Has the Tablet PC Finally Arrived?

A very fun piece of marketing mail arrived yesterday – from Dell. They have announced the first Dell-branded tablet PC, called the Lattitude XT Tablet. For a number of years I’ve been a huge fan of the tablet PC format – I played with a top rated Motion Computing model at NECC in 2005. Currently, the Lenovo X61 tablet gets top ranks, and if I had the spare $2000, I would get one in a heartbeat. Despite the seemingly great possibilities of tablet PCs, they have never seem to take off in any big way. While Will Richardson was still working at his school in NJ, his focus was on placing wireless tablet PCs and wireless projectors in every classroom.

So why might the tablet PC finally be coming of age? Simple – if Dell has finally committed to making one, their marketing power might propel the conversation forward about the use of tablet PCs. I’m all for anything that will get the ball rolling on this one. Why do I like tablet PCs? It comes down to the ability to handwrite and annotate on the computer (like on a pad of paper) and have it captured directly without scanning, etc. I feel it is a strong bridge between non-digital expression and digital expression.

How does the new Dell XT Tablet perform? I have no idea, but I’m looking forward to how this impacts the playing field!farmer__small.jpg

Image citation:
Farmer
. Jupiterimages Corporation. 2006. unitedstreaming. 20 March 2008 <http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/>


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  1. […] For many years I’ve been in the camp that tablet computers are the wave of the future (see this post). Like many, I’ve been disappointed by the design and/or price of current […]