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Portables Hardware

Hardware Makers Unhappy With Tablet Sales 299

Posted by michael from the microsoft-tax dept.
rocketjam writes "According to The Register, hardware manufacturers, tired of continued low sales of the much-hyped tablet PC, are beginning to speak out, complaining that Microsoft has not marketed the platform enough and has over-priced licenses for its Windows XP Tablet Edition. The predicted demand for the devices has not materialized; faced with the tablet's premium pricing, consumers have continued to opt for lower-priced notebooks."
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Hardware Makers Unhappy With Tablet Sales More

Hardware Makers Unhappy With Tablet Sales

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  • If you have ever tried to use a tablet, you will probably come to the same conclusion we have. They suck as a form-factor. They are undoubtedly cool, but in the long run, they really don't let you do any serious work.

    I have worked with both the Fujitsu-Siemens as well as the Compaq tablets, have run Linux as well as Windows on both, and they simply get in between yourself and serious work.

    The interface requires too much attention of the user, and the handwriting recognition, while pretty good on Windows, also requires too much attention. On Linux you would have to use some palm-type strok business, or even better, the excellent Dasher [cam.ac.uk] application.

    Besides specialist applications, such as in hospitals for example, the form factor only really comes into its own during meetings, but it simply does not (yet) offer the simplicity of the two primary office tools: The humble pen and paper.

    This is not a marketing or cost issue, it is a form-factor issue. They are cool, but all our demo and test models have their novelty worn off, and are currently going unused. At least we did not pay for them.....

    • Re:ever tried to use one for serious work....? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Davak ( 526912 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:50AM (#7307685) Homepage
      Even in the hospital setting, they are not all that great yet.

      Several different physicians I know have tried the tablet form... only to switch back to a PDA or notebook.

      The tablet seems perfect; however, the problem in medicine is the problem everywhere else... input. In increasing amounts history/physicals, progress notes, clinic visits, and orders are being inputted directly into the system by typing. The other predominate way is by dictation... which allows somebody else to type it into the system.

      Tablet PCs do not speed up this process in any way. It's still quicker to type or dictate, than to use this format.

      Many physicians use PDAs for all the same reasons most geeks use PDAs... however, very few of the reasons are related to medicine. Every medical student knows that a PDA allows for a quick reference on rounds to spice up one's knowledge. The tablet would allow the same info... in just a larger format.

      Anyway, we docs wanted to love the tablet... it's just not practical enough... yet.
      • The tablet seems perfect; however, the problem in medicine is the problem everywhere else... input. In increasing amounts history/physicals, progress notes, clinic visits, and orders are being inputted directly into the system by typing. The other predominate way is by dictation... which allows somebody else to type it into the system.

        I'm curious, what about voice recognition? Is the amount of technical jargon too great for current technology? I'd think simultaneous voice recording and voice recognition w

        • Re:ever tried to use one for serious work....? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Davak ( 526912 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:25AM (#7307978) Homepage
          That's a good point... and we've been trying it. We are currently piloting two systems--one that requires vocal training and one that does not. We're doing it this way because most docs will not take the time to do the training.

          The only reason that this is a consideration is because even the dictation people miss a bunch of words... so everything dictated as to be re-edited. If voice to text systems get 95%, it might be usable and would save an assload of money.

          Digital dictation systems that connect to software for transcription haven't worked well either.

          Of course, it doesn't help that we docs were all trained to dictate, scratch something unreadable in the chart, and move on.

          Davak
    • The CEO of our company was an early adopter of the Tablet PC (Toshiba) and he's actually very happy with it. However I have noted that he rarely ever uses it in it's tablet mode. He is more oft to use it as a nice mini notebook.

      Now while the Toshiba makes a very nice notebook (albeit a weak one with a PIII processor) it is WAYYYY overpriced as a notebook. I have used our CEO as an example to prevent any further purchases. I nice Dell lattitude can be had for much less.

      • "...WAYYYY overpriced as a notebook."

        Yep, and underpowered. If someone came out with one of these babys using a Centrino processor or better, then I would have considered buying or recomending one to my clients. But when a client asks me to recommend a notebook, well, I just can't recommend something with a PIII processor at this point.

        For example, someone noted above that the Tablet PC's main use within his company seemed to be during meetings. That's fine, and some of my clients could use that funtional

    • Unused?!! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rosewood ( 99925 )
      In all seriousness, donate off those mofos for tax write offs.

      I work for a non proffit in KS and would gladly get you the paperwork to get those things donated over. They might not work in the office but in the classroom, which is where I work, they work GREAT.

      (ergo the selling problem -- too expensive for those that need it)
    • Yes I have.

      and in the right applications they are perfect.

      Problem is that Tablet PC's are a vertical market. they always have been even from the very first one, the Dauphin DTR-1 I used in a chemistry lab in 1992.

      Tablet Pc's have been around for over 10 years, and every time microsoft get's around to actually making a OS for it, they try to market it for everyone and that is a bold faced lie. Tablet pc's have very distinct uses. they are NOT for everyone.

      and finally they are too damned big now. the dau

    • Re:ever tried to use one for serious work....? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yog ( 19073 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:14AM (#7307937) Homepage Journal
      The tablet as currently conceived by Microsoft and its hardware partners is not much of an innovation. What would be truly innovative would be simply to add touch screens to laptops. I don't know how many times I've watched a computer neophyte look at a dialogue box with a big, fat "OK" button at the bottom and not have the slightest notion what to do.

