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Erica Goes All-Out And Orders A Tablet PC!
A few days ago, I was not feeling that great, and I decided I was sick of my current laptop.
A bit of background: A little over a year ago, I ordered my first laptop since I left Sun in 2002. I had a beautiful little Toshiba Portege when I worked at Sun, which was left over from when I worked at Cobalt. I loved my Portege while at Sun, so I figured the next logical step was to get an itty-bitty Thinkpad X-series. I got a refurbished one from PC Connection for an incredibly low price, and voila! I had my own laptop again.
However, ever since I got my second flat panel at home (I run 3200×1024 here with dual 17.3″ SGI 1600SW flat panels), the little 1024×768 12″ screen on the Thinkpad wasn’t cutting it. It just seemed so… small. Small in that disappointing way. I knew I didn’t want a 10-pound laptop, but I constantly struggled with the Thinkpad. FG had a Thinkpad T-series with a 1400×1050 (SXGA+) screen, and that worked much better for me. Still, something was holding me back from upgrading to a T-series.
I was cruising the Toshiba website a few weeks ago when I saw their new line of Tablet PCs. Tablet PCs have always appealed to me, mostly because I find a mound of sticky notes accumulating on my desk at any given time, and am constantly going through them to find phone numbers or to look at my to-do list. For some reason, a pen has always felt more natural to me than a keyboard and mouse. I’ve played with the Tablet PCs before, but until now, they’ve been stuck with low resolutions and wimpy processors, which just didn’t appeal to me.
Enter the Toshiba M200 tablet PC. The one I bought runs $1800 and includes very nice specs like my prized 1400×1050 screen and a Pentium-M 1.7GHz processor with 2MB cache. It doesn’t have quite as impressive battery life as my Thinkpad (4.5 hours vs. 5.5 hours), but it’s still long enough to work for 90% of what I need. I bought a brand-new one with a 3-year warranty instead of going refurbished like I did with the Thinkpad. The great thing is that I can sell my Thinkpad for $1000 or so and not feel too bad about splurging on a new laptop. 
I definitely feel like it was the right time to buy a new laptop. Whether I’ll really use the Tablet PC features remains to be seen. According to the tracking number, it should arrive tomorrow, but as the tracking statement does not contain detailed information on where the laptop actually is on its path to California, I have my doubts. I’m hoping it arrives in time for the weekend, but we shall see!
By the way, thank you for all of the emails, phone calls, and comments. I am feeling much better. I sent out a detailed email to our potential investors today about the direction I want to go with Simpli, and I believe this will make Simpli a multi-million dollar company. Another “we shall see” there. 
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4 Responses to “Erica Goes All-Out And Orders A Tablet PC!”
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SlashChick Jumps On the Tablet PC Bandwagon
SlashChick has taken the plunge and ordered a Toshiba M200 Tablet PC. Screen resolution was a key in her decision on choosing her Tablet PC. Check out her thoughts.
I’ve been thinking strongly about the tablet PC market. Right now the tech I am most interested in is the rumoured IBM thinkbad that can swivel the monitor to convert between a laptop and a tablet, and a potential Apple offering in the tablet market.
For non-portable use Wacom also makes a Cintiq line of completely adjustable, large flatpanel monitors that double as very high-resolution pen-tablets. I’ve used them, they are very fun!
Hi Outland… see my next post for my first opinions of my Toshiba. BTW, every convertible tablet PC has the option to rotate the screen around… or is there somthing specific you are looking for that the IBM provides?
Ah! I had eval’d with a few tablet PCs that were not convertable. My appologies for assuming this was a yet-to-be-marketed invention.