Tablet PC as ebook reader - Page 2

wayspooled · 08-03-2007, 10:38 AM

Thank you all for taking the time to reply

The information is very helpful. I've never done much with a tablet pc before and I've never even had my hands on an ebook reader. I know they're too small though from trying to read on my home pc. All the reading I've done is on one of my "too big to move around" home pc's. One day they'll make a reader with eInk that's big enough for me.

Since none of you posted "DON'T get a tablet pc" heh... I guess I'll give that a shot. To the kind person who mentioned the cost of the tablets, that's just what I was thinking

.... No, I have no intention of blowing $2k on this, there are 250-500 $ reburbished Fujitsu tablets with 10 or 12 inch screens on ebay, Toshiba M200's similar price, Motion Graphics a little higher. I could go through quite of few of those for the same money - and since all I want to do is be able to move to the den or porch chair or flop on the sofa somewhere, power (with an adapter) is available and one of those should suit me.

Couple of things about buying used pc's for those not familiar. Because you folks have been so kind and because I get the impression one or two of you may not have realized used ones were affordable.

I was head of IS for 20 years, currently underemployed

and have bought millions worth of computer equipment. Though not on Ebay. I'm willing to risk my own money

Here's a few things I've thought while considering buying a tablet there.
-----------------------

Some come with the cds for WinXP Tablet Edition and some don't. If it doesn't, you want to check and see how much those sell for because you'll probably want it sooner or later. Don't buy one that at least doesn't say it has the COA (certificate of authority) stuck on the back of the unit.

Don't hesitate to ask a seller questions. Don't do business with one with bad customer comments in their profile.

Check out the cost and availability of the accessories you think you might want before you decide which brand. Some brands, a new accessory might cost as much as the used tablet.

Some have reflective front lit screens for outdoor use, some have transmissive back lit screens for indoor use. You folks probably know all about that already.

Always google the brand and model name and find professional reviews of the product you're interested in. Motion and Fujitsu and Toshiba and Lenova/IBM (too expensive even used for me). Other customer comments are revealing but not entirely what you want to base a purchase on.

You can search on ebay and other places like google using the same operands commonly used searching databases. ie: You can use * as a value for a discrete character, you can use -<value> to exclude things from a search. For example you can go to "tablets" on ebay and in the search block,

key in --- Fujitsu st**** -- it will return models ST4010, ST4011, ST5011, ST5020, ST5021, ST5022, ST5030, ST5032 etc...

key in --- Fujitsu ST5*** -- it will return just the ones beginning with ST5.

key in --- Fujitsu ST**2* -- it will return just the ST4020, ST5020, ST5021 and ST5022.

key in --- Motion LE**** -LE1800 and it will return just the LE1300 LE1400 LE1600 and LE1700 and "not" the LE1800.

Don't forget to go into advanced search and search for completed sales of the same item and you can get a feel for common, recent prices.

Always make sure you find where the shipping cost is hiding.

It looks to me as if sometimes people don't know what they're selling. Be sure you're buying a tablet or a convertible tablet/laptop and not a non-convertible laptop. Some vendors, the difference is only 1 digit in a model number. Couple of the Dell's and the Lenova X60 are like that. The person selling an item doesn't always realize that and list something with the word tablet when it really is a laptop. It's up to the buyer ultimately to know what he's buying and not buy things that aren't exactly specific. Don't be in a hurry

It's not a good deal at any price if it's not what you want.

I'm not posting links to any of them because I don't want you to think I'm one of the ebay vendors just fishing. I've never sold anything there before. hehehe...

Edit #2 - btw, I've been using ICE Book Reader on the home pc and rather like that. I'm going to give a try to a couple of the ones you've suggested.

Steven Lyle Jordan · 08-03-2007, 11:16 AM

Wayspooled,

Thank you! As someone who is also likely to buy a tablet PC to replace my laptop (when it finally gives up, anyway), all of that info is useful to me!

It's just a shame that there are fewer and fewer venues to go to and physically check out a particular model... it makes it tough to get what you really need. But your tips will make such a purchase that much safer for the rest of us.

jbenny · 08-03-2007, 11:37 AM

My Fujitsu 5031 is a refurbished unit. I got it on ebay, as that seems to be how Fujitsu is selling all their factory refurbished units now, as opposed to selling them direct. I am very happy with it. It came with a 90-day warranty, a new battery (3-4 hours of use) a mouse, screen protectors and the software CDs.

My one complaint about it is the quality of screen protector that Fujitsu uses. It noticeably blurs the screen. I still haven't found another vendor with a screen protector for this model. I may have to custom order one.

Unlike a lot of PDAs and even my Nokia N800, the 5031 really needs a screen protector. The front of the glass looks like it is coated and would scratch easily. This may only be because it has the indoor/outdoor screen. I would like to know if the indoor-only screen is the same or not.

|2eason · 08-03-2007, 07:47 PM

The latest model from fujitsu is the ST5112. It's a dual cored beast. There's a great review on youtube here. If you're going to be using a tablet for reading, I'd recommend going for the latest like the IBM X61 convertible and ST5112 slate. They have a better quality of screen than previous models. You can still pick up a factory refurb quite cheap on Ebay if you live US (<$1000).