      On the other hand, the Palm, followed by WinCE/PPC clones, achieved tablet PC status years ago and is the true innovator in this area.

      Consider how far the laptop/desktop family is from being a true appliance, and how close the Palmtop family is.

      To use a laptop, you must do the following steps:

      - open the clamshell, locate the little power button and turn it on.

      - watch as it comes to life; little LEDs light up, and after a minute or so you see the Windows splash screen.

      - Wait until you see either a login screen or the actual desktop (depends on versions of Windows, how configured, etc.)

      - Wait another minute or so while all the little proggies in the System Tray initialize and load. Watch Yahoo Messenger announce, irrelevantly, that it is logging you in.

      - If you were savvy enough to understand "hybernation", you may have skipped a couple of these steps, but why should a user have to know the difference between hybernating and shutting down?

      - Optionally, see one or two "Windows Update" messages pop up that you don't understand and aren't interested in.

      - Now, find the application you are seeking--typically, your word processor, spreadsheet, PIM, or browser. It may be represented by a little icon among a sea of icons on the desktop, since you don't know anything about folders and other tricks to keep things clean. Or, it may be hidden somewhere deep in the Start menu; for example, Start->Programs->Adobe->Acrobat->Reade r (or something like that).

      - Watch the application's splash screen announce its existence. Then, the application comes up. Now, at last, you can get to work, though you must play by the rules of the application.

      - When you are done working, you can't simply close the computer; you must "save your work", a task which neophytes do not understand. You don't need to "save your work" when you turn off your television; it remembers what channel you were on last time. Yet, you must do this mysterious thing with your wordpro/spreadsheet or else you will "lose your work", something your long-suffering computer literate friends will angrily scold you about.

      - Now, you shut down the system, either by Start->Shutdown->Turn off Computer, or by pressing power switch (in recent hardware and Windows versions) or by closing the clamshell (in recent hardware).

      With the Palm/PPC, your main obstacle is finding your app amongst the icons. Chances are, you're using one of the apps bound to a hardware button anyway; just press Calendar, the thing pops on and poof! you're looking at today's schedule. No fuss, no muss. Just point at the thing you want, start writing on it, etc.

      I believe the so-called Tablet PC will go away soon and we will, one hopes, see what little innovations it did possess finding their way into conventional laptops where they belong, minus Microsoft's hefty royalty overhead.

      • The tablet as currently conceived by Microsoft and its hardware partners is not much of an innovation.
        "not much of an innovation"? I nominate that for the understatement of the year award. Tablets were made by Grid, Eo (AT&T), NCR, and others a decade ago. No one wanted them back then, and no one wants them now. What a surprise.

    • Yah. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TheLink ( 130905 )
      What I'd really want would be a wearable server (not the type Intel is talking about). It'll run a webserver + db, and a web-browser. Users will mainly be using the browser to interact with it. Cert based authentication (https).

      The display would be one of those snazzy shades/glasses.

      For input - a tiny camera, a tiny microphone, something that detects where my eyes are looking at and a small keypad at my waist or that thought pattern recognition thing.

      There's also network input - where me or permitted par
      • There is a big difference between:

        - handwriting recognition that takes pen movement as an input, and allows user to correct the mis-recognized text (this is what everything uses -- with moderate success),

        - handwriting recognition that uses pen movement as an input without a feedback (what can work, but usually only after either user or computer will go through a lot of learning in a feedback mode),

        - "handwriting recognition" that takes the images of written text as an input (what is something that even h
    • Besides specialist applications, such as in hospitals for example

      A PDA should suffice for most hospital applications.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And lo, let me preach unto thee the ten commandments !

    Er - hang on a minute, my tablet just crashed ...

  • why? GUI/touchscreen probs, clunkyness... (Score:5, Informative)

    by davids-world.com ( 551216 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:24AM (#7307630) Homepage
    M$ did a lot of marketing for the tablets. I keep seeing ads for them, and they have a big section on their web site.

    the real reason that it hasn't caught on might also be that the digitizers and or the windows GUI handling aren't good enough to make using the touchscreen and the stylus an acceptable user experience.

    we have these things at my lab (for multimodal HCI studies), and while the handwriting recognition of Win Tablet isn't too bad, clicking on things in the GUI is way too unreliable. the windows GUI doesn't allow ambiguous inputs (selecting an area rather than a point), as they would occur with a finger and as they do occur when the digitizer isn't good enough. here, either the GUI should become more robust (= fault-tolerant) or the digitizers should become better. probably both. (tried with a top-notch acer centrino tablet!)

    other issues with the tablet is the sheer size and weight of these things. still waiting for apple to come up with a really thin tablet that you actually WANT to take anywhere. at the moment, the tablet's i have seen suffer from over-weight, clunky-ness, short battery-life...

    my prediction is that in a couple of years these problems will be solved and people will enjoy clicking on items directly (and maybe handwriting) rather than using a stupid trackpad...!

