I love the potential of the RollTop concept PC from Orkin Design.  Out of the box thinking like this opens the door for some really great new ways to work.

This just cropped up in one of my Twitter searches and it really caught my eye. 

A 9” netbook with a touchscreen and a removable keyboard?  Could it be that someone has finally caught on to the fact that the HP TC1100 was a really good idea and would be excellent if refreshed with current technology?

Weighing less than 2 pounds and sporting a [8.9] inch screen, the Touch Book has moved away from the world of the Intel Atom CPU and delved into the mobile power of the ARM processor from Texas Instruments, and with its custom designed battery, the Touch Book runs for up to 15 hours unplugged.

The key design feature of the Touch Book is its ability to completely separate the screen from the keyboard, allowing the screen to be used as a standalone tablet. Furthermore, the screen is magnetic and can easily be mounted on any metal surfaces.

How cool is that – 15 hours battery life and you can stick it to the fridge!  The bad news is that it is not shipping yet but pre-orders are being taken.

Well the touch book certainly looks like an interesting device and I would love to get my hands on one to see how well the concept is implemented.  It looks like it is running its own OS and the ARM processor is usually associated with phones and PDAs but it could be a good step in the right direction.

Vital statistics from the website:

Key Specifications

• 9.4″ x 7″ x 1.4″ for 2 lbs (with keyboard)
• ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip
• 1024×600 8.9” screen
• Storage: 8GB micro SD card
• Wifi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth
• 3-dimensional accelerometer
• Speakers, micro and headphone
• 6 USB 2.0 (3 internal, 2 external, 1 mini)
• 10h to 15 hours of battery life

A couple weeks ago the OS informed me that the extended battery for my Motion LS800 had issues and should be replaced.  Not really surprising as the battery is 3 or 4 years old and has been heavily used. 

I swapped back to the standard battery and now woe is me – it too tells me that it needs to be replaced.  This battery is actually even older than the Extended battery.

This could spell the end for my much loved Motion LS800, which is a real shame.  Worse than that it is my only tablet that is a slate.  And if I were to replace it – what would I replace it with?

Motion seem to have focused on vertical markets and as such all the new devices they are releasing are ruggudised, specialised or both.  Who makes a nice corporate Slate these days? 

Electrovaya and the Scribbler SC 4000 still seem to be around, but they have never made it downunder AFAIK.

The Tablet Kiosk Sahara range is probably the most comprehensive, but there has been little development in the year or so since I looked at it last.

Fujitsu have had an on again, off again affair with the slate form factor.

Why isn’t anyone building cool new slates these days?  Do you think we’ll see any new slates hitting the market when Windows 7 ships?

OK – here’s the scenario.  You work for company that has a few thousand employees.  The standard desktop currently has Windows XP on it.  And you wonder – should I start migrating to Vista now, or should I just wait until Windows 7 is released and deploy that?  After all, Vista got slated in the press but Windows 7 is getting rave reviews – surely that is a better move?

For my money no.  The short answer I give customers today is to ensure that they are buying Software Assurance so they are licensed for Windows 7 when it releases, but start deploying Vista where it adds value today.

There are two may reasons advice.

1. There are features in Vista that some of your users would benefit from today.  Starting your deployment with these low hanging fruit adds immediate value.
2. Your transition to Windows 7 will be eased significantly if you have already rolled out at least some Vista machines.

Lets look at those in more detail.

Add Value for the Low Hanging Fruit

Firstly – let me be clear.  Being a low hanging fruit is in no way a bad thing.  In our company I’m one!  What I mean by this is that there are some features in Vista that add immediate value to some users in most organisations.  For example I am a highly mobile tablet user with some commercially sensitive data on my machine.  As such the improved power management, fast sleep and resume, much improve handwriting recognition and BitLocker are quick wins for users like me in most organisations.

Easing Your Transition to Windows 7

The transition to Windows 7 will be easier from Vista than for Windows XP. Under the hood there was a significant change between Windows XP and Windows Vista.  The change between Windows Vista and Windows 7, however is relatively minor. 

Architectural changes in the operating system lead to driver and application issues.  As the architectural changes are cumulative the jump from XP to Windows 7 is slightly larger than from XP to Vista.  But if you start the transition to Windows Vista now, you can address the application compatibility, driver and hardware issues you will probably have now.  If you get all your applications running on Windows Vista then for the most part they will also run on Windows 7.  With a few exceptions if there is a Vista driver for your hardware it will work on Windows 7.  If your hardware will run Windows Vista it will run Windows 7.

The last point to note is that if you are planning for a Windows 7 deployment you can put  in place Microsoft Deployment Toolkit environment based on the MDT 2010 beta to deploy Vista and use this same infrastructure to deploy Windows 7 when it releases. This would allow you to build the skills to create, maintain and deploy standard builds and these skills would be transferable to your Windows 7 deployment

In Conclusion

Don’t wait.  If you are on Windows XP now, start deploying Vista to those who will benefit most.  This will add immediate value to your business and ease your transition to Windows 7 when it is released.

I’m not jumping on this “I’m a PC” bandwagon.  Why limit myself?  I’m not just a PC…  I’m a tablet pc!

With pen and touch at my disposal I can do so much more than a mere PC. This is especially true with the Windows 7 beta installed.

I took the liberty of fixing one of the logos from the logo pack on the web site. 

Feel free to grab a copy of the image for your own use.

If anyone from Microsoft wants to turn my version into a sticker – make sure you send me a few.

Following on from my previous post speculating that the netbook wave could lead to renewed interest in slates, there are a couple of discontinued devices I would really like to see revisited.

HP – word to the wise. 

• Take the TC1100 form factor.
• Put in an Atom processor.
• Add Capacitive Touch to the active digitize.

Instant success.

Another vendor that – I think – could do something similar is Motion.  You have the LS800 design, and it was a great design.  But it suffered heat problems.  Refreshing the LS range with an Atom powered machine would be great.

There is no doubt in my mind that the building wave that is the netbook craze is going to renew interest in tablet an touch technology.  Windows 7 provides a really nice tablet experience and is much more touch aware than Vista was.

We are also seeing something in the netbook craze that I think a great thing for all mobile PCs.  Lots of competition.

The Atom processors provide excellent performance and battery life, but they don’t seem to suffer the same heat problems.

Could it be that the planets are aligning for not only more tablets, but perhaps even more slates?  I think maybe the answer is yes.  The critical question is one of demand.  Is there demand for slate devices, particularly in the consumer space?

There is certainly interest – remember the interest sparked last year when it was revealed that an enterprising user was making a tablet out of an eee PC? 

And there is interest on the manufacturer side as well.  In December Fujitsu announced its first new slate in quite some time.

I hope we will see a revival of the slate form factor.

Way back when Windows Vista shipped one of my favourite features was the Search box in the start menu and in Explorer. 

Unfortunately it was a bit unwieldy when you were using the pen.  I found this really annoying and even had a go at writing a proof of concept application called SearchPad to try make Vista Start Search and Explorer a little more pen friendly.

The Windows 7 Beta makes this a little better.  When you click in a the search field in the start menu and launch the tip your pen strokes are recognised and inserted into the search field as you write – often even before the recognition result appears in the TIP itself.

We’ve had some guests staying with us for a week or so and tonight I am catching up on some of my feeds  from the past week. 

My good friend Nick Randolph, in a post about the Self Publishing Service pZing, points out that Dr Neil’s excellent eBook on Tablet PC Development is available for download from pZing.

Another book that was recently published via the pZing service was Dr Neil’s Tablet PC Development eBook:

If you would like to get into tablet and touch development but don’t know where to start this is well worth checking out.

I’ve downloaded and installed the Windows 7 beta – I currently have it running on my Toshiba M750, which I use as my main machine.  It looks fairly similar to the M3 build – but with a bit more of the eye candy implemented. 

There are a couple of hot tablet features I’ve spotted already – I’ll be blogging more on those over the next couple of days.  For now I better head off to bed as I have a wedding to attend tomorrow.

