Don’t buy a new Tablet PC, buy an older model instead or keep waiting |
Loading ...I’ve looked over the specs and hardware of most the new crop of Tablet PCs and my advice to prospective tableteers:
Buy an older model and buff it up or keep waiting.
Sacrilege, I know, for a guy like me that buys most things on the cutting edge. However, consider what you can do with a buffed older model vs. buying a model that will probably be outdated in a year when Vista comes out? Some of the new models do claim to be Vista-ready and for those wanting to put a tablet under the tree, this significant detail should weigh heavily into the decision-making process.
For those considering buying a tablet as a gift, here’s an Xmas tablet list. No new tablet plans for me this year. When I bought the M1400 last year, I wanted it to be in regular portable use for 24-36 months, which means about the time Vista comes out and is seasoned with a service pack or two I’ll likely be in the market again.
Yes, I do want the tableteer ranks to grow, but if people buy their way into some overweight convertible where ink is rarely used, they’ll wish those dollars had been allocated for a more powerful traditional laptop. Jilted tableteers are worse than jilted lovers.
For people on the go, the slate, as I’ve written here before, is the superior way to use a tablet. It also forces the user to use the tablet in ink mode and become more creative about how they use a computer. The convertible is a Tablet PC with training wheels and will end up being used primarily in keyboard mode and thus the point of why have a tablet to begin with will be overshadowed.
None of the new tablets blow me away, including the new Motion models (LE1600 and the smaller LS800). The Gateway with the big screen is enticing, but is too bulky. The Fujitsu P1500D is small and sexy, but I don’t care for the keyboard (wish Fujitsu made a slate that size). The Sahara iTablet i213, despite a cool dock, is too heavy for a slate (3.3 lbs) and doesn’t come standard with enough memory or disk space.
I’ll go a step further: I wouldn’t trade my buffed M1400 for any of the new tablets I’ve seen. The following are my biggest gripes with the current/new crop of Tablet PCs (and no, this is not a case of Tablet envy):
- Overweight. Most are heavier than the tablet I bought a year ago! Mobility is very important and if it isn’t lighter and easier to carry around than my existing tablet then it would be a downgrade, not an upgrade. The LE1600 from Motion is one of the new crop of lighter tablets, but it took out a few things I liked in the M1400 and it didn’t improve on standard specs (see next post). 
Oh, and did I mention that I’m still disappointed that Motion plans to stop making batteries and other accesories in just two short years? They need to extend that to 2010 at least. Some people bought M1400’s new from them this last summer 2005!
- Still overpriced. Yes the price has come down somewhat within the last 12 months and finally more retail presence. But let’s be real here, we’re still nowhere close to Bill Gate’s vision of the $500 tablet (admittedly, Gates said this would take “awhile”). With lowend laptops starting to push down beneath $500 and some pretty good laptops in the $750-$1,250 range, the tablet is still overpriced at the common $1,500 price point, with high quality slates still ringing in at $2,000+ with standard features.
- Inadequate standard memory and disk space. Come on, manufacturers, stop penny pinching your customers with accessory options and include more standard hard disk space and memory. Yeah, you can upgrade, but that’s wrong for a machine that will set you back over two grand. 100GB hard disk and 1GB RAM should be the standard but that’s not the case with any of the new model tablets, you’ll have to pay more.
- Murky Vista specs. Since Vista isn’t actually out yet — only beta — it’s hard to really know what impact this will have on a new tablet purchase outside of taking the manufacturer’s, Microsoft or beta tester’s word. It would really suck shelling out 2-3+ grand only to find out that in 9-12 months that the machine isn’t going to be truly Vista ready. And the next version of the Vista beta that has been shown has already been delayed another couple months which makes things even more of a guessing game. What we do know — or at least have been told — is that Vista will include the Tablet PC OS, thus meaning that in the future every laptop will have tablet capability. The only (vital) missing component would be the digitizer/screen. How this will actually be useful to anybody, I’m curious to learn.
Besides the aforementioned battery/accessory support issue, I’m not disappointed with my purchase a year ago and want others to feel similarly about their purchase a year from now when Vista is available. This means some very careful deliberation is necessary. It is all too easy to be caught up in the moment and buy something expensive that doesn’t fit a specific need.
Which type of tablet best fits your need?
Slate - if mobility is a major concern, if you’d like to take your computer more places, more often, then get the lightest slate tablet with the longest battery time and most memory and disk space that you can afford. Really, it’s common sense that something heavier and bulkier will be less likely to make trips. Unless you are a pro wrestler or body builder, you will quickly notice how heavy a computer can be when carried as opposed to a legal pad. Slates are the lightest. If you take a lot of notes, attend meetings, or work in the field, the slate is hard to beat. With Bluetooth then you’ll have a range of wireless keyboard options if/when you do need a keyboard. Also, consider using programs like Synergy (open source) so you can control your desktop and slate tablet with one keyboard and mouse when working in a networked desktop environment.