  • Total cost difference is $200 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:25AM (#7307633)
    It says the total cost difference between a tablet and comparable notebook is about $200. Of that amount only $30-$60 is due to hardware, the rest is the extra software licensing cost. That is a $140-$170 premium for Windows XP Tablet Edition. To me, for a machine that costs a few thousand, even a $200 difference does not seem that much. Or maybe people just haven't gotten used to the technology enough to make it a worthwhile purchase yet?

    It is sad, we have arrived in a day and age where it seems as though every new technology that comes around the block needs to make it big in the first couple years , or it is considered a failure. Real improvements in productivity don't happen that way. They can take many years before the returns are actually realized. The people who use the technology don't learn it overnight. In fact, it is only now that many companies are finally starting to see a decent return on their investments in technology in the late 1990's.
    • $200 my ass. Most tablet PCs average $2000. You can by a decent laptop somewhat under $1000, and it even has a keyboard!!!

      Tablet PCs are not a bad idea, but it's just not worth the extra $700-$1000.

      I personally wouldn't mind having a couple of those and run Reason and Ableton Live side-by-side. Tweaking knobs on screen in real-time using a stylus is much better than using a mouse.

      But do I want to spend $2000 on a tablet PC? Or would I rather by 2 low-end laptops and a couple Wacom tablets?
      • I personally wouldn't mind having a couple of those and run Reason and Ableton Live side-by-side. Tweaking knobs on screen in real-time using a stylus is much better than using a mouse.

        No way. Even better than that is to get a simple MIDI controller like an Oxygen 8 [midiman.net] and tweak real knobs in real time. Use the right tool for the right job.
    • On the other hand, some new technologies fail because they were invented for marketing purposes, to drive sales, when people really neither want nor need the technology.

      It happens.

      Clipboard - couple bucks
      Piece of paper- some fraction of a cent
      Pen- Free if you steal it. Agree to take a survey at the mall and then just walk away
      Functionality - overall superiour to a tablet PC, especially with the advancing state of OCR software

      Tablets have two real functions, Filling out standard forms, such as you might d
      • I guess the real value of the tablet is that you can look up info. I think it would be great for an assistant to have that could look up what the sales for last year were, or what is the correct spelling of some silly word.
        • Certainly, but a good deal of that functionality really falls into the ebook catagory. Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Quarterly reports and such. Bundle one with the OED and the Britannica and the deal and usefullness suddenly shoot up.

          Certainly the ability to run a real database and grep text is a real advantage, but crippled without a real keyboard. Pen input devices are really nifty for making checkmarks and such. Much better than a keyboard or mouse, but they really are no match for inputing text and I d
      • No kidding. I've seen tablet computers as far back as the very early 1990's. They are not new or invented by Microsoft. There is a market for them though and it's been doing OK since it's really a niche market. No matter what Bill Gates says. Remember, "64 MB is enough for anybody" or something like that.

        IMHO, Bill G and gang are promoting the tablet because they've been having such a difficult time with WinCE. WinCE doesn't scale DOWN very well so they are attempting to create a market between the PDA and
      • Well, I think the biggest market for tablets is for graphic designers who can design on-the-go with stylus in hand. For this purpose it is really useful. However, Microsoft seems to not be marketing to this audience at all.

    • It is sad, we have arrived in a day and age where it seems as though every new technology that comes around the block needs to make it big in the first couple years , or it is considered a failure.

      Tablets have actually been around for a while. I remember lusting after the Linux tablets several years ago. Then Microsoft came in with its billions in marketing, and I've not heard of Linux tablets again (though I think they're starting to resurface).

      Repeat with me: Just because Microsoft does something doe

    • It says the total cost difference between a tablet and comparable notebook is about $200.

      I assume he's talking about the production cost. Certainly the retail price difference is more than $200.

      It seems to me that the major reason tablet PCs are not selling well is that they are a solution in search of a problem. A tablet PC is bigger and heavier than a PDA; and, for that matter, a clipbboard. A notebook PC, of course, comes with a keyboard.

      Personally, the only thing I can see that a tablet PC

      • Personally, the only thing I can see that a tablet PC gives me over a notebook is the ability to do something I don't want to do -- write in longhand.

        Unless, of course, you're standing up and trying to take notes. Or trying to take notes in mathematics or physics. These applications make trying to use a keyboard an exercise in farce. Also, you need something considerably larger than a palm pilot just to write out a single integral equation.

        You could just use paper and a pen, that is if you don't mind sea
    • It is sad, we have arrived in a day and age where it seems as though every new technology that comes around the block needs to make it big in the first couple years , or it is considered a failure.

      The first tablets were around in the early 90's so I don't think it's still in "the first couple years".

  • Quit yer whining (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Quixote ( 154172 )
    Here's a suggestion (offered free) to the tablet makers: why not support Linux on these tablets? If you remove the cost of the software, the price of the tablets will come down, maybe just enough to sustain the platform.

    With the availibility of OSS, bitchin' about proprietary software makes no sense. (Oh no, not the Chewbacca defense!)

    IMHO, all Linux needs is a couple of "success stories" where a hardware mfr opted for Linux and saved itself from ruin, and you'll have hw mfrs falling over each other try

    • Why on earth would they put Linux on them? They are only making the damn things cause Billy told them to.

