Still thinking about buying a Tablet PC this year? Hey, I know the feeling, and was there a year ago. Actually if you count the two preceding years leading up to my purchase, I’ve now spent three years thinking about the Tablet PC and how it fits into my computing life. Depending on when you read this, possibly to the very day it’s been one year since I made the plunge and actually have lived the Tablet dream.

The following entry will highlight the various uses I’ve found for the Tablet, what it worked good for, what it wasn’t so good for, and what I’d like to use it for in 2006 and beyond. Each experience is unique and I hope by sharing my experience other would-be tableteers will look more closely at this platform. The above picture illustrates where the tablet currently spends most its time: right next to my primary work monitor, to my right and to the left of the telephone; a prime position for regular, every day use. This isn’t somebody who just bought the machine, I’ve been using it a year and I think the Tablet PC is that valuable that it belongs that close to me every day. It used to sit to my left where I needed to turn to use it, but the Mac is there now. Upgraded!

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.

Since it is an anniversary, I made a comic of the 365 days of Tablet PC Ownership with some of the key moments over the first year (pictured right), click to see the larger full res comic.

We also bought a Mac back (a little earlier, in October 2005) and have setup a special blog (Mac Mode) for it where I’ve kept some of my notes along the way of that learning experience for those who are considering the Mac platform instead and, like me, have been a Windows user most of their computing life.

In December 2004 I bought the Motion Computing M1400 slate Tablet PC. The tablet has gotten significantly more use than the Mac but didn’t receive a dedicated blog until May when tabletpcblogs.com opened allowed others to create blogs. Thanks to the legendary first family of Tablets, I was able to setup my first ink blog in 2005 as well. I originally planned to use that as my primary tablet blog, but have been using it as a daily crink blog (more on crink shortly). Of course Hmm received its own Tablet PC category and has been stocked with various posts on tableteering.

For newer readers not familiar how these type entries are laid out, I’ve broken them into three distinct areas of usage what/where/how I’ve learned/done with the Tablet PC in the last 12 months: business (online and offline), home and a new one: developer. Hopefully this information is of use to those contemplating the purchase of a tablet this holiday season.

(Note: my most recent opinion piece: Don’t buy a new Tablet PC, buy an older model instead or keep waiting might be of interest to those thinking about buying a Tablet PC.)

Business
- Used for sales presentations several times. Definitely provided an edge for getting prospect’s attention.
- Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 with GPS was particularly handy as a navigational tool. Used frequently to chart the location of appointments in the field.
- Meetings provided the primary notetaking tool. No legal pads were used after Q12005. OneNote was the tool of choice for notetaking, although I did do a trial of Evernote.
- Took the tablet to two different industry conferences: the CES 2005 Tablet meetup in January 2005 and to the Seattle Mind Camp in September.
- Digital magazine reading. While this could go under Home/Personal, it more applies to work since I blog about a lot of things in my two Zinio subscriptions: PC Magazine and MacWorld. The slate tablet is great for reading magazines.
- Snipping tool PowerToy one of my most used apps. Great for cutting (inking?) out screenshots and annotations. I keep this on the lower left corner of the desktop, a convenient click away.
- EVDO was great when I got it working using a crossover cable from our older laptop, in the 15 days I tried repeatedly with different cards, different configs, and tech support to get working and wasn’t successful. Would like to try this again when more EVDO cards and drivers are available. If working this would be one of the best companions to the slate.
- A 99 cent plate holder is my most used accessory. It props up the tablet (shown in the top picture) and works great. You can get these at any dollar store. Don’t waste your time on $15-20 plastic stands (mine broke in the first six months). I still think it’s bizarre that you spend $2,500 on a machine and they send a piece of crap stand.
- ActiveWords a definite timesaver and one of the five must have apps that no slate should be without. Don’t forget the ActiveInkpad.

Home/Personal
- Gaming. I’ve tried OS intense MMORPG games like Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies as well as online and offline casino games like Vegas. This machine is surprisingly good at gaming.
- started a daily crink blog. Crink = CRappy INK. My goal to become at least a little better artist isn’t going to happen without practice, and these daily crinks posts illustrate my path of sharing ink instead of words for key/significant daily events.
- inking email and IM (via MSN Messenger) much more personalized than typing. This could go under business too, because people have told me that these inked messages stick out compared to type. Wonder how long we will be safe from ink spam?
- our youngest son has created some neat drawings using ArtRage, some of which have been shared on this blog.
- took 78 days to break me down and buy an external CD-RW drive (the slate came with no CD drive). Might be the longest I ever went without a CD drive in modern days of computing on a machine. I was able to get by awhile by sharing a network drive but that became clumsier than just plugging in the USB CD-RW drive and going that route.