Convertible - if you won’t be moving the machine around that much, would like to occasionally use ink functionality, and crave using a built-in keyboard, then a convertible makes sense. Numerous tablet bloggers I’ve met and/or read, for example, prefer convertibles.
Save your money! It would be better spent tricking out an older machine that has a known level of experience, support and information behind it but without the new price tag. Yeah, maybe not as cool as being the first person in town with the latest, greatest tablet, but that notariety will be short-lived.
Update 11:41pm PST: Lora Heiny links in. Interesting she suggests that I was recommending buying used vs. new out of this piece. My bad if this wasn’t clearer above. What I really was talking about was buying an older machine new instead of buying a new model machine, if that doesn’t confuse even more.
Several retailers, both offline and online, dump their older machines at great prices as they clear out their inventories. These are the deals I’m recommending would-be tableteers check out. I would be very leery of buying used hardware — especially something as delicate and expensive as a Tablet PC — for all the reasons Lora mentioned and more. For those who read this piece and thought: he’s saying buy used instead of new, nope, that’s not the case at all. I was very careful not to use the word “used” for this reason … but I should have added a bolded passage that I meant “new older models” not older used models. Now I’ve added that, but I’m very glad that Lora pointed out this distinction. Smart lady!
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Do you buy new or used hardware?
Are you biased against purchasing used PC hardware?
I admit that I am.
My gut reaction of “don’t…
Trackback by What Is New — December 7, 2005 @ 12:25 am PST
Tablet PC: Buy Now Or Buy Later
TDavid raises an interesting issue in a recent blog entry called Don’t buy a new Tablet PC, buy an older model instead or keep waiting. We’ve seen a number of new Tablet PC models in 2005. Toshiba, Lenovo, Acer, Motion,
Trackback by Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2 — December 7, 2005 @ 6:24 am PST
I totally agree with that.. I will go even further.. buy a laptop instead of a Tablet PC… the market is not ready yet for Tablet PC’s.. too pricey.. too delicate.. no too much software..
I was looking the other day at Dell Website and they offer the cheapest Tablet PC for more than 2000 bucks… that’s a lot of money if you compare it with the latest Dell laptop model XPS that costs exactly the same amount of money but it is so much powerful than a Tablet…
So, if you are thinking about buying a Tablet PC… just wait until Vista is released and more software manufacturers develop more software for these fancy things!
Fabio Cerullo
Comment by Fabio Cerullo — December 7, 2005 @ 7:57 am PST
Another hing i wish for in Tablet PC’s and laptops for that matter also is the ability to use them above 10000 feet without worry of hard drive failure !!! none of the makers of these units do at this time .
brian bollaert
Comment by brian bollaert — December 7, 2005 @ 1:55 pm PST
If you are buying a new tablet - don’t wait
Trackback by Blog:: Craig Pringle — December 7, 2005 @ 5:46 pm PST
Out of interest - what is missing from the LE1600 that you miss? I noticed the modem jack and did not care as I use an EVDO card. I have a 1400 and I had the LE1600 for a night the other day and the 1600 has a number of features that I thought were missing from the 1400. Particularly the SD card slot…
Comment by Craig Pringle — December 7, 2005 @ 5:54 pm PST
Craig - EVDO was a failure for me on the M1400, not sure if this got fixed on the LE1600 or with more time than I was willing to spend with Verizon and Motion support, so there is one definite bonus for the LE1600 if that got worked out (just search for my numerous past detailed blog entries on EVDO and how I ultimately sent it back).
There are many areas where EVDO coverage is inadequate and frankly a 14.4 connection is worse than most hotel/motel dialup connections, also not all hotels have ethernet or WiFi (though this situation is improving) so the modem slot going away is a downgrade for business travellers. I’ve written about the difference between the LE1600 and M1400 and how it’s a marginal upgrade to the line and still comes without the necessary RAM and disk space (and VA) as standard.
Mark my words, the nextgen apps are going to require 1GB RAM for speedy operation instead of the 512 or 256 they come with now (Windows is sluggish with 256 MB RAM as it is). Max expansion to 1.5GB or 1.25 GB? That’s compared to 2GB expansion for the M1400 Centrino … so does that seem like forward progress to you?
Why no expansion to 4GB, or at least the 2GB that as available on the M1400 on the LE1600?
I also found this statement on your blog somewhat arrogant: “There is always going to be something – a new OS, a better technology or a new feature – that will come out just after you buy a new tablet. Deal with it.”
Why should the customer have to ‘deal with it’? It’s not like they are buying some cheap laptop from WalMart. We are dropping a couple grand here, not $500. It’s Motion’s job to deal with it, not the customer’s. They are supposed to sell us on all the great reasons why we should upgrade.
