I’ve been meaning to get a tablet PC for some time, but my need is very specific: I want the lightest possible device that will really feel like a paper notepad when I’m in court. The convertible tablet PC’s I’ve seen haven’t excited me, mostly because they wind up having to pack so much into a fully functional notebook (keyboard, CDROM, etc) that they violate my primary requirement.

Knowing that Robert Scoble is a tablet PC junky, I asked him for his recommendation and without 2 seconds pause he blurted out “Motion”. A couple of days research later and I was sold. And now I’m in love, happy new owner of a Motion LE1600 tablet PC. Why I waited this long to sample the tablet PC experience is a mystery I don’t have to think too much about, but I know that I’ll never go back to lugging a notebook around again.

Let me be clear: this won’t replace my beloved Area51 7700, a presentation-quality tour-de-force that exceeds even my beefed up gaming rigs at home. The Area51 is unequaled as a multi-media platform for in-court presentations, and functions wonderfully as my desktop when docked in my office (which is most of the time). But it is not a laptop you want to lug around, it’s more of a “luggable”, a term that once actually described an entire category of first-generation portables like the Osborne (how many of you remember that machine)?

I didn’t need a replacement for my Area51 7700; I needed a true portable notepad, lightweight and nearly invisible. And the LE1600 is everything I’d hoped it would be, and then some. I’m impressed with what Microsoft has done with Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005. In addition to being a full XP client with Pro features, the Tablet Edition incorporates several tablet-specific applications, and there are downloadable patches to Office XP to fully tabletize those applications. The result is an entirely new computing experience, one that redefines what it means to use a portable PC in the field.

I had expected some awkwardness using a pen on a portable (and presumably fragile) screen, but it turns out that tablet screens are significantly more robust than those found on notebook computers. For one thing, you’re specifically encouraged to rest your hand on the screen as you write; no need to hover over it apprehensively, avoiding smudging. The hard, glass-smooth surface provides a solid foundation for writing across the page, much like a real notepad. But you don’t have to give up mouse-induced habits to use a tablet. The LE1600’s pen device has a convenient button right where your index finger rests that acts as a “right mouse button”. I felt right at home within seconds using this pen, navigating through all the usual first steps that I take when I first set up a fresh XP install.

One very thoughtful feature: you can switch the left-right orientation so that left-handers (like me) can have menus, tooltips, and text input screens pop up on the right side of the pen rather than the left. Nice touch. And on the subject of adaptability, there’s a dirt-simple button on the front of the machine that will rotate the screen orientation 90 degrees at a time, switching from portrait to landscape, with any of the four sides selectable as the bottom of the viewing area. I have mine set up portrait orientation, and have configured my Windows Journal to look and feel like a standard yellow legal pad. The handwriting recognition is near perfect, though I do have to take a few precautions to get full recognition, like fully closing my o’s and d’s, for example, but the results are pretty astonishing. I can take notes in handwriting, select them on the page, and then instantly convert the selection to more familiar computer text.

The LE1600 is pricey. Fully configured with all the bells and whistles, mine came in just under $3k, which is nearly as much as my Area51 7700 cost me, but given the utility I’m going to get from this (not to mention the sheer coolness factor), I deemed it worth the expense. This is a notebook that is truly going to go with me everywhere: in court, in a witness interview, in a jail. It’s smaller than my Swiss Army paper-based notepad that I carry in my messenger bag, and takes up about as much room. The list of actual bells and whistles on this product is pretty staggering and I’ve yet to experience them all. A biometric finger reader that secures access to the machine; speech recognition that can be trained to give the machine commands in spoken voice, and the most elegant, and functional docking station I’ve ever seen for a portable. This docking station isn’t some patch harness, it’s a real, hot-swappable, drop-it-in-place docking station to which you can attach standard keyboard, mouse, and other USB devices. In other words, the docking station done right.

You can probably tell that I’m loving this machine right now. The real test, however, will come over time as I monitor more long-range aspects like battery-life, sustained portable ergonomics, and the viability of handwriting as a primary input platform. I’ll report on my results here. Until then, I’m in hardware heaven.

RP

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 12:33 am and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.