Yesterday I blogged about the revamped Display Settings in Windows 7 and how getting to this frequently accessed settings page was a bit easier in Windows 7 than it was in Vista.  Today that theme continues with something that is near and dear to mobile PC users' hearts - connecting to a network.

Like Vista, Windows 7 shows network connectivity status with a single icon in the system tray.  The star on the tray icon shows that connections are available.

Left clicking on the icon gives you a pop-up list of your dial-up and VPN connections, any manually configured wireless networks (regardless of availability) and any currently available wi-fi networks.  The list appears just above the system tray, rather than in a full window in the middle of the screen.  Next to each wireless network is an indicator of the current signal strength. Clicking on a network item in the list causes that item to expand slightly and display a Connect button (or a disconnect button if you are already connected to that network).

When you click on this connect button you get a progress dialogue until it connects. 

Once connected to a wireless network the system tray icon displays the green bars indicating signal strength. 

The connection process is just that little bit cleaner and more efficient than it was in Vista.  The process in Vista was to right click the network icon in the system tray and select "connect to a network".  This launches a new window with a list of networks.  You then select the network you want and click connect.  Not only is this more steps than in Windows 7 but it is less efficient well.  As I said in Windows 7 the list of networks appears just above the system tray.  In Vista the list of networks opens in a new window in the centre of the screen it also takes more movement of the mouse or pen to connect to a network.

Overall the process of connecting to a network is much simpler in Windows 7, making a better mobile experience.

The TIP in Windows 7 has had a lot of work to make it more usable.  I'm finding it to be a really good user experience so far.

This video explores some of the new features that are in the Milestone 3 build (6801) that was released at PDC. 

Windows 7 is much more pen and touch aware than Vista.  And it draws a distinction, too.  When you are using a tablet that supports both pen and touch - such as the Toshiba M750 that I am using - you sometimes get a different depending on how you are interacting with the computer.

The features I demonstrate in this video include:

• The TIP vanishing when you move you pen away from it
• The revamped text correction UI and gestures
• The changes in the On Screen Keyboard when launched with a finger rather than a pen

There may be more that I have not found yet, or that may be added into a future build - who knows!

Click the video below for a glimpse of some of what's new in Windows 7 for Tablet users.

Two of my machines are in desperate need of a rebuild.  Because it has been on my to-do list for a while I am going to look at Microsoft's updated desktop deployment solution accelerator - the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT).

I have used the previous solution (BDD 2007) to automate Vista builds in the past.  The constraint with BDD was that it could only do the desktop OS. 

MDT is an updated version of BDD that can deploy desktop and server operating systems.  There was a wealth of information in BDD, so I am looking forward to getting hands on with MDT to see what is there.  From the overview blurb:

Microsoft Deployment provides proven tools and practices with which IT professionals can:

• Create a software and hardware inventory to assist in deployment planning.

• Test applications for compatibility with Windows operating systems and mitigate compatibility issues discovered during the process.

• Set up an initial lab environment with imaging and deployment servers.

• Customize, package, and deploy applications.

• Automate image creation and deployment.

• Manage processes and technologies to produce comprehensive and integrated Lite Touch Installation (LTI) and Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) deployments.

• During deployment, migrate users’ documents and settings to their new computer configurations.

• During deployment, Microsoft Deployment supports the installation of all Roles such as Active Directory® Domain Services (AD DS), Domain Name System (DNS) server, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Deployment Services, Windows SharePoint® Services, Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) server, and Windows Server® 2003 Terminal Services. Additionally, Microsoft Deployment supports the configuration of the AD DS role.

• Ensure that computers are hardened to improve security within the environment.

Microsoft Deployment brings together time-honored and proven practices in addition to the following Microsoft technologies:

• Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0 for gathering application inventory and for testing and mitigating application-compatibility issues

• Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) for migrating user settings and data

• Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) for configuring unattended Setup answer files (Unattend.xml) and capturing images

• Windows Deployment Services for starting Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) on target computers across the network

• Windows PE 2.0 for starting computers

As I write this I have a new Windows Server 2008 Standard virtual machine installing in Virtual PC that I plan to use as the deployment server.  After that is installed I'll be installing MDT.  Stay tuned.

This morning I was fortunate enough to have a one-on-one chat with Motion Computing's President and CEO, Scott Eckert.  Thanks for all those who posted comments and questions on my blog and on GottaBeMobile.  Rather than pose every question directly (as there were quite a few) I looked for the common themes in the comments and constructed questions from those. 

I met Scott in the foyer lounge of a Sydney Hotel.  We chatted for a couple of minutes about Sydney, the appalling weather and work, then got down to business.  He was pleased that I was taking notes on my LS800 at the meeting and allowed that he used one himself for two years.  This led nicely into my first question.  What follows is summary of my discussion with Scott.  This is not a verbatim transcript as I did not record the conversation.

--

Of the 12 comments posted on the two blogs (excluding the one about taking Scott hostage until he included ice cube makers - which we both took as a joke) fully 4 of them mentioned the LS800 directly and two others mentioned a desire for a smaller tablet.  When the LS range was dropped there were a lot of people who were very disappointed, myself included.  In my view Motion created and owned the Ultra Mobile category before the UMPC label even existed.   Given that there is an apparent market for these devices and that they were, and still are,  a device that really turned heads and got people interested in Tablets - why was it dropped?

In response Scott was pleased that I was crediting them with creating a category.  Their goal was to create a truly enterprise class UMPC and he felt that they had done well with that.  He also indicated that while the LS800 did enjoy some success in certain areas that it did not achieve the volumes needed to sustain it as an additional range.  That said the market for this type of device is still there and Motion is keeping an eye on it, there is ongoing R&D and as pen, touch and other technologies mature it is an area that they may re-enter.

Next I said that to me it seemed that sometimes Motion was focusing more on winning new customers than looking after their existing customer base.  Two examples I held up to support this.  The first was the inability to migrate accessories between ranges - such as the M-series range and the LE-series range.  The second was the relatively poor upgrade experience that Motion users had going to Vista. 

On the first point Scott pointed out that their ranges are expected to exist for about 3 years before being replaced by a new range.  They try to ensure consistency in the range, but in order to take advantage of rapidly advancing technology they won't necessarily have compatibility of peripherals between ranges. 

I suppose that this helps Motion evolve their products more quickly as they are not constraining a new range with the limitations of the old. 

Scott also pointed out that while accessories for previous ranges are not necessarily compatible, they are supported and spares are available long after the range stops shipping, which also helps to mitigate the issue for their enterprise customers.

On the second point Scott acknowledged that the Vista upgrade experience had not been all that smooth for end users.  They have learned from the feedback and hope to do it better next time.  He also pointed out that many of their enterprise accounts are still deploying XP based images on their Motion tablets.

There seems to be an increasing focus on verticals with the specialized range expanding and what I consider to be the general use/corporate range shrinking.  Is this going to be a trend that continues?

Motion are really highly focused on the verticals.  In fact when I was chatting to Scott this was very apparent long before I asked this question.  Scott told me that the way Motion look at it is that they have two primary verticals and three product ranges.  The vertical markets they are focused on are healthcare and field automation and the three product ranges can be applied to both of those.

This is not to say that there are not other niches and verticals that don't suit the Motion tablets.  Indeed some of the successful markets have come as something of a surprise to Motion.  The LS800 enjoyed quite a bit of success in the aviation market, and this was largely driven by a software partner who married up his software, the LS800 and a mounting solution and sold this as a bundle.

What other verticals interest you?

Motion's primary focus has always been people who need to use a computer while standing and walking. 

One of the questions that came up was around a slate for artists - any plans to enter that market?

Scott thought that the artist market was pretty well served today by the likes of the Wacom Cintiq which is not mobile, but it provides a much higher resolution and a better digitizer than what is available today in mobile devices.  There may not be too many mobile artists, but many of the ones that are out there are using the LE range devices today with success.

There were a couple of questions around multi-touch.  Motion was leading the market there - what happened?

