There's really two notable things here. It's IBM and it's small.

      I've played with an X41 non tablet a few months ago. It wasn't the most powerful thing out there, but the small size of it made it really attractable. It weighed almost nothing, and the keyboard had a great feel for a laptop that was it's size. If the tablet has anything close to the feel of the X41 then it's definitely got potential here.

      As for the IBM name, you pay a premium for it but there is nothing outside of a tougbook that can touch IBM when it comes to reliability and overall toughness of their laptops. I've seen IBM R51's (it's the laptops we give to students on campus) affected by drinks, candle wax, a flood, cigarette burns, run over by a car, and
      even dropped from three stories and they still would turn on under those conditions. I can't imagine a latitude or an armada take that much abuse and still be functional. This isn't even getting into the IBM support side when it comes to fixing these problems. We do all the IBM support on campus and their RMA system is hard to beat.

      If this tablet PC has any of these qualities, it's going to be pretty attractive to Execs and IT departments looking for their new computer replacement.
    • The real irony is that everybody's saying "IBM's first tablet PC, why are they so late?"

      However, the ThinkPad 700T, the FIRST ThinkPad, was a slate tablet, and released only a year after Toshiba released the first tablet.

      IBM also released a couple of convertible tablets, the 750P (IIRC) and the 360P (again, IIRC). They didn't fold the same way, but they still counted. (The screen was held in a frame. The screen could be flipped on the frame, and the lid shut, and it'd be in slate mode).
    • In this case IBM is only a brand name. It is made by Lenovo. IBM have sold their PC making business to them.
      • Actually, the X40 and X41 use Intel graphics...

        iEG2 for the X40, iGMA900 for the X41.

        IIRC, Intel's wireless is supported under Linux, thanks to them FINALLY open-sourcing the drivers, so the only thing that won't work is the modem - not a big deal. And, depending on the modem brand, it may still be supported.
    • So true...I used to spec IBM laptops for our company, but I won't use Lenovo, so now I'm stuck looking for a replacement laptop vendor. I have no idea who to use and am tempted to just make people use what they have for the next 2 years and then buy dual boot intel Apple laptops, if they exist yet...

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