Quote:
Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
Eh. From my POV the manufacturers hijacked the actual designation of Tablet PC "slates" had long before.
I had a Fujitsu Stylisic 1200 and really liked it.
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YEAH, that Fujitsu was, and really still is, a very sweet device. You might find this funny but in '93 I went to Comdex in Las Vegas (back then there was more than one but LV was THE show). That year Avery (I think it was Avery but my memory can be a tad fuzzy these days...hehehehe) introduced the first real note taking device that used regular paper (legal pads) on a special tablet (kinda like a clipboard) with HWR...I looked at it and would have bet it would have matured into a mainstream product within 3-yrs. I played with it for over an hour and tried to buy one but they were not for sale, even to a developer or ISV.
BTW, that year, '93, was the first year Linux was there at Comdex...they were on a small couple floding tables in one of the smaller buildings off to the left of the main venue...and people were 5-6 deep for almost the whole event. I think they ran out of CD's with the Linux OS in like the first hour or two...
These older devices are one reason I laugh about the hub-bub over the iPhone/Touch multi-touch and gesture based UI...that has all been around for over a decade...Apple just did a really sweet job of putting it all together. But the Sahara i440D has that ability and MORE because it has both passive and active digitizers...only prob is the weight at around 3lbs...a huge portion is due to the batteries as well as the glass part of the display.
At one point in life I so wanted a slate-PC, but now because it hurts to hold a pen/pencil/stylus (the standard stylus is all but impossible for more than 30secs...I use an Avery Triple Click instead) but I do not have pain typing (I have advanced JRA that affects my hands significantly). So now I still desire a Slate device but I wand a different sort of use...I want more of a large PDA with IMAP email, some sort of daily organizer, mind mapping software, a crossword puzzle app and all the ebook reading software it can hold. And even note taking is important but I am not going to write only with any pen device. So a keyboard attachment is a must.
I see a market always for a simple reading only device but they will be forced to that sub-$100 price point simply because the other options are to compelling and all prices in the $200-$300 range. Right now the B&N device could easily be a PDA capable device a lot like a Clie on steroids. Nothing really fancy but in one firmware update they could give people all the ability to interface with cloud/web based apps as well as some onboard stuff. I feel this opens the appeal of these devices to more than readers who read 12-50 books/yr and makes the price far more palatable to more folks.