In a previous column, I discussed how Intel's introduction of the incredibly battery-friendly Pentium M processor had caused me to seriously consider replacing my old faithful 366- MHz IBM ThinkPad 570. It still has a gigabyte of hard drive space left and its speed, which is slow by comparison to today's notebooks, has never been an impediment to my productivity.
Battery life is horrendous, however. With the display cranked down from "brilliant" to "barely readable," the best I can get is two to three hours. So far I have identified three systems, which I have been testing, as candidates to replace my ThinkPad.
Two of the systems are based on the Tablet PC version of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. The third is Apple's 12-inch G4 PowerBook. Apple tells me it has no plans to produce a tablet-like version of its portable systems. I wish the company would change its mind.
Outside of vertical applications that easily benefit from a pen-based tablet-like form factor, I have argued that the TabletPC will need a killer application before it gains mass appeal. OneNote, a new application from Microsoft in beta test, may be that killer app, or at least the reason that I'm willing to consider a Tablet PC as a replacement to my existing notebook.
OneNote could be a boon for anyone who needs a centralized and well organized repository for storing notes (handwritten or typed) and other decision support materials, such as diagrams, pictures, and web pages, for each of the projects they're working on.
OneNote running on a TabletPC-based system allows you to take notes using a stylus anywhere on a page, similar to the way you would with a yellow pad. You can also type notes anywhere on the page, draw pictures, circle text, paste URLs, and add photos. OneNote doesn't require a TabletPC, but the digital ink improves the experience.
Some of this functionality is common to another application, called Journal, that ships with TabletPC. However, Journal doesn't offer any way to organize the notes and information as OneNote does. So far, with the beta version of OneNote, I've set up different sections within OneNote for each of my projects, including my notebook search. OneNote's sectioning capability supports hierarchical nesting (something no yellow pad can do!). . Sections have pages and each page can be named and can contain any kind of data. All of OneNote's sections and pages can be searched and, like a yellow pad, you never have to deliberately save your work.
The two Tablet devices that I'm testing are from Toshiba and HP. In the world of TabletPCs, the Toshiba Portege 3505 is considered to be a convertible device. Convertibles like Toshiba's and one that Acer makes can work as a standard notebook or as a tablet device. Both the Toshiba and Acer systems accomplish this feat by mounting the TFT display on a swivel. The digital ink works in the normal notebook mode, but it's more difficult to write using the stylus in this configuration.
Although I occasionally work in the Portege's tablet mode, the speed at which I take those notes means that the keyboard is the only viable option for most of my note-taking activities using OneNote. This, unfortunately, is where the Toshiba has revealed a potential deal breaker for me.
Following several days of usage, I suffered a rather severe case of repetitive stress injury (RSI) that I never incurred with my ThinkPad. After careful study of the two devices (the ThinkPad and the Portege), I isolated the problem to aspects of the industrial design--the depth of the palm rest, the height of the keys relative to the surface of the palm rest, and the touch-pad for pointing.
This malady certainly wouldn't affect all users, but the Portege's palm rest is about an inch shorter than that of the ThinkPad, which forced me to move my palms closer to the keys and strain my wrists backwards to do any touch typing. As a side note, Apple's PowerBook has the deepest palm rest of all the systems I'm using, exceeding the ThinkPad's depth by about an eighth of an inch.
The Portege's touch pad was also a source of consternation for me. Although it's a matter of personal preference for many, I found myself longing for the TrackPoint pointing device found on my ThinkPad. With the TrackPoint, I barely have to move my fingers away from the home keys in order to move the mouse pointer. Keeping your fingers over the home keys with a touchpad means that you have to use your thumbs to move the mouse pointer. It's a technique that I've been unable to master, thereby forcing me to contort my index finger towards the touchpad, which in turn is aggravating the RSI.
The HP Compaq Tablet PC TC 1000 is a convertible as well but it accomplishes its convertibility in a manner that's very different from that of the Toshiba and Acer systems. HP's system has a swivel, but when in the notebook mode, the keyboard is detachable from the tablet itself. This means that the guts of the system must be packed behind the display as opposed to under the keyboard.
Another noteworthy aspect of this design is that it will probably make a better frequent flier than the clamshell designs of most notebooks and the Toshiba Portege. Over the years, I've watched in horror as the people who sat in front of me suddenly reclined their seats without warning, trapping the top edge of the TFT panel under the top lip of the depression into which the seat back table fits. Each time this happens I pray that the TFT panel won't crack under the pressure and spew its contents all over my face and clothes. Based on the way the TC 1000's display is perched on the keyboard, my sense is that it will never have this problem but I'll certainly test it on my next cross country flight. Although I still have much work to do before I pass final judgment on this system, there are several observations worth noting now.
First, on the ergonomic front, the TC 1000 the keyboard is 3/4-key size and lacks a palm rest. The smaller keys take some getting used to, and my overall proficiency with this keyboard isn't as good as it is with the Portege or my old ThinkPad. I thought the lack of a palm rest would also pose an issue as well but it didn't. My palms simply rested in my lap, or on the desk. As a result, my fingers didn't have to travel as far to reach the keys whose surface ended up being perched almost a half inch above the surface that my palms were resting on. In addition, this keyboard had a TrackPoint pointing device, which means that my fingers didn't have to leave the home keys to move the mouse.
Another interesting design decision was HP's choice of the very battery friendly Transmeta Crusoe 1-GHz 5800 processor instead of an Intel mobile processor. I haven't yet given any of the systems a decent "battery test," but after using the Portege, which is based on an Intel 1.3-GHz Mobile Pentium III, the TC 1000 seemed sluggish by comparison. In an ad hoc speed test to see which system could launch Internet Explorer faster, the Portege beat the TC 1000 hands down, but the TC 1000 was still faster than my old 366-MHz ThinkPad.
Finally, the third device I'm testing is Apple's PowerPC-based G4 PowerBook. The PowerBook's chances of replacing my notebook will depend entirely on the way it allows me to get my job done with minimal interruption to my daily routine. I don't want to have to jump through hoops to collaborate on documents with my colleagues who are Windows users or to gain access to CNET's corporate network or email systems. So far, the progress on that front has not been good. Despite Mac OS X's support for PPTP-based virtual private networks (VPN), I've been unable to achieve a connection to our corporate VPN (something I accomplished within seconds of starting both the Portege 3505 and TC 1000). Apple is currently investigating the problem and my hope is that there will be a resolution soon.
Why would I hope this? Although it lacks the OneNote application, which I am growing more enamored of, the PowerBook has just about everything else one could want from a personal computer. Although it's taking this crusty old Windows veteran a little while to get used to OS X's user interface, I am slowly being won over by this system's ease of use, ease of connectivity, built-in consumer-targeted goodies for multimedia and digital photography, and resilience to crashes. So far, the PowerBook has not crashed once--but neither have the Portege 3505 or TC 1000.
Stay tuned to this space for more results as I put each of these systems to the test on the road, at work, and at home.
Have you found notebook nirvana? If so, share it with your fellow ZDNet readers by using TalkBack below, or write to me at david.berlind@cnet.com.