The technology was very new and Motion just struggled to get it commercialized.  Touch, and the combination of touch and an active digitizer, is and will continue to be an important technology for future ranges.

(reading between the lines I take it there won't be one in the LE range, though I could be wrong.)

Motion also feels that for touch to really succeed it is critical that the applications are designed for and work well with touch.  This led nicely to my next question.

Again - from the questions posted is there any thought of entering the software market to help bring that about?

The short answer is that Motion is not looking to become a software house.  However Motion are already active in that space and they currently work with about 150 software partners in the vertical markets to help them write better applications.  It is better for Motion to have more partners and to work with them rather than compete against them.

This is where Scott talked about the aviation example and how a partner created a market for the LS800 and did really well in it.  Naturally Motion would like to find more partners like that, so for those of you reading this that write software - keep that in mind!

There are some general issues that most mobile users face, such as battery life and heat.  There are also some technologies that seem to be taking a long time to come to market, such as hybrid drives or that still carry a significant premium like solid state drives.  What do you see as the most important technologies coming.

Battery technology is really a chemical process, which means that adding capacity to batteries is not easy.  Motion have found it more fruitful to reduce the power consumption of the device and this is where they are investing.  This means both engineering better, more efficient hardware, adding technologies such as LED backlit displays and working with application developers to make the applications more efficient.

--

Some closing thoughts from me.  Scott is a genuinely nice guy and I really enjoyed my chat with him.  He is astute, passionate about his products and focused on the vertical markets and the Motion vision.  Motion are not merely aware of the bloggers, readers and commentors that make up the blogosphere.  They are not just listening to the conversations.  They are actively reaching out and engaging and I think that is a really good thing.  Thanks to Scott for taking the time to talk to me.

As I just posted Motion have reached out through me to one of their customers who posted a comment here about a poor experience he had with their support.

I think it is great that Motion are paying attention.  And not just to the bloggers, but to the comments as well.  This is a very good thing. 

Often we as customers feel like we are nothing more than nameless, faceless numbers to the companies we buy products from.  When they show that they are listening and want to help it is truly gratifying.  I don't know why more companies don't keep their finger on the pulse.  Good work guys.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty full on.  I never made it bat to CeBit after my previous post as a project I am working on ran into some issues and that demanded my full attention.

However, while I was there I talked with the guys from Motion Computing (who had a great stand at CeBit, BTW) and on Friday I got a call from the country manager here in Australia.  He tells me that Scott Eckert, the CEO of Motion Computing, is going to be in Sydney next week and asked if I would be keen to meet and talk to him.  Heck yeah!

Now it is no secret that I have long been a slate fan and that I've had a couple of Motion slates in my time.  My Motion LS800 is still one of my favourite devices and I've always wondered why there was never another in the LS line...  I've got plenty to things to talk to Scott about.  But then I'm sure some of you do as well.  So if you do have any questions, leave a comment here and I'll see what I can do.  I'm meeting Scott on Wednesday - Sydney time.

Well - not really, but this tickled me.  Ken Hinckley has created a paper cutout of an OQO Model 2 that you can download and print to make your own paper OQO Model 2. 

The man wants an OQO Model 02 so badly that he has created an OQO Model 02 origami and is now carrying it around with him, pretending it is real.

Ok...

You can download the Model 02  origami here.

Now I will admit here that while I admire the engineering I am personally not  a big fan of the OQO Model 2.  It is not a bad device, more of a personal preferences thing.  I just find the screen too physically small.  For me I would rather carry a slightly larger device and have more room to write.  If the screen size does not bother you then there is much to like about the OQO, but for me it is just not usable for how I work.  I do share Ken's bias to active digitisers over touch-screens, I just want more room to work.  (If only Motion would refresh the LS800 line as that was a great device.)

With that in mind you might understand why my first thought here was "wow, all the usability of the real OQO at a fraction of the price!"

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to see a Motion Computing F5 on stage at the keynote for Interact 2008.  It was used as part of a great demo.

There followed a great demo of the real value of UC. what was great about it was that it was not run from Office Communicator or from Outlook. It was a demo of a Point of Sale application that had been "Communications enabled" and it was run from a Tablet PC.

The demo scenario was a customer asking a staff member if they had a particular product. From their tablet pc the employee can check stock in other nearby stores.  He could then see who in the other store was online and available to take a call.

The call was then initiated from within the PoS app using the tablet's speakers & microphone. On the receiving end the incoming call had a subject indicated that the call was a stock enquiry for a particular product and the app automatically displayed info that was contextually relevant - their stock level for that product. This means that at the time the call is answered the person already knows what it is about and has the information required to help at hand. A very compelling demo.

This sort of scenario is perfect for a slate style device - which is more usable when you are standing or moving than convertible style devices. My full post on the keynote is here.

Over at GBM Rob has unpacked the Dell Latitude XT and recorded the experience.  While the video is not yet up on the site he has posted up some of his initial thoughts.  These include:

• I love the crisp look of the tablet: black, silver, and a nice charcoal finish. It is very professional looking and well designed.
• It is thicker and heavier than I imagined. The screen feels thicker than the Lenovo X61, but I put the screens side by side and they are exactly the same thickness. Go figure.
• Even though it feels thicker than I imagined, it fits quite nicely in the Tom Bihn Ristretto Messenger bag. The Lenovo X61 would not fit in there without some major pushing. So, I'm really stoked that the Ristretto and the XT are a good match.
• It rotates back and forth into landscape / portrait much quicker than other tablets I've used.
• The DLV screen is very bright and crisp.
• As I mention in the unboxing video, there is graph paper type grid that is slightly visible when the display is dim and looking at it from an angle. This must be the N-Trig digitizer because I've not seen that type of grid before on any other tablet. It can be seen at various angles when holding the tablet. Seeing that grid will take a little getting used to.
• It is very, very soft to the touch, but I've not experienced any vectoring issues using the active digitizer pen. I barely have to touch the screen at all to activate a button. I've not experienced hardly any fingerprint issues that one normally experiences with a view anywhere / bright screen. The fingerprints are there as one would expect, but nothing like the X61 SXGA or Motion LE1700 VA. I was a little worried about that part and am quite pleased to see that I now have the best of both worlds: bright, outdoor viewable screen and no finger print issues.
• The pen came with 6 tips: 3 blue and 3 black. The blue tip felt like writing on a matte / paper like finish, and was not as fluid as I like. I switched to the black tip, and it felt much more comfortable to write on.

There's more - so head on over to GBM to check it out.

After discovering that I could configure OneNote to stay on top of other windows I found it was a really great way to take notes on a document.  The problem I next encountered was that for the type of note taking I was doing I would prefer to use Mind Manager 7.

Unfortunately, MindManager does not appear to offer this functionality.  However - a quick Google revealed a great little free utility that will let you keep one or more windows on top.  The application is called XNeat Window Manager - here is an out take from the site:

XNeat Windows Manager adds additional features to the Windows taskbar and system tray, that enables you to minimize any window to an icon in the system tray (instead of the taskbar), keep any window on top, set a custom transparency level, and also hide any window or tray icon, furthermore the program allows you to re-arrange the order of the taskbar buttons by simply dragging them around. XNeat Windows Manager integrates into the right-click menu of the taskbar and system tray. It also allows you to change the taskbar appearance by hiding the Start button, system clock and other elements.

For want of a better term - Neat!  Works exactly as it says and I was soon note taking in Mind Manager while reading a document in another window behind it.

I stumbled across a handy feature in OneNote today.  If you are reading a document and taking notes (I was studying for an exam) then switching between windows will soon become tedious.  But - you don't need to switch back and forth between windows at all.  In the Window menu there is an option to keep OneNote on top of other windows.

Doing this I found that I could work quite effectively with the X60 in slate mode on the train.  I full screened the PDF I was reading and then put arranged OneNote over the top of the bottom third of the screen and configured the window to stay on top.  I also found that using the panning hand in the PDF was the most effective way to re-position the content in the PDF - both pen flicks and the scroll bar had a tendency to scroll too far.