Buying the latest tablet will also allow you to run vista in all it's glory (ie with aero). That might not seem important, but bare in mind that Vista has significantly better support for tablets than XP tablet edition. The handwriting recognition is more adaptive, the on screen keyboard is more refined/integrated and the speech recognition is better afaik. You may be able to run vista on the old tablets, but you'll likely be stuck in 'basic' mode, which really does suck.

I personally wouldn't recommend a tablet for plain reading purposes tho. It's heavy, the battery life isn't great and even the latest screens have glare (more so that a desktop TFT because of the extra screen protection and the digitizer). I personally find them difficult to read from or concentrate on for long periods, so I have to take breaks at regular intervals to give my eyes a rest. The noise from the fan irritates me too at times, although this might be specific to my slate (known in the US a an Electrovaya sc3100)

I'm waiting for a large format eInk reader, but until then a tablet really is the only thing to do most of my books justice (well, an Iliad might at a pinch, but it's too expensive). Even when I have an A4 Eink reader, I'll still keep the tablet. I just don't think I could live without OneNote and Photoshop.

HarryT · 08-05-2007, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

So far as I know, software e-book readers are not customized for WinXP tablet edition.

I believe there is a Tablet-optimised version of Microsoft Reader. That's the only one I'm aware of, though. I certainly wouldn't have to like to use the stylus to turn each page.

yvanleterrible · 08-05-2007, 12:27 PM

I wonder how Digital Editions would perfom on a tablet. Any Windows machine would do well, how about those? Anyone tried?

|2eason · 08-05-2007, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I wonder how Digital Editions would perfom on a tablet. Any Windows machine would do well, how about those? Anyone tried?

I just tried it. What a useless, buggy waste of space! Is there a point to it that I'm missing?

yvanleterrible · 08-06-2007, 08:13 AM

Bugs?
Well I haven't found any in the 3 months I used it! I like it because it works quicker than Acrobat, that it's a dedicated pdf reader and does only that. I use it to browse through the pile of parts catalogs I need for work, they're all pdf with lots of graphics and pictures and I have no time to convert them. It does a decent job so far and it's the quickest to use.

What do you use for reading on that tablet?

|2eason · 08-06-2007, 11:39 AM

For pdfs? Foxit. It's quicker than d.e. Especially at page scrolling. And it has full screen mode, which i didn't see in d.e. Admitedly, it doesn't have a fancy bookshelf thingy, but i tend to use explorer for that. It's less hassle than watching d.e. crash every time you drop 2000+ pdfs on it.

nekokami · 08-06-2007, 12:02 PM

I hadn't realized prices had come down so far on used tablets. Last I looked they were all over US$700 still. This is great -- while I wouldn't use one for reading (too hot), I would like one for creating/editing artwork.

wayspooled · 08-06-2007, 06:08 PM

Duplicate post, sorry.

wayspooled · 08-07-2007, 02:43 AM

This one seems like what you might want.
http://www.alltp.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=452

Some opinions of it here
http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/to...TOPIC_ID=23896

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbenny

My Fujitsu 5031 .....
My one complaint about it is the quality of screen protector that Fujitsu uses. It noticeably blurs the screen. I still haven't found another vendor with a screen protector for this model. I may have to custom order one.

Unlike a lot of PDAs and even my Nokia N800, the 5031 really needs a screen protector. The front of the glass looks like it is coated and would scratch easily. This may only be because it has the indoor/outdoor screen. I would like to know if the indoor-only screen is the same or not.

nekokami · 08-07-2007, 10:17 AM

wayspooled, I'm looking for an older tablet that has a pressure sensitive digitizer-- I want to use it for artwork. It can be older because I plan to use ArtRage, a natural-media program that is fairly lightweight and doesn't require a system with a fast CPU or piles of RAM. However, I've been having some trouble finding out whether tablets listed on eBay have pressure sensitive digitizers or not. Do you know of a comparative matrix somewhere that I could check? (Or if you'd like to make recommendations, that would be great too!)

Thanks!

wayspooled · 08-08-2007, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

wayspooled, I'm looking for an older tablet that has a pressure sensitive digitizer-- I want to use it for artwork. It can be older because I plan to use ArtRage, a natural-media program that is fairly lightweight and doesn't require a system with a fast CPU or piles of RAM. However, I've been having some trouble finding out whether tablets listed on eBay have pressure sensitive digitizers or not. Do you know of a comparative matrix somewhere that I could check? (Or if you'd like to make recommendations, that would be great too!)

Thanks!

Howdy Nekokami

Let me start with the last question first. No, I sure wouldn't have any recommendations for you. I had to look up a couple of your terms to be sure I knew what you were talking about <laughs>. So you wouldn't want my advice on which tablet for art I think.

I don't see any charts comparing surface pressure and levels of pressure density anywhere. I looked around and I did see a number of artists asking questions similar to yours and also answering the same. About the best I could do is point you towards those. Several times I saw folks saying the number of