      It's not like there was a market for these things, it was just Billy's latest idea about what the future would be. You know, like MS Bob, MSN dialup, UPNP, voice recognition, and all those other things that never amounted to anything. Bill Gates is probably the world's worst technology visionary (*): he is so bad that even with all his power and money, he cannot even force into the world the things he i
      • Is this an urban legend or not? (No reference on snopes). I've heard/remember that the first printing of "The Road Ahead" in the mid 90s had Gates harping on how CD-ROM multimedia content was the future of computers, and never once mentioned the Internet. Then in further printings, that was stuck in later.
        • No, it's not an urban legend [salon.com]:

          "The Road Ahead" appeared in December 1995, just as Gates was unveiling Microsoft's master plan to "embrace and extend" the Internet. Yet the book's first edition, with its clunky accompanying CD-ROM, mentioned the Web a mere seven times in nearly 300 pages. Though later editions tried to correct this gaffe, "The Road Ahead" remains a landmark of bad techno-punditry -- and a time-capsule illustration of just how easily captains of industry can miss a tidal wave that's about to

  • All the Tablet PCs I've seen are just 1024x768. Ideally, a Tablet PC should be a replacement for a writing tablet or book, meaning it should have as high a resolution as possible. LCD technology is up to at least 1600x1200, and I don't understand why there are no models (as far as I know) available with such screens.

    • Re:1024x768 is a replacement for paper? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @08:40AM (#7307826)
      Or maybe keep the 1024x768 and make them smaller. I can't help but wonder what would be the response to something between the size of a PDA and a laptop/tablet unit. A sort of "super PDA". The Newton's size may have been a problem for some, but you could still hold it in one hand and write with the other.

      Just try writing on a tablet PC with one hand while holding the damn thing in the other. You can't do it. You'll be searching for a table in no time, and probably have to sit down too, because there's no table high enough to use while standing. And if you try holding it with your elbow, it's at the wrong angle for writing. Clipboards work because they're light enough that they don't require much leverage to hold with a grip.

      You need something that fits in the palm of your hand, and that means six inches wide at the most.

  • Why is this MS's fault? (Score:4, Informative)

    by jazman ( 9111 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:33AM (#7307650)
    Er, pardon me for being thick, but what's this got to do with MS? You decided a Windows OS was best for your hardware, not Microsoft. If it's too expensive Use Something Else; it's a free market out there. Why should Microsoft pay to advertise your product for you?

    If you had decided on Linux, would you have expected Linus Torvalds to launch an expensive advertising campaign for your benefit? Who advertised your car? Was it the car manufacturer, or a manufacturer of one of its components?

    • It's easier (Score:3, Insightful)

      by No Such Agency ( 136681 )
      ... than saying "well, we're making these things freaking expensive, and thus anybody looking at the bottom line (businesses, and home consumers) will think twice about buying one rather than a mid-end laptop". When your "core demographic" is toy-greedy executives and bleeding-edge hardware geeks, you don't sell so many units.

      Make hardware CHEAP (and reliable), and people will buy it. It's that simple.
    • It's MS' fault because they developed the idea and evangelized it to the hardware manufacturers. This was MS' big push and it's a big fizzle. Makes you wonder if anybody ever really does good marketing or if people just get lucky sometimes.
      • Oh ok. So MS promised to keep on marketing tablets; the HW mfrs purchased on that basis, then MS failed to live up to (i.e. broke) their promise? Seems like a cut and dry case for a lawsuit then - some sort of fraud going on there (by MS).

  • This isn't the first time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:35AM (#7307653) Homepage
    They're surprised that Microsoft is waffling on a platform? 10 years ago Pen Windows was the latest greatest coming thing for tablets and was going to be real big any moment now. Microsoft's attention span didn't last very long when the market didn't happen. Microsoft waffled on PDAs too until that market picked up.

    As for the price of licencing Pen, er, Tablet Windows, perhaps they should look around for alternatives? (Say, what ever happen to GRiD anyway?)

    Sounds like sour grapes: "Wah, Microsoft isn't pushing our market enough! And they put a gun to our heads to make us use Windows!" Sell enough computers for Microsoft to care guys.

    • Re:This isn't the first time (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jeffphil ( 461483 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @08:07AM (#7307727)
      The healthcare company I worked for at the time had a bunch of the original tablet computers from Fujitsu. Microsoft never updated the Pen Windows after Win95, so we were left with a ton of $4500 bricks only months after.

      I posted exactly the same message as yours above, a couple of years ago when this marketing hype coming out of Redmond was starting up again for the Tablet PC. I got a ton of replies from the trolls when I posted that the minute the market started going south, you would be stuck with an expensive pen computer w/o drivers. The trolls replies were that "the technology wasn't there in '95" and "now Microsoft was committed to the Tablet PC because the technology is there" and "this was going to be the hottest thing since electronic sliced bread."