Motion hacked me off by already thumbing their nose at their existing M-series customers by planning not to sell batteries/accessories after Dec 2007, so why should I be excited about their new model that is a slightly thinner, slightly lighter, has an SD slot, and carries the same standard memory at the same high price?
And as for your comments about weight? You must not carry around the slate that much in real work scenarios inking, do you? Anything over 3 pounds is too heavy and even 2.2-2.5 pounds becomes heavy. My point is these nextgen tablets should be under 2 lbs or striving to be. The Fujitsu convertible was nice but I imagine as a slate that would have been sub 2 lbs and a step in the right direction.
Lastly, why should we as customers “deal” with buying something for over two grand that may or may not fit the new OS in a year? Yeah, maybe it works for you now but even you don’t have the next Vista build, do you? And you know what? I can’t even get Outlook 2003 to work without immediate crashing on my M1400 and Microsoft conveniently makes my option to pay them $35 or $240 for the incident to fix, so I’m definitely leery of the LE1600 working any better with Vista or Office 12 even though it is a newer model.
Bottom line: this is not the kind of “deal” that most business people want to make. A better deal would be to buy an older model and buff the memory and HD, or wait until the certified Vista-ready tablets come out so a more informed decision can be made.
Comment by TDavid — December 7, 2005 @ 6:35 pm PST
Good advice! I am, however, of a very differing opinion on the convertibles.
In a nutshell, if you need a notebook, get a notebook. The convertibles I’ve used - predominantly the oh-so-overpraised IBM Thinkpad X41 - has too many tradeoffs to make them a good bang-for-the-buck value either as a notebook or a tablet PC. The X41 is sluggish even with the RAM bumped to a gig and the keyboard - the entire reason for buying a ‘vert - is no marvel either. The lack of a Windows key is a dealbreaker on *any* keyboard for me and the Function key is exactly where the Control key should be. And then there’s that silly TrackPoint nub instead of the standard touchpad interface that nearly all notebooks offer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of tablet PCs and, specifically, I really like the various Compaq and Motion Computing models I’ve used. I’d recommend embracing the tablet UI and avoiding a convertible - you can always hook up a compact USB keyboard (and even a nice optical mouse) if you’re in a pinch to do some hardcore data entry.
Am I alone in this or has anyone else been really disappointed with convertible tablet PCs?
Comment by Rob O'Daniel — December 8, 2005 @ 2:10 pm PST
No Rob, you aren’t alone. I say go slate or spend the money on a more powerful traditional laptop, heck, maybe even a media center laptop. If weight and mobility aren’t that important but simply a powerful computing experience it’s hard to ask somebody to spend an extra $500 or more for a convertible and likely less computing power just so they have the ability to ink on the screen. Most convertible users I’ve spoken to, face to face, have admitted they don’t use inking functionality very often. Compare that to the slate tablet users I’ve spoken to directly who use ink functions frequently.
Comment by TDavid — December 8, 2005 @ 2:19 pm PST
New or Used?
Ha! Now that I’ve had half a minute to actually scan Lora’s posts, I see she’s posted regarding new vs…
Trackback by TabBlogger — December 13, 2005 @ 8:56 pm PST
[…] For those who didn’t read my post last week recommending what type of tablet to buy, I won’t be rehashing that here. My recommendation will likely change when we see lighter, trimmer slates that are Vista certified. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Day 365: looking back at one year with a Tablet PC — December 13, 2005 @ 11:38 pm PST
[…] Another reason not to buy a new model Tablet PC. I bet the deal on a backchannel Toshiba Portege M200 would be a good one, just be very, very careful if buying used (again not something I’d recommend doing). […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Tablet PC downgrading — December 19, 2005 @ 6:36 pm PST
[…] Too bad Om took the convertible way instead of going slate, but any Mac user adding a tablet to their computing arsenal is a positive sign. The Lenovo X41 ThinkPad is a nice machine, so no knock there, but my advice continues to be for any new tableteer to wait for Vista or get a buffed up older model. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Om Malik becomes a Tablet Guy — February 8, 2006 @ 11:45 pm PST
[…] The search is over Currently the hot gadget on my radar is the UMPC aka Origami. When I heard these devices would be in the $600-$1000 range I was excited but a couple months have gone by with teasing everywhere and very little concrete news on in retail store delivery dates. Seems like the very first UMPC to hit any store — online or offline — will be the Samsung Q. It will weigh in outside the promised price range at just under $1,100 not including tax. I’m not likely to pay that much for a device that isn’t Vista compatible, so that is the big question on my mind for these devices: are they Vista compatible? If not, then might as well wait a year to buy and get one that is, just like the next generation Tablet PCs. [see Don’t buy a new tablet pc, buy an older model instead or keep waiting] […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Where is the UMPC coverage at Yahoo Tech? — May 2, 2006 @ 10:27 am PST