Ha! Now that I’ve had half a minute to actually scan Lora’s posts, I see she’s posted regarding new vs…

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?

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.