      Since there are not enough of these devices sold, nobody is going to waste time writing Linux drivers for these M$ abandoned tablets, when there's lots of other things to be done. You will be left with an obsolete brick in just a few years.
      • I guess you didn't know that Microsofts Pen for Windows was created as a response to the product by Go Inc. Read about in in the book "Startup". It tells how Go hired Microsoft to write apps for the Go product and all the Microsoft guys did was try to get Go to use Windows instead of their own pen optimized OS. Go finally told Microsoft to get out and Bill Gates publicly claims he invented pen computing and has Pen for Windows in the R&D lab. Then at Comdex, Microsoft holds up big signs listing all of G

  • Note Taker (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snowbeam ( 96416 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:37AM (#7307657) Homepage
    My department ordered three Tablet PC's about six months ago for 3 of our maanagers. This has resulted in a change none of the employees expected but certainly enjoy. The managers have become the defacto note takers at meetings. None of them have spoken too loudly about benefits of the tablets.
  • I want a keyboard. A pad is great for taking quick notes, and creative doodling, but for real work I need a keyboard and a selection/navigation tool in easy reach. I seem to remember seeing some yellow, ruled digital pads that you could write on and load the results into your computer. Now that seems handy. my 2 cents

  • They're just not useful (Score:3, Funny)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:42AM (#7307667) Homepage
    I played around with one in a CompUSA for a few minutes. Yeah, it was kind of fun to draw a picture of guy sitting on a toilet, and then a super fast race car zooming by, but I couldn't think of any situation where I'd actually want to use one for any particular purpose. I'd rather use a laptop for almost any situation I can imagine. Or, if not a laptop, then just paper and a pen. These are like PDA's that you can't carry around with you, it's got nothing.

    Can anybody think of a general use for one of these (nothing too specialized, something that might actually be useful for a lot of people?)
    • Just two small things: Reading and browsing the web.
    • Sure, there are plenty of good and productive uses for them. But I'm not going to tell M$ what those are. Perhaps I should be supprised that such a great innovation machine as MS claims to be, haven't themselves figured this out from the start?

      • You're a fucking genius!! Wow! You're smarter than the marketing department of one of the largest companies in the world? I'm so impressed!!

        Oh yeah, your website isn't working.
    • Have you ever tried to take notes in a math heavy lecture, using a notebook? Unless you're a TeX-wizard you'll have a hard time. With a Tablet PC I could enter the text on the Keyboard, and fill in the formulae with the pen. Very much like people did with typewriters in the pre-TeX days, when preparing books BTW.
      • About 6 years ago I was a TeX wizard. There was no way I could keep up reasonably with a real time lecture using TeX. Even for a wizard there is too much intellectual overhead thinking about puntuational issues : will this equaltion be centered, centered multiline, inline...; did I close }, will TeX accept that symbol in index list mode, ..
      • Me... I just photograph the classroom whiteboard with my Zire 71... and jot some comments into the comment field for that photo. Have a tape recorder running as well.

  • The "executives don't use keyboards" trap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:42AM (#7307668) Homepage
    The tablet PC is partly driven by the same misguided notion that has driven many failed PC hardware and software developments: the belief, on the part of an older generation of CEO's, that there is something demeaning about using a keyboard.

    Up to the 1980's, keyboards were associated with secretarial and clerical staff, who were paid less and ranked lower socially than executives. Executives had no skill in keyboarding and were proud of it. The mantra was "I have people to do that for me." The result, unfortunately, was that the decision-makers never got any gut experience in the feeling of keyboard interaction or the power and suitability of the keyboard as a human-interface device.

    So, you have all those stupid fantasies of machines that you "will just talk to in English," and the continuing search for handwriting recognition.

    Ever since all the bright young MBA's started using Excel and Powerpoint you'd think people would know better. Sure, the upper-mid-level people play the game of "my-laptop-is-shinier-than-yours", but I have still seen upper management eyes gleam at the idea of not needing to use a keyboard. They give lip service to the legitimacy of the keyboard, but in their hearts they feel that a high-ranking person should not be using one.

    It's silly. A tablet PC is like a PC with a mouse but no keyboard (yes, I know there is a keyboard buried inside). It's an impoverished communications channel, and no matter how cleverly you design it, it will never be as comfortable, efficient, or powerful as a channel that includes a keyboard or a keyboard-like modality.

    It would be far better to research improved, more convenient, more portable keyboard subtitutes (type in the air and let lasers track your fingers, or whatever) than to continue down the silly path of trying to express a human-computer dialog solely with a continous two-dimensional line.

    • A tablet PC is like a PC with a mouse but no keyboard (yes, I know there is a keyboard buried inside). It's an impoverished communications channel, and no matter how cleverly you design it, it will never be as comfortable, efficient, or powerful as a channel that includes a keyboard or a keyboard-like modality.[Emphasis mine.]

      I disagree strongly. I can't argue to Microsoft's implemenation of TabletPC, as I've never used one, but you're talking about the tablet computer or pen based computer in general.

      • After I submitted this, a number of other advantages came to mind:

        • More personal - Just as the transition from desktop to laptop moves the computer from the desk into my lap, the transition from laptop to tablet computer makes the computer feel more "mine." The tablet moves computing further into my lap.
        • More expressive - Have you ever tried to draw with a mouse? Tablet computers are, I believe, inherently better for making sketches and drawings, particularly ones that are inpromptu and unstructured (
      • I think tablets have a number of advantages:

        Closer - When using a tablet I feel as though I'm interacting directly with the machine rather than trying to command it through an intermediary.

