Most of the newer tablets will meet your needs. My first one was an Acer c301 that I loved the feature set on but turned out to be a lemon. So I exchanged it for a Toshiba m205. The Toshiba has a higher screen resolution at 1400x1050 than any of the other tablets. It is also the only one with a dedicated video card/ram (Nvida 32 mg). The others are all Intel integrated graphics with 1024x768 as the max screen resolution.
Small downside to the Toshiba is that the optical drive, dvd/cdrw combo, is external which means you better make sure you have everything loaded that you'll need when you travel or pack the drive with you. It has its own power supply and even rechargeable batteries so you can use it when plugging in isn't an option. The advantage to having the drive as an external is that it cuts the weight down. My Toshiba is around 4 lbs while the Acer was 6. Many people love the slates with an external keyboard. You can use a tablet without one but I prefer to use a keyboard when writing a lot of code. For drawing I prefer the pen. (BTW, best pen drawing app I've ever tried is Alias Sketchbook Pro, I'm trying to justify buying it when I already have Fireworks, Photoshop, etc. a trial version came with my tablet and I absolutely love it. http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/sketchbook_pro/index.shtml) If a slate works for you the Motion tablets have the best rep. They even have an outdoor viewable screen so you can work at the beach or by the pool. I can work on my tablet outside but only in the shade and the screen is still a bit dim. One of the Tablet PC MVPs has a comparison on her site at http://thetabletpc.net/ The Motion slates have a detachable cover that has a keyboard on it available as an option that most of the people I know with Motions use. Note: Dell sells Motions and Gateway rebrands the Motion tablets, selling them as Gateway slates. I'm not sure if Gateway actually makes their convertible or not. None of the tablets I've used have had any problem with the programs you mentioned. Bear in mind that my Acer had 1gig of ram and the Toshiba has 1.256 gig (prices came down on ram so I switched one of the 256 ram chips for a 1 gig and left the other one in, one of these days I'll replace it with another 1 gig). FWIW, I get around 4 hours of battery life with wireless G turned on. Turning off wifi if you aren't using it seems to add another hour of battery life from what others tell me. I have no clue when it will come out but NEC demo'd one that is 15 mm thick and weights approx. 1 lb but still has a decent processor. Their current entry is way under powered. Same with the current HP with a 1.1 Centrino processor. Toshiba & Acer have up to a 1.7 Centrino. Mine is a 1.5 Centrino and no problems running any of it. I've even run a the Whidbey beta inside a virtual pc without having it slow my system down. (Kind of cool actually, Whidbey is such an improvement of VS.NET.) I will never have another regular laptop. It is a tablet pc or nothing for me. Cheryl D. Wise Certified Professional Web Developer MS-MVP-FrontPage www.wiserways.com mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 713.353.0139 Office -----Original Message----- From: William Stewart Cheryl said: I never got the hang of drawing tablets. Something about the disconnect between my hands and the screen. Drawing on my tablet pc on the other hand is wonderful. I can use it just like a sketch pad since the image takes shape under my pen not a couple of feet away on an external monitor. I reply: I have never had the opportunity of using a tablet and didn't know you could draw with them. I'm looking for a work horse laptop that I can carry with me on trips, yet I don't want to lug around my Wacom. Is a tablet a viable surrogate? Also, does anyone have a particular tablet laptop they would recommend. I would want the laptop to handle Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, TopStyle, Outlook, IE, Firefox and Mozilla being open at the same time -- oh yeah, and hearts! :) ____ � The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM � ____ To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Send Your Posts To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To set a personal password send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words: "set WDVLTALK pw=yourpassword" in the body of the email. To change subscription settings to the wdvltalk digest version: http://wdvl.internet.com/WDVL/Forum/#sub ________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