News from Tegatech:

For more details visit the new range here:

· Sahara Slate PC i440T rev 2.0 (TOUCH Tablet)

· Sahara Slate PC i440D rev 2.0 (TOUCH and PEN)

...

And finally, with much anticipation, we would like to introduce the docking desk stand for the Sahara i400 series:

· Powered Docking Cradle for Sahara Slate PC i4XX series

This is great news as I've always thought that a deck is a very important accessory to have when you own a slate. Good to see another player in the slate market.

I have a colleague who has a Fujitsu P1610 that he's only using as a remote control for his media centre - bit of a waste.  I have a Samsung Q1P that I hardly use at all.  Also a waste.

I thought that the Samsung would make a better remote and I wanted to test my theory about using a small convertible as a secondary device.  As I posted previously I am starting to think that since the ink experience on the small touch screen devices is not there yet it makes sense to have a keyboard.  So I proposed a trade.

We've swapped the two devices on a trial basis initially, with the understanding that if we both prefer the alternate devices then we will trade permanently.

So far I am really liking the Fujitsu. Ironically it is also the best ink experience on a small touch screen device I have yet found...

I'll post more thoughts about the 1610 once I've had more time using it.

I previously posted about a work around I have used to get around the Sleep of Death issue on my LS800.  Unfortunately the same fix has not worked for for other LS800 users - there must be more variables.

However - as annoying as the sleep of death is it is not dangerous.  There is another issue I think is much worse.  Vista Insomnia.

I have 4 Vista machines that I have been using for a while.  These are:

• The Motion LS800
• An Acer Ferrari 1000
• A Samsung Q1P
• A custom built Media Centre

All of these machines have suffered from insomnia.  What I mean by this is I put a Vista PC into sleep mode and some time later it resumes by itself.  The reason I think this is worse than the sleep of death is that a Mobile PC coming out of sleep at the wrong time could be dangerous.  As an example I was using my LS800 to check some emails and feeds at the airport a while ago.  I used right up to the boarding line.  As I approached the counter I hit the power button to put the device to sleep - watched it go down because of sleep of death - and then dropped it into my carry-on bag to board the plane.  When we reached out cruising altitude I opened my bag to read my synced feeds and the bag was roasting hot.  The LS800 was awake again!

Now as bad as that is - it gets worse.  What happens to your hardware if you hit both problems?  If you put you device to sleep and it wakes itself up - what happens if you hit the sleep of death issue and it does not come all the way our of sleep?  Is the OS running?  If the OS has not resumed properly can it shut itself down if it gets too hot?   The night my LS800 died it was plugged in and lying flat on the desk.  The next morning it would not boot.  When I opened it up there was evidence of extreme heat damage and both the motherboard and hard drive were toast.  I can't prove it but I think the combination of these two Vista issues killed my device.  At any rate I have always been careful since to charge the LS800 in it's bumpcase so I can prop it up since then.

Warner Crocker points out some of the highlights in Vista SP1 for mobile users.

  As Microsoft prepares to roll out the Release Candidate of this to users soon, it might be worth taking a look. Some highlights that might be of interest to mobile users:

• Improves the effectiveness of a Windows ReadyBoost™ device in reducing the time to resume from standby and hibernate by increasing the amount of data stored in the ReadyBoost device that can be used during a resume cycle.

• Includes improvements to Windows Superfetch™ that help to further improve resume times, in many environments.

• Improves the time to resume from standby for a certain class of USB Hubs by approximately 18%.

• SP1 reduces the number of UAC (User Account Control) prompts from 4 to 1 when creating or renaming a folder at a protected location.

• SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.

• Improves power consumption when the display is not changing by allowing the processor to remain in its sleep state which consumes less energy.

Long Zheng of istartedsomething has posted an extensive list of fixes and it is on view here.  Worth checking out, methinks.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the tablet and UMPC form factors lately.  I have always been a fan of the slate tablet form factor.  For my main machine I prefer slates.  I currently use a Motion Computing LS800 - which is a real gem of a machine.  Of my other previous and current tablets (and there have been a few) the only other one I think as highly of is the venerable HP TC1100.

There have been a number of events of late that have got me thinking about what my next tablet will be. 

Firstly, Motion have announced that they are discontinuing the LS800 - however they have not yet announced a successor.  Will they step up and plug the gap?  As Warner has already pointed out there are very few options for those of us looking for a small form factor device with a great ink experience. 

The other events that have had me thinking lately are the recent reviews I've done.  The Motion LE1700 has re-ignited my love of the larger slate.  That is a great unit.  A full sized slate with an active digitizer gives you the best inking experience you will find on a tablet PC.  Generally speaking slates are easier to hold and more natural to write on when they are being held.  You can comfortably use the device as you actually move.  That is mobility. 

In addition two UMPCs - namely the Fujitsu U1010 and the HTC Shift - have convinced me of the need for and utility of a keyboard on the small touch screen devices.  The ink experience is not good enough for me.  I would not use a UMPC for extended note taking or data entry.  So if the handwriting experience is not there - why wouldn't you want some kind of a keyboard for text entry?  Until that issue is fixed - either by hardware or by software - the original Origami dream of the super small, super light slate tablet will not be realised.

So where I am leading with this is I think that the ideal device combination for me on the market today is contrary to the market trends.  For my main machine I would favour a full sized slate with a good docking solution over a convertible.  Embedded 3g would be highly desirable.  For a secondary device I would go for a very small, touch screen convertible. 

Of course mobile devices are by their very nature a very personal choice.  YMMV.

Several people have asked about the inking experience on the Shift in comments on my previous posts about the Shift. 1, 2, 3 & 4

The Shift has many good points. Inking is not one of them.  Like many UMPCs the Shift is fairly uncomfortable to write on.  If you do try it out you will find that you need to hold you hand up off the screen, otherwise the ink will jump between the point of the stylus and the heel of your palm.  This is because the Shift does not have any palm rejection technology.

In short, the Shift offers a much better touch experience than the inking experience.

This is very sad news from Blognation:

At some time between 7:30 and 8:10 AM on Sunday Morning December 2nd, 2007, Marc Orchant, my fellow author on this blog, as well as one of my closest friends sustained a massive heart attack while working in his home office. At this time Marc is in critical condition at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Critical Cardiac Care Unit, Bed 3. He is not expected to regain consciousness for the next 24 to 48 hours.

For those who have not met him Marc is a great, intelligent guy with a huge rest for life. That makes this sad news all the more shocking. My thoughts are with Marc and his family.

Hang in there buddy - I'm looking forward to seeing you again!

There is a brief article in the Australian Reseller News about how Queensland Academy of Science, Maths and Technology (QASMT) is rolling out 400 tablet PCs.

They have selected the Lenovo X61 tablet.

There is no word on what the units will be used for but:

. . . the institution's commitment to accelerated learning and cutting edge technology was behind its decision to choose tablet PCs

Good choice.

One of the comments on my post about the HTC Shift's two operating systems has led me to a pretty interesting discovery.  There's a GPS in there!

In the screenshots of the tools in the HTC Debug Tools folder there is an icon called HTCGPSTool.

This led Hugo to ask if there was in fact a GPS in the device.

I had investigated this tool breifly over the weekend but it seemed a pretty basic tool and I had assumed that it was there to test an external GPS such as a bluetooth unit.  The comment got my interest up and I had some time on the train on the way to work, so I decided to investigate further. 

I started up the debugging tool.  There is a dropdown box with Com Ports listed.  By default it was on COM4.  I clicked on Open and low and behold I started seeing GPS strings in the output window.  I changed it to a different COM port and clicked open - and I got an error saying it could not find a GPS device.  Clearly the tool actually thinks there is a GPS in there.