        That's pretty much just a personal feeling, there. I feel like I'm using an intermediary when I'm not using a text based interface (and I'd be right, too). I don't expect computer devices to work like pen and paper because they AREN'T pen and paper. Forcing them into that role puts them at a disadvantage.

        Faster - I

    • So, you have all those stupid fantasies of machines that you "will just talk to in English," and the continuing search for handwriting recognition.

      There's a reason for that, and it's tied into something that a lot of people here on slashdot and similar tech-based sites don't understand: most people don't want to have to learn something new just to get their job done.

      Executives, as you point out, don't need to type because they "have someone to do that for them". Given that, and that they didn't learn to

      • ...most people don't want to have to learn something new just to get their job done.

        I agree with the overall point I think you're making here, which I might summarize as 'let the tool make this easy for me.' I do agree, honest. But, the devils advocate in me says, 'It's a tool, and sometimes you have to learn a bit about a tool in order for it to be really useful to you.' I say this because I often see people turn off their brains when it comes to computers. I've seen very logical people behave ver

  • Perhaps .. (Score:2, Funny)

    by madpierre ( 690297 )
    people won't buy what they don't want.

    Could this be the begining of the end of marketing?

    mmmm ...

  • I still don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @08:05AM (#7307719) Homepage
    If you want to do serious work, you'd want a notebook. If you just want to jot down some notes or a phone number, you'd want a pen and paper or maybe a PDA. What is the point of this?

    Friend: Let me give you my new number. Got a pen?
    Me: Uh, hang on a sec. Let me get out my tablet. Just have to boot it up here...just a minute more. Okay. I've got to open Outlook... New contact...new number. Damn, it's not recognizing my handwriting. Wait, wait. Okay. Done. Now let me give you my number.
    Friend: *writes it on back of hand with a pen that costs a quarter, never needs to be recharged, and fits in a shirt pocket*

    • Hey, if jotting down a phone number on your hand works for you, great. For myself, I wash my hand occasionally, and I know enough people that I'll run out of space. The Tablet PC is easier to write on than a PDA, and less likely to misread what you wrote (you can use handwriting recognition, or just leave it as a handwritten note, and then have the computer convert your handwriting to text when you get back to the office). On the other hand, it's bigger, and has a shorter battery life (I get about 3.5 ho
  • How many people write faster than they can type, *especially* when they have to write such that the computer can understand what was written? It is hard enough for me to write with the expectation that another human will be able to decipher it, a computer, forget it.

    The only advantage is for diagrams, and ultimately, there are far better ways of doing that even, back of a napkin, notebook, whiteboard, even touchpads provide 'good enough' capability for things like teleconferencing, why in the world would
    • Bingo, you get weave's prize for the best "duh, so obvious" post in the thread! I rarely write manually and when I do, my hands can't seem to work right! I think I can tap out stuff faster using T9 input on a cellphone than write by hand.

      Your prize is our encouragement to travel to Redmond and deliver a 2x4 clue stick to Bill Gates. Be sure to chant out "Here's another one you blew the call on" while delivering it.

      btw, for meetings, we use a Smart Board [smarttech.com] which allows drawing on a white board and saving

  • Top 5 "why nots" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Devlin-du-GEnie ( 512506 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @08:10AM (#7307731)
    1) Too heavy. A tablet needs to be light enough to hold comfortably with one hand. You need to write with the other one.

    2) Too expensive. Even the tablets with keyboards (yes, some of them have keyboards) are much more expensive than a comparable laptop.

    3) Short battery life. See point 1, above.

    4) Fragility. You're carrying around a color LCD plus digitizer (i.e., $$$). You're writing on it. It's collecting dust and dirt. Pity about that scratch, crack, ding ...

    5) False mimicry. The parallax between screen pixels and moving pen point makes it really, really clear that you're not using a pen on paper.

  • In short society isn't ready for the tablet yet. Much how society wasn't ready for the Apple Newton. Even if it did work perfectly and was efficient to use, it still wouldn't be the big seller. At this point for small uses the PDA still is the most practical with its pocket size form factor. And a laptop is more practical for more intensive sit down application. Plus the price of the tablet makes it to much to expensive to carry around on service calls or to areas that may be higher crime rates. Pen and
  • I'm not surprised over the lack of demand. These things are enormous!
  • BrentO writes: "According to Common Sense, computer purchasers, tired of the low-powered CPUs and high prices of the much-hyped tablet PC, are beginning to speak out with their wallets, complaining that they just don't want to spend two thousand dollars for 1998-era computing performance. The predicted productivity for the devices has not materialized; faced with the tablet's premium pricing, manufacturers are finally getting the picture."

    Seriously, when I talk about buying computers with network admins, and ask them to name a price point at which tablets make sense, the number seems to be (normal laptop) + $150. As it is now, the price penalty is much stiffer, and you end up comparing low-powered tablets with high-powered laptops. Sure, you can get a $1400 Compaq tablet - but it's got less than half the CPU power of their $1400 laptops.

  • Love mine (Score:4, Interesting)

    by color of static ( 16129 ) <smasters@@@ieee...org> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @08:35AM (#7307811) Homepage Journal
    I don't really understand what people are complaining about myself. I have been using one (Motion M1200 now M1300) for 10 months and love it. When I'm sitting at my desk it is using the keyboard mouse. Pick it up and use the pen. The pen takes a little getting used to but it really works for everything other then programming and command line (but you can use it for both of those with a little effort).