Developer
This has been by far my most disappointing use of the Tablet so far. Despite having Visual Studio 2003 and now the new Visual Studio 2005, I haven’t done much in the way of ink-based development. I have done a little bit — nothing shared though — and plan to do significantly more in 2006. Perhaps it was good that I spent a year as a slate user so I can better understand the needs of slate tablet users.

Fortunately there are at least a few fellow developers championing the Tablet cause like Andy Gray who created a couple of very useful, free OneNote plugins: OneNote Daily Journal and OneNote MultiCreate. Craig Pringle is working on an ink-based blogging client. Not sure how that is going but the video demo teaser he posted showed some promise. Loren Heiny has started experimenting more with ink in the browser which again (have I said it enough) is an area ripe for development (Tableteers see SearchTip).

Other Tableteers followed in 2005
These folks cover most of what’s going on in the tablet scene (in no particular order): Rob Bushway, Warner Crocker, all the Heinys (Loren [linked in dev section above], Lora, Layne and Robert), Eric Mack, Marc Orchant and James Kendrick. Thank you for sharing the information through your blogs, websites and podcasts. Oh, and can’t forget the consummate convertible tablet blogger, Robert Scoble, who lately has gotten away from posting about the Tablet PC somewhat, but still offers a tablet nugget here and there (and usually catches hell from some of his readers, too).

As far as forums go, Tablet PC Buzz is the favorite among many but I’ve had mixed experiences there. They had a considerable amount of server problems and run into a couple anti-social types. Typical board BS, but still worth a bookmark if for no other reason than this seems to be one of the largest messageboard water cooler places for tableteers.

Tablet Owner disappointments in year one
#1: manufacturer (Motion Computing) announced they would stop creating batteries & accessories for their M-series computers after December 31, 2007, but contradicted this by saying that they “wouldn’t leave their customers hanging” whatever that means. Probably my biggest disappointment with them is that after calling them directly to voice my displeasure and making posts in several places about this (not just here on the blog) I never received even one official reply. Yes, I spoke to a nice guy when I called them, but they never found the time to contact me and explain more fully what their plans were for M-series customers beyond December 31, 2007. Do they have to do that? No, of course. I’m just one customer. But I’m also likely to be one customer who buys from their competition once the true fate is known after Dec 2007.
#2: trying to get EVDO working on M1400 failed
#3: Outlook 2003 still doesn’t work (crashes on start every time), maybe Outlook in Office 12 will work?
#4: not enough ink-enabled websites, a definite area for improvement in 2006
#5: my own anemic Tablet PC development efforts.

Tablet Owner excitement in year one
#1: Using ink on a slate!
#2: Tablet PC in the sales environment
#3: Handwriting recognition much better than I expected
#4: switching primarily to ink note system
#5: Feel more mobile than did with laptop or any other prior computer
#6: system uptime has been outstanding (despite reports form other tableteers that their systems don’t keep running)
#7: doesn’t feel outdated and obsolete yet even though newer models are available (though arguably not that much better)

Whew! I will keep writing about my new Tablet experiences. If you join the tableteer ranks, then let me know what cool things you are doing. Perhaps you’ll be part of my tablet owner history in 2006. The past posts used as reference for this post are below if you’d like to follow along in chronological order.

History of Tablet PC Ownership posts
December 19, 2004: First full week of ownership complete
February 13, 2005: 60 days after buying a Tablet PC, was it worth it?
March 3, 2005: Day 78 bought external CD-RW drive
May 3, 2005: Day 140
June 27, 2005: Day 196 incompatibility of EVDO Kyocera cards
August 12, 2005: 241 days of Tablet PC Ownership
September 1, 2005: Day 261: Tablet PC sales projections being downshifted by market researchers
September 15, 2005: Day 276 Current office main configuration includes Tablet PC, 3 PCs, Mac
October 12, 2005: Day 302 as Tablet PC owner: email, chat and gaming

Other 365 day tablet owner memoirs (updated, as they ping or I find them)
12/15/05 sbreck, a New York City IT consultant and musician

When you get to 365 days (or close) then ping or use the comments to tell us about it.

Did this post make you go hmm?

Maybe Related Posts (plugin generated)

• Day 508: 10% broken and easy to forget about Bluetooth
• Day 302 as Tablet PC owner: email, chat and gaming
• 241 days of Tablet PC ownership
• Oooo that wire smell, the smell of tablet burning
• Day 577: New Tablet PC purchase handcuffed by Vista waiting game
• Day 405: Dual monitor on Tablet PC alert!