I swapped back to COM4 and opened the port.  There are a number of tabs that show GPS information if you have a fix (which I didn't) and another radar display that shows the satellites that the device can see.  Initially there weren't any (hey I was on a train) but suddenly I saw one pop up.  It dropped off again a minute later.  I kept the GPSTool running when I got off the train.  As soon as I got out of the station and into some fairly open ground I got a satellite again.  Within 100m I had three more and even (breifly) got a fix.  Not bad in the middle of the CBD as the valleys between the buildings play hell with a GPS.  At my desk I can see one satellite - so I recorded a short video of the tool and clicked through the tabs before I had to give the device back.

So it would seem that the device does have a functioning GPS internally that is accessible inside of the Windows Mobile OS.  There is not, however, any software installed to actually use the GPS in Windows Mobile.

But - as I mentioned in my previous post is is possible to connect the Windows Mobile OS and the Windows Vista OS via Windows Mobile Device Centre over a "virtual" USB connection.  This means that it may be possible to install moving map software such as TomTom onto the Windows Mobile OS from Vista.

I could not find a way to access the GPS device from the Vista OS, nor could I see it listed in device manager.

Since HTC announced the Shift there has been some confusion about how the two operating systems on the device play together.  What can you do in each one?  Do they talk?

Well I have to preface this whole section by stating that as far as I know the software on the unit I had to evaluate is not the final version that will be on the devices when they ship.

In Windows Mobile...

The WM6 installation on the Shift has been stripped down and customized.  It is important to note that even though the device includes the 3G radio there is no phone application.  The Shift is not a voice device.  When you access the WM interface you are presented with a heavily customized Today screen.

This gives you access to your next couple of appointments, the date, time and calendar.  There are also buttons to access your full calendar, email, SMS, contacts, weather information and some settings.

The weather interface is quite nice - cool thunder storms tomorrow :)

The settings button takes you into an explorer view that gives you access:

Notice there are a bunch of things that are usually in WM6 that are missing?  Most of the settings interfaces have been replaced.  Don't expect to add too many applications either.  There is no programs folder so you would have to launch them through the file explorer.  And there is not much memory for running applications either.

The HTC Debug Tools folder in the settings folder gives you a bunch of little utils.  I don't know if this is going to be the same in the released version.

The bottom most icon in that - oops name was cut off - is called USBTool.  This offers a menu with two options - cable in and cable out.  When you select cable in with Vista running it creates a virtual USB connection between the two personalities of the HTC Shift.  This allows you to run up Mobile Device Center and explore the WM OS from Vista.  This makes it easier to set up things like Exchange ActiveSync.

The Windows Mobile OS stays running even when the Vista OS is sleeping or powered off.  If you configure it to use Direct Push you can receive your Exchange email even when Vista is off.  If you prefer or if you don't have an email account with Direct Push, you can use the virtual USB cable described above to sync directly with the local copy of Outlook in the Vista environment.  Of course in this configuration you will only see in WM a copy of what is in Vista.  You will not receive new emails while Vista is not running.

In Vista...

In Vista there is also a Connection Manager type of application that is called - for reasons that escape me - The Shag Control!  This is a fairly clean interface that gives you access to connection management, power management and other settings.  There is a gem buried in there - here's a tour:

Opinion

Given how stripped down the WM OS is I almost wondered why they bothered doing it that way.  I'm not saying that it is not useful - far from it - but I would almost rather that the second OS was implemented as a sideshow host rather than a WM environment.  You would not be able to do the push email, but you could access the data from the local instance of Outlook...  and potentially do a bunch of other cool things.  Food for thought.

In my previous post I gave a tour of the HTC Shift.  I promised to explore, among other things, what it is like to actually use the device.

One thing I quite like about the HTC Shift is that it is designed in such a way that it is very flexible.  There are three main ways in which you can use this device. 

Firstly you can use it as a slate.  Like most slates this has the advantage of actually being usable while you are standing up and moving around. 

The next option is to slide the screen up to expose the keyboard and use it as a thumb board.  This is a little cumbersome compared to other thumb boards, but it is usable. 

The third option is to put the device on a hard service and tilt the screen up, making it more like a laptop.

The video below explores these three modes.

Some questions I have had sent through about usage are below - with my answers in blue:

What is the screen like compared to the Q1 Ultra (or even the Q1)?

Similar - the screen is clear and viewable indoors.  The screen is not an outdoor viewable one, and the screen is hard to read in direct sunlight.

How long does the battery last under normal conditions?  In Vista? in WM6?

My experimentation here has been limited due to the short time I've had the device.  I've not tweaked the power settings at all, but at default it gets about 2 hours when using Vista for browsing and feed reading over wi-fi.  When I hibernated Windows Vista and left the device with Windows Mobile and push email the battery only lost 4% points of charge over 6 hours.  This leads me to believe that the battery life if you use Windows mobile exclusively will be measured in days.

How solid is the keyboard/screen mechanism?

It is easy enough to use but firm enough to support the weight of the screen at any viewing angle you should choose.

How useful is the touchpad?

It works well enough, but I don't tend to use it much.  I personally find it easier to just touch the screen.  One thing I did find odd is that it does not work in the Windows Mobile OS.  This seems a waste as WM does support using a mouse.

How useful is the WM6 component in reality?

I'll talk about this more in my next post.

How well will it work with voice applications such as Skype?

I did not try it, but I recorded a screencast on the device and the audio from the microphone seemed fairly good.  I would think that it would work well, though bear in mind that cellular networks such as HSDPA are usually quite latent and this can impact your voice experience.

I'll be interested in how the battery life is as well as the ease of text entry if you are holding it with both hands.

Battery life as above.  Yes you can use it holding it in two hands - using the keyboard like a thumb board.  As thumb boards go it is a fairly sizable one - and that can make text entry a bit cumbersome.

...the biggest question I have is regarding the battery life as I am considering a shift to replace my laptop. I have a desktop computer at work but regularly leave the office, travelling the country a fair bit and would like to know if the Shift could really satisfy my mobile needs?

It would depend on what you are wanting to do with it.  If you are primarily thinking of email then using Windows Mobile the battery life is stunning.  If you are wanting to use Vista for extended periods then the battery life could be an issue.  It is worth noting here that the power brick is quite small.

My Conclusions

The Shift is designed as a secondary device - to be used in conjunction with a "real computer".  At this it excels because you are actually getting a secondary device and a tertiary device in the one package.  I often say that mobility is all about having options.  Therefore a good mobile device needs to be a multi-tool.  Your Leatherman is not likely to be the best pair of pliers, knife or corkscrew you could own, but the fact that you have more than one tool in the same compact package is useful in and of itself. 

The Shift is the same deal.  The screen is ok for reading emails and browsing the web, but it can be a bit small for working on a large document, video or images.  There is of course a VGA port so you can always plug in a monitor.  Similarly the keyboard is neither a great keyboard or a great thumb board - but it can be used as either and that is powerful.  And of course there is a USB port - so you can plug stuff in.

I've now had some time with the HTC Shift and I'm getting to know it a lot better.  I've already had some questions posted in response to my earlier post - but I'll repeat the call.  I only have this device for the weekend so if there is anything you want me to investigate then post a comment and I'll do my best.

One of the first questions I had was from Chippy at UMPC Portal- is this unit the retail version?  The answer is no.  I understand the hardware is final, but the it does not have the final version of the system software installed on it.  This is an important caveat when I am talking about the software features of the Shift - they are not yet carved in stone.

I thought I would start with a tour of the physical device.  I'll follow up with posts about the software, usage and the interplay between the two operating systems.

In slate mode the Shift is small, thin and light.  On the front bezel there are a number of features worth noting.

In the top left corner there is a web camera.  In the top right there is an ambient light sensor. 

The two hardware buttons below the light sensor are function buttons.  When in Windows Mobile mode they don't do anything.  In Windows Vista the top button launches the Shift Control center.  The button below that toggles the screen resolution between 800x480 and 1024x768.