    Once I combined mine with a small portable scanner I found the amount of paper clutter in my offices to go down to a bare minimum (almost made me look like a type A person :-).

    I think people don't give it a fair try. It may be expectations, price or a combination of both. Any way you cut it though, this style unit does work for a number of people much better then a laptop.
  • I had a chance to use a Viewsonic tablet for a couple days. I was really disapointed with it.

    You take a P3-900, a 20GB disk, that nice big screen and jam it in a tablet and you get.... sucky battery life and a 5 pound tablet. I think that is what really killed it for me, I was lucky to get 3 hours out of it.

    Also, I found the wireless card very lame, when compared to a Netgear PCMCIA card it had much less range. The wireless card also really did in the battery.

    I think the tablet concept is really co

  • There are just not enough people that require a tablet PC and the price alone 1200 dollar laptop with more horesepower bells and whistles then you have the 2400 1.2ghz model tablet pc. What are you going to buy?
  • When all these manufacturers abandon tablet sales, we'll see a dirth of them for-sale @ ebay.com (tigerdirect etc).

    Just like the all the 'internet appliances' that were dumped, I can get a tablet too.

  • First, they castrated the PDA by removing the keyboard[1] and now they're attempting to screw people's productivity further by selling PCs with the same paradigm.

    Handwriting is too slow. It is too slow on paper, why do you think shorthand appeared? It is much worse on PDA and tablet PCs to the point of uselessness. The tablet format is useful for single sentence notes and very little else.

    For crying out loud just learn to touchtype, it *isn't* that hard...

    [1] Psion Revo is still my number 1 PDA, I'm orde

  • Chalk one up for Apple (Score:5, Informative)

    by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:28AM (#7307988) Homepage
    Woah.

    Apple's Steve jobs had previously mentioned that the tablet market was non-existant.

    Specifically, here's what the westion was, and his answer to that:

    M: A lot of people think given the success you've had with portable devices, you should be making a tablet or a PDA.
    J: There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, "People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this." "We look at the tablet and we think it's going to fail." Tablets appeal to rich guys with plenty of other PCs and devices already. "And people accuse us of niche markets." I get a lot of pressure to do a PDA. What people really seem to want to do with these is get the data out. We believe cell phones are going to carry this information. We didn't think we'd do well in the cell phone business. What we've done instead is we've written what we think is some of the best software in the world to start syncing information between devices. We believe that mode is what cell phones need to get to. We chose to do the iPod instead of a PDA.

    The full interview is avilable here [blogspot.com].
  • Do I pay less for a laptop with a keyboard or more for a Windows-only machine whose input method is more cumbersome, expensive to implement, and error-prone than a keyboard? Hmmmmm, hard decision....

  • You MUST play Bill's Way (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ridgelift ( 228977 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:39AM (#7308026)
    HP's CEO refused to brandish her own Tablet PC - holding up what looked like a leather-bound paper organizer instead. (Gates reaction here is quite a picture - see photo #5. Fiorina only relented, and presented HP's Tablet PC after backstage wrangling. Gates then banned HP staff from the after-show party)

    Here's Fiorina holding her leather organizer instead. [tabletpctalk.com] Of course, being the richest man in the world, Billy got his way [tabletpctalk.com] and had her hold a tablet PC by the end.

    What gets me is how childish this all seems. "You didn't play right! You and your friends can't come to the party!"
  • Tablet PCs are nearly useless and no one wants them!

    in other news:
    Most dot com companies went bankrupt after having no sellable product
    Long lines are expected at the Department of Motor Vehicles
    A man lost a poker hand drawing to an inside straight

  • ...anyone with half a brain cell was not really surprised.

    Film @ eleven.

  • ... an integrated cell phone (that can actually be held and used like one), an integrated 3 Mpix camera/scanner (if it can read handwriting, it can surely read a newspaper), an integrated full quality audio system (supporting MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc), infrared port, ethernet port, 256 MB of RAM, 40 GB of storage, and of course ... run BSD/Linux.

  • Maybe they're pitching them to the wrong market? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gldm ( 600518 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @11:16AM (#7308253)
    Who's seriously going to want to write their word documents? I type about 5x faster than I can possibly scribble with a pen, and with fewer errors to boot.

    But I'm dying to get one of these to draw on!

    Maybe if they bundled some of the better pressure sensitive pens and photoshop and painter instead of office, they'd find that people were more interested in using them as digital sketchbooks. I know some people say the digitizers aren't up to it, but from what I've read on tablet pc forums, it depends on which one you get. The ones with the newer Wacom based digitizers are supposedly pretty good if you're using one of the decent Wacom pens, which are all interchangeable with the crappy ones bundled with the tablets.