The black square below the two function buttons is a touch pad that allows you to control the mouse pointer in Windows Vista.  The left and right mouse buttons are the two buttons below the web camera on the left.  There are also two black oval slots.  These are the speakers.  Below the right speaker is the fingerprint reader.  Below the left speaker is the hardware button that toggles between Windows Mobile and Windows Vista.  Along the bottom of the screen (under my thumb) there are a number of indicator lights, including power, battery indicator, caps lock indicator, HDD activity, wireless indicator, 3g indicator and alert light.

On the right edge there is the power button, one USB port, the power input and an SD Card slot.

The silver power button is a soft switch.  Sliding this to the right toggles the power switch.  If you slide the switch to the left it locks in place and this disables all the buttons and the touch screen.

On the left side of the unit is the headphone jack.  This is on the left of the picture below.  Just visible on the right of the photo below is the inbuilt microphone.  There is also another hole on the front edge of the same corner.  Roughly in the middle is the slot for the stylus.  The stylus is ejected by pressing the end in, it then pops out.  When slotted in place it locks in positively.

On the top edge, when in slate mode, is a VGA output.

Sliding the screen upwards reveals a qwerty keyboard.  The screen slides up quite easily.  You can use the device quite comfortably in this mode while sitting or standing and using the keyboard as a thumb-board.

You can also convert the device into laptop mode.  The hinge is fairly stiff - this allows you to position the screen at any angle that suits you.  It does mean that you need a fair bit of leverage to pull it up.  You can achieve this one handed if you place your thumb at the base of the screen and pull up on the top edge with your fingers.

In order to use the onboard HSPDA you need to insert a SIM card.  To do this you need to remove the battery.  This is done by removing a cover on the back of the unit to expose the battery.  You then slide back two red clips that hold the battery in place.

Once you remove the battery you can see the SIM card slot. 

The only other points of interest on the back of the unit are three vents that let out heat and four rubber feel.  The rubber feet provide good grip on smooth surfaces - which is important when you have such a smooth finish on the unit.

Overall it is a good looking unit and feels well made.  Stay tuned for more on what you get when you fire it up.

Because I have a HTC Shift in my hot little hands for the weekend.

I'm really excited to have this opportunity. I think the Shift is an incredible and innovative device. Packed into it's tony frame are two operating systems - Windows Vista and Windows Mobile. It has embedded 3G wireless. There is a lot to play with.

Unfortunatly there is also a lot of confusion in the market about it as well. I aim to try and help clear someof that up. If there is something about the Shift you want me to check out while I have it leave a comment.

There is an issue that many mobile and tablet users have encountered with Windows Vista, myself included.  Warner Crocker also has encountered this issue and describes it thus:

I’m still frustrated with Vista on one front here and that is putting the Tablet PC to sleep. 3 times out of 4 everything will work as advertised. Close the lid, unit goes to sleep, open the lid, unit returns. But occasionally the OS just goes off into its own world without sleeping, or after a successful sleep, not returning. Occasionally it will return from sleep but the screen will stay dark.

I personally believe that this issue is not a Vista issue per se, but rather a driver issue.  I think that some drivers are poorly written and interfere with the sleep and resume process.  I also think that this issue is much more serious than it initially appears.  I have come to refer to it as the sleep of death.  But that I'll leave for another post. 

For Warner it seems his issues are related to when he is using Wi-fi.  For me it was BlueTooth.  Either way it points at drivers.

I’m beginning to think (this seems to be somewhat reproducible here) that these issues have something to do with being connected or disconnected to our WiFi network. Here’s what I’m experiencing and maybe someone smarter than me can help out here with some thoughts.

What worked for me was to disable the Power Management features for the affected driver.  For a wireless driver you would do this by going into Device Manager, right clicking on the relevant device and selecting Properties.

You may then see a Power Management tab.  Not all device or drivers implement this interface, so if yours does not you will not see the tab.

If there is one select that tab and then clear both of the checkboxes shown in the screenshot below. 

I have done this for my LS800 and it has all but eliminated the dreaded sleep of death issue.  I use to encounter this several times a week and now I get it less than once a month. 

GottaBeMobile have posted an entertaining recap of the Tablet Pc's short 5 year wishy:

Five years ago, on November 7 2002, Microsoft launched Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Bill Gates himself was on-hand to launch the new platform at a large press event.

"The launch of the Tablet PC marks an exciting new era of mobile computing that is limited only by the imagination of its users," Gates said. "The Tablet PC is a great example of how computers are adapting to how people really work, whether they're taking notes in a meeting, collaborating wirelessly with colleagues or reading on screen. We're just scratching the surface of what is possible."

As it comes time to celebrate the 5 Year Anniversary of Tablet PCs, it's only natural to look at how far we've come since that first operating system release. So let's take a brief walk down the dusty paths of Tablet PC history and look at how far the OS has evolved in five short years.

Sierra recaps the major milestones of the tablet PC. whether you have been there from the start or have just joined us, it is well worth a read.

My, how far we have come!

Source: GBM 5 Years of Tablet PC: Operating Systems

You may remember my colleague Lee, who cut a deal with his wife - give up smoking and buy a tablet.  Sadly Lee is off the wagon. 

His wife it threatening to sell off his LS800 - I reckon that she should find out if it will blend and then sell the dust on eBay.

Are they you ask?  I think so and, quite frankly, it really annoys me.

SilverLight is a platform that offers a lot of potential to the tablet community as it opens the door to real ink on the web.  It is also a direct competitor of Adobe flash.  Flash is well established and SilverLight is the new kid on the block. 

To gain real acceptance in the market Microsoft need to convince developers to choose SilverLight over Flash.  The more developers that are using it the more widely the browser plugin will be deployed. 

So why are Microsoft still using flash on their sites?  I've seen this on a couple of MS sites lately - but tonight it was on Zune.net.  I don't get it.

After a litany of supply problems I won't recount here "new" but "end-of-life" tablet arrived. It is a Lenovo X60. (I will say that the issues were internal and were not due to Lenovo.)

Since we are only allowed to connect certified hardware to the corporate LAN I have been working with two devices and synchronisation strategy that would challenge most people for the last 6 months.

Now I have the X60 life just got a whole lot simpler.

My only gripe -and it is a big one- is that the standard image is XP Tablet Edition. More on that later.

The Mobile Tech Roundup team and Warner Crocker over at GBM are asking where the slates have gone.

Its true. Relative to the whole tablet market, there are fewer slates around now than there were. When I say "relative to the whole market" I am referring to the new form factors such is UMPCs and the new entrants such as Dell.

But why are the slates disappearing?

More accurately what is preventing slate adoption growing as rapidly as their keyboarded cousins?

I'd put the answer in three parts.

1. Fear. People are use to having a keyboard and giving one up (albeit part-time) scares some fairly savvy users.
2. Pen-abled applications - or more accurately a lack of. We need more applications that either expose more functionality when run on a tablet or are written explicitly for the tablet.
3. Natural language Input is just not there yet. Many working age people can type faster thanthey can write.  And that percentage is only increasing. Speech is a good alternative and works well, but it is fairly resource intensive, and many smaller devices such as UMPCs just can't hack it. Not to mention it is simply not possible to dictate to your PC in many situations. I'm inking this post on the train, can you imagine the irritated looks I would be getting if I were talking to myself?

That may sound pretty dire, but does it mean that slates will only be a niche player? I think not.

Why? Because the first two of those points are addressable now.

The fear factor can be addressed by education. Teach the market that you can use a computer without a keyboard. Teach them that if you dock a slate it works just like a "normal" PC. We call this education of the market "marketing" and it has been sorely lacking since the tablet was launched in 2002. It is time for Microsoft and OEMs, especially slate specialists like Motion, Tablet Kiosk and Electrovaya to lift their game.

On the second point there are some really good pen-abled apps out there, but we need to see more marketing from the companies that develop that software. It's a differentiator, promote that fact. But we need more, too, so as a community we need to educate developers and most importantly demand pen features in the apps we use now.

The third point will be eased as hardware performance improves, but will not be eliminated (lMO) any time soon. We need at least the next version of the Windows OS. We can't write off Apple here, either. Now that we have all seen the i-phone you can imagine that a Mac tablet would challenge the UI paradigms we operate in.