    Maybe they should try pitching them more towards art students, and maybe try to bring the prices down a bit. I wish apple would make one of the convertable flip-over type tablets because I'm betting they could get it right on the first try. It's probably the only way I'd ever consider buying a mac, but I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they did it.
  • Offer me laptop with a stlus-optional touchscreen and a keyboard (hold the trackpad or keyboard-embedded nubbin), and I'll consider it.
  • I've got two tablets: a ProGear [pcmag.com] which I bought for $600 when the SonicBlew decided to clear inventory, and a Toshiba Poretege 3500 [toshiba.com]. I can tell you that, primarily, the biggest problem with these tablets is a cruddy software interface. I assume you remember the first incarnation of Windows CE, and how much of the interface was a lift of the Windows 95 GUI. Tablet XP is the same way. While the underlying components are all there, they are implemented to allow quick transition from XP to XP Tablet. The interface on these devices should be more along the lines of CE's CURRENT design, which presents much more information on a single screen, with a much more streamlined (read specialized) human-computer interface.

    I'm developing software for the Toshiba, but have had a chance to use it for classwork (I'm a Senior in Electrical and Computer Engineering at OU [ou.edu]), and I can seriously say that for people like me that take a lot of notes (read digital packrats), tablets have lots of potential. I can search my handwriting for specific keywords, or "print" a document to the Journal and mark it up, which is a great feature for professors that provide notes to follow along with in class. While everyone else is scribbling madly to keep up, I just pick the "highlighter" and highlight the notes, and maybe make some of my own in the side margin.

    As far as the form factor goes, they're getting smaller, and lighter. Look at Acer's TravelMate [acer.com], for example.

    Also, what some people fail to realize is that there are two distinct types of tablets. All of the ones I've highlighted, with the exception of the ProGear are "convertible" machines. A second (cheaper) form factor is also out there, the "slate" machines. Check out a great overview at TheTabletPC.Net [thetabletpc.net].

    As they say with many other things, don't knock it 'til you try it.

    Mike Hollinger
  • There could be a great market for the Table PC's in college *IF* there were a way to start getting textbooks on CD.

    I remember when there was a hype over eBooks a couple of years ago and one of the future visions were specifically for this. Students could download their text book, have multiple bookmarks in each text, highlight, have a dictionary loaded...

    If that part could come true but with regard to Table PC's...I would love to do that. I wouldn't have a backpack full of notes, paper, books, and a lap
  • The market for a "tablet PC" is nonexistent. What they need to be doing is making tablet PDAs. Think about the things you're going to do with a tablet PC - Basically the same things people did with the GRiDPad 1910 back in the day. (The 1910 is an XT with an IDE disk, about the same size as a tablet PC, with a 640x400 mono cga display.) You're going to use it for note taking, displaying documents, inventory control, and so on. (It had a serial port and an optional internal modem.) The US Military and some a
  • the one redeeming feature that I have seen in these tablets is that most of them have screens that SWIVEL 180 degrees. Having that in a high-end (say one with a 16" screen) notebook would give me a woody. Namely, I could have a laptop, and then when I arrived at my destination, whip out a keyboard and mouse (from my *checked* baggage, tyvm), swivel the screen.... I could even see bluetooth being handy.

  • Microsoft's trouble with Innovation? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hethatishere ( 674234 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @12:48PM (#7308680)
    Just another great example of Microsoft failing miserably whenever they attempt to Innovate. It just goes to show you having billions of dollars in your warchest still can't match the innovation of smaller companies and groups like Apple and some of the projects found on Linux. -First it was 1993 The Microsoft Home software series (180 Software titles that flopped) -Then it was Microsoft Bob. -The ActiMate Plush toys of '97 (They turned into something from a B Horror movie when they got low on batteries) -Buying out WebTV and bundling IE and MSN with it because it might actually take off and Microsoft would have no control over it. -PocketPC is still the minority in the handheld market, and is having major issues making inroads in the Corporate Markets. -The over-hyped Microsoft "Orange" SmartPhones were dropped by the carrier even before production began. -The XBox failed to produce profitability or market dominance as "expected." -Tablet PC's a new take on a recycled idea yielding poorly designed and fragile PC's with mediocre tablet software that is nearly impossible to draw or write in script with. -And of course Windows still sucks, forcing the majority of discerning computer users to continue using alternatives. With many countries switching or thinking about switching to Linux some of us should start changing our tune about the end of Apple to singing about the beginning of the end for Microsoft. And just like Apple, just because we sing it doesn't mean it has to happen right away. Microsoft just has too many fingers in too many pies to do a sufficient job at all the markets they have extended into. Think the last years of the Roman Empire where they had over-extended. And soon the trampling hordes of the Linux Visigoths will be knocking on Big Redmond's door.
  • The point of having a tablet PC is not to have a $3000 laptop replacement, but instead, a cheap, portable, wireless display device. It should cost no more than $1000, be able to stream music and video across the network, although it probably wouldn't have the best speakers. But what it can do is interface with your home entertainment center, browse your files over the wireless LAN and provide an efficient and easy way to input data.

    They went for the laptop replacement and found out most people would rath

  • Frankly, I'm tired of hardware manufacturers complaining about MSFT. If they didn't want to be 0wn3d by Microsoft, they shouldn't have handed them their monopoly status, by, for instance, accepting Microsoft's terms on dual-installs. Now that MSFT has them by the short-n-curlies, they start whinging on? Tough luck, and MSFT could care less--they'll just negotiate with someone else, since the hardware is a commodity and therefore any given manufacturer is easily replaced by another one that wants to play

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