Check out this very short video of me with the Motion LE1700, filmed the night before I had to send it back.

It shows the auto-rotate feature, where the tablet uses an accelerometer to determine its orientation and rotates the display accordingly.  This actually works at a very shallow angle, or even when flat on the table it you give it a bit of a flick.

I've been luck enough to have a Motion LE1700 in the house for a while but I have not had the time to really explore it.  I had just started having a real look at it when low and behold Motion needed it back.  C'est la vie.  I snapped a few photos before I sent it back so I could post this mini-review.  Click on any of the photos in this post for a larger image.  Motion have promised to send a unit with the WWAN module in it, so I'll do a full review then. 

I've had a couple of Motion slates in the past, including the LS800 I still use on a daily basis.  I have always found them to be well designed and with quality construction.  The LE1700 is no exception.  It has a very functional design and the silver and black finish is striking.  The unit is very comfortable to hold in either portrait or landscape mode, because it is very well balanced.

Here's a tour:

The tablet buttons are similar in design to previous Motion tablets.  There is a directional pad with enter in the middle, surrounded by four buttons.  On one side you have the programmable buttons, on the other you have an Esc button and a function button, which alters the action associated with the other buttons if you press it before another one of the buttons.

On the side below these buttons are the infrared port and the PCMCIA slot.  There is also a SD-card reader, but that is just out of the shot above - you can see it better below.

On the other end of the same side is the stylus and the antenna for the embedded WWAN module.  This particular unit did not actually have the WWAN module so I can't report on that, but you can see how the antenna can be raised up as shown or lowered so that it sits flush with the front of the tablet. 

The antenna is designed to snap on and snap off, so that if it takes a hard knock while raised it will snap off rather than breaking or transmitting any force into the body of the tablet.

Here's the antenna sitting flush.  Just below the antenna you can see one of the three microphones on the outer bezel of the tablet.  The other two are in the bezel as well, but in the bottom left and bottom right (when the unit is in landscape mode).

On the side below the screen (when the tablet is in landscape mode) is a Motion accessory port and (under the cover) a connector for when the tablet is used with either the convertible keyboard or the FexiDock.

On the left side of the tablet (when it is in landscape mode) you will find the following up the top on the front.  Two indicator lights - one for power and one for charge.  The fingerprint reader and the Windows Security button (pressing that is like pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del on a keyboard).  Notice there is no HDD activity light.  I've had another tablet without a disk activity light and it was a minor annoyance.  However the version of the Motion Dashboard that comes with the LE1700 puts an icon in the system tray.  This can optionally be configured to blink on disk activity - nice touch.

On the side of the unit below the activity lights are a hardware switch for the wireless, the power switch and two USB ports.  A couple of points worth mentioning here - the power switch is on the opposite side on this tablet than it is on my LS800 - though the units are otherwise laid out pretty similarly.  This is not a problem, but it does take a little getting use to.  However that is always the way with a new unit.

The other difference between the layout on the LE1700 and my beloved LS800 is that on the LS800 the USB ports are upside down - in that the top of most USB devices ends up facing towards the back of the tablet.  I'm pleased to report that this has been corrected on the LE1700.

In the middle of the left side there are microphone and headphone jacks; next to that is a DVI-D output, below which is a SIM card slot for the WWAN.  On the right of the photo below is a VGA output.

On the bottom left corner there is an RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet port and a laptop lock slot.  On the front bezel you can see another of the array microphones and the ambient light sensor.

Last but not least - on the back you will find three covers held in place with screws.  The top left one covers the WLAN and WWAN modules, the bottom left exposes the HDD and the third cover exposes the two RAM slots.  Very easy to service.  The sliding cover you can see exposes the extended battery connector.  One of the great features of the LE series tablets is the shape of the back - note how there is a slight inset about an inch below the top of the tablet?  This is so that when you fit the extended battery to the unit it sits quite flush.  Because the battery is rectangular and flat the additional weight is evenly distributed and the unit is still easy to use for extended periods when you are moving about.

Using the LE1700 is a joy.  I've had 12 inch slates before and I've had tablets with SXGA screens before (which gives you a native resolution of 1400x1050) but to have both really is having your cake and eating it, too.  The unit I had did not have the ViewAnywhere display option - having had that on my LS800 I would highly recommend it.  The unit I had was the Core 2 Duo model and the performance was fantastic.  It came with XP Tablet edition pre-installed, but with Motion's permission I rebuilt it with Vista.  The Vista experience is flawless.

Overall a great experience.

I was cleaning out my digital video camera today and found a quick video review of the Sahara i440d slate from TabletKiosk (available in Australia from Tegatech).  I had recorded the video literally just before I had to step out the door to drive across town to return the unit to Hugo Ortega.  I went straight from there to the airport to pick up my wife and daughter who were returning from a quick break in New Zealand.  I got a bit sidetracked and never posted the video!

Overall I thought it was a good device - though not the prettiest.  It is white and fairly blocky, which is not a particularly corporate look.  However as I say in the video it does not actually feel blocky, it is quite comfortable to hold.  Certainly worth a look so check out the video.  (sorry - I never grabbed the screenshot or the photos I mentioned in the video.  I finished recording and had a "oh (*#& - need to leave now" moment)

One of the authors of StudentTabletPC.com - Andrew Ferguson - is guest blogging at GottaBeMobile.

His first post is about the myth of battery life - or lack there of.  I agree with many of the points an I have to admit that I operate in a similar fashion to Andrew: 

Most of the time when my tablet is on, it's plugged into the wall. At home, I drop it in my port replicator and it basically becomes a glorified desktop. I have a separate power cable in the living room that I plug into when I do homework. Another brick remains in my bag for when I'm out and about and I'm pretty sure I have a fourth one floating around somewhere "just in case."

I've managed to get away from the brick in the bag now, as I have an extended battery for my LS800.  I only carry a brick in the bag when I am travelling.

In short, my life revolves around power cables and where the electrical outlets are.

I've been known to favour cafes, airport gates and even airlines where I know I can get power.

I completely agree that the focus needs to be on better battery technology rather than better power management.  I want all the performance, brightness, bells and whistles - for 12 hours without plugging in.  No amount of power setting tweaking is going to get us that.

The technology that looks the most promising in this area is Fuel Cells.  I know of at least two vendors who have working prototype notebooks.  One will run for a month on a full fuel cell. 

However there are a number of challenges here.  Fuel cells are not charged by plugging them into the wall.  There is no infrastructure in place yet to manage this, but the process would probably be more akin to recycling inkjet cartridges than recharging a battery.  There is also the small matter of fuel cells not being allowed on planes yet by the FAA - which effectively kills the business market.  I can't see how fuel cells could be viable until these two significant issues are resolved.

I've seen the U1010 briefly a couple of times, but tonight I've got one in my hot little hands for the whole night.  And that is long enough to do a quick review with lots of photos. Click on any of the photos for a larger version of it.

The U1010 is a very exciting device.  Personally I think it is the most compelling UMPC sized device I have yet seen.  Fujitsu have packed an incredible amount into a really tiny package.  The photo below - that's a Zune next to it!

In laptop mode the Fujitsu U1010 offers a usable keyboard.  Fujitsu have maximised what they have squeezed into the device by giving a lot of the keys a secondary function (which is accessed by pressing the Fn key followed by the key with the function you want).  This has allowed them to do away with the traditional F1-F12 keys, thereby doing away with an entire row of the keyboard. 

The external styling of the U1010 is nice - you can see why some people have dubbed it "The Stormtrooper".  Overall the unit is white with black trim.  The "Fujitsu" and "Lifebook" logos on the back of the lid are in silver.

The U1010 is well designed to be used in slate mode, too.  The screen is offset away from the hinge, giving you a space to hold onto without obscuring the screen.  This is an important usability consideration for an ultra-portable device, but one that some vendors seem to forget.  In addition all of the hardware buttons are accessible when you are in slate mode, which is of course when you need them most.

The screen is crystal clear.  The native resolution is 1024x600 so you get a fair bit on that little screen.  Naturally on a small screen there is not much room to write, but if you do try it you will find that the U1010 offers a surprisingly good ink experience for a touchscreen.

Now a quick visual tour...

On the front right corner (when in laptop mode) there are the usual indicator lights.  From left to right power in indicator, battery level indicator (goes from green, to orange to red), disk activity and wireless network activity.

On the right side there is a compact flash slot, the power switch and a USB port that is hidden under a little white rubber flap.  The latter two are white on white, so are a little hard to see in the photo below.

Ah.. there's that USB...

There is nothing across the back, just the battery.

On the other side there is a wireless hardware switch by the power connector (again, white on white so hard to see), an SD Card reader (which unfortunately I could not get to work with ReadyBoost), volume up and down controls, headphone jack and microphone jack.

On the front edge there is a connector for a dongle that gives you both an ethernet port and a VGA out.

There is also a mouse of sorts.   To the right of the hinge (in laptop mode) there is a little joystick pointer.  Also just above that on the screen bevel you can see the Ctrl-Alt-Del button and the bottom edge of the fingerprint reader.

On the other side of the hinge there are the left and right mouse buttons.  Yes it really does run Vista!

There are a number of other handy hardware controls.  Next to the mouse thumbstick there is a function button and a scroll up and scroll down button.  The function button alters the action of the other hardware buttons.  For instance function scroll up or scroll down = page up or page down.

Directly above the hinge there are two programmable hardware buttons and a screen rotate button.

By default one of the programmable buttons turns on the head lights.  This is a handy little feature that illuminates the keyboard so you can type in the dark.

Another handy feature is the integrated web camera on the top edge of the screen. 

Another good design feature is the stylus.  It has been designed to telescope out so that it fits into the device but is still big enough to be usable when extended.

Before...

After...

Over all the U1010 is a very usable device.  There is a lot packed into this tiny package and every aspect of the design shows that it has been carefully thought out.  The price is very reasonable and performance is surprisingly snappy.  All told a solid offering.

GottaBeMobile points out an announcement from Motion that they will not be offering the LE1700 WriteTouch tablet.

Sad news to be sure as the WriteTouch was a very innovative product. That said Motion have a reputation for quality and if they wear not able to ensure quality and supply then the decision is understandable.

In a surprise announcement in its partner newsletter, Motion Computing said that they will not be offering the LE1700 WriteTouch Tablet PC. Based on the announcement below, it appears that while working on technical issues on the WriteTouch model, manufacturing and supply issues came up that then began to conflict with their upcoming product roadmap. I'm working to find out if they have plans to use the WriteTouch technology with future products.

Here is their announcement:

Based on Motion's unrelenting commitment to delivering the best customer experience with the highest quality, we have made the decision to not offer the LE1700 WriteTouch feature at this time.   We have worked diligently to close technical and usability challenges, but some manufacturing and supply chain challenges continue to impact our schedule and overlap with key roadmap deliverables.  The decision is a difficult one but is in the best interest of our customers while affording us time to focus development and execution efforts on delivering best-in-class solutions.

via: Motion Computing: Not Offering LE1700 WriteTouch Tablet PC
Rob Bushway @ gottabemobile.com

 James Kendrick has posted a great review of the HP 2710p he just purchased. James include what he bought, what he is running on it and his conclusions. a good read.

It is no doubt apparent that I am very pleased with what HP has brought to the tablet with the 2710p.  It is not only a great Tablet PC but also a stellar thin and light notebook computer, something that other OEMs have attempted to do but none as successfully as this in my book.  The hardware components are a decent compromise for providing great battery life while still providing very good performance, even under the resource hog that is Vista.  HP has done a good job making sure that the entire package works as flawlessly with Vista as anything I have seen yet.  The thin and light design is stellar at providing a great OOBE and daily usage. 

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a while. 

There has been a lot of discussion of late about Vista and its readiness - or lack of - for the public.  Lots of people have lamented that Vista is just not there yet.  That it came out too soon.  That it is a failure.  Some have even reverted back to Windows XP as they believe that it is more stable and performs better.

Lots of people have voiced opinions one way or the other.  James Kendrick was one of the first to speak out against Vista, and his post  included most of the key gripes.

First and foremost in the area of performance.  I have not seen adequate performance running Vista on anything less than a Core 2 Duo processor.  Those are only available in the larger Tablets so the UMPCs and smaller Tablets are out of luck.  Vista also needs 2 GB of memory to run well and the smaller mobile devices usually are only offered with 1 GB, which isn't enough. 

...

If you use Sleep and Resume you quickly fall victim to the dreaded Vista la-la land where the device fails to resume properly.  Sometimes the device comes back fine but without a screen which is oh so useful.  Other times it comes back but hangs the entire device up in just a few seconds. 

...

One of the most beneficial things you can do to improve the mobile device experience is use it with a dock.  Don't even get me started with how badly Vista handles docking and undocking of these mobile devices, especially if you hang an external monitor off the dock.

Other general concerns are performance, battery life and mysterious disk thrashing. These are all real and valid concerns.  However, they are not the end of the world and they are not unique to Vista.  In fact - I believe that many of them are not the fault of Vista at all. 

I disagree with those that say that Vista is a dog and I will not be going back to XP on any of my machines - ever.

The first point I will make in Vista's defense is to point out that not everything bad that happens in on a computer is the fault of the OS.  On every single computer there are hundreds of device drivers and bits of software that could be the culprit for some of the issues outlined above.  Specifically the resume from sleep and docking station issues described above are most likely driver issues.  XP has been around for a while and hardware manufacturers have had a lot of practice writing nice, stable and functional drivers for the XP platform.  Vista is both new and very different.  I am disappointed, but not very surprised, that driver support is not that great.

Secondly, none of this is new to Vista.  I am an IT consultant.  I worked on a very early Windows XP deployment for a government client in New Zealand.  And guess what?  Driver support was appalling across the board, but it was worse for mobile PCs.  Performance was a joke.  There was no way Windows XP could really run on a machine that just met the minimum specs.  Blue screens and hangs were common.   When XP shipped it was worse than my experience working on a project with Vista in the Technology Adoption Program using beta code.  The released code is far and away more stable than Windows XP was at the same time in the product lifecycle.  What is significantly different is that the flaming and debate happened in the newsgroups rather than on the blogs we have today, which was much more of a closed community.

When Microsoft ships a new OS they tend to lead the hardware.  By that I mean that it is the hardware that comes out 6 months after the OS that runs it really well.  I think this is probably intentional - perhaps because it then extends what they can include in the product at ship date, bearing in mind that it will need to be a viable product for a couple of years.  I suspect that this will be the same for future OS releases.

The short version of all of that is that the issues we are seeing today are normal for a new OS and they are much more complex than "Vista is Bad".  Some of the blame rests with application developers.  Some rests with hardware manufacturers and some rests with Microsoft, but it will all be fixed in the fullness of time.

Until then I won't go back - simply because the benefits out weigh the pain.  The tablet functionality is way better.  The networking is better.  The Mobility Center is better.  Presentation mode rocks.  All of that functionality is nothing compared to the security enhancements.  When XP shipped the world was a different place.  The general public knew about viruses but had never heard of root kits, malware or spyware.  The Internet was not the efficient distribution system of nasties that it is today.  User Access Control (UAC) and protected mode IE go a long way to preventing then initial infection and Windows Defender makes it easier clean up after the fact.

Vista is here to stay.  I'm not going back and the experience will get better as the hardware catches up.

A test post from Silverlight.

Interesting...

Gavin Gear points out a cool sample available on the Microsoft website that demonstrates using its on the web with silverlight.

There's a new sample live on downloads.microsoft.com that I wrote a while ago that demonstrates implementing ink support in Silverlight using a reusable class called "InkCanvas" - InkCanvas code was originally written by Sam George here at Microsoft. This sample implements reusable functionality similar to the InkCanvas element in WPF.

Here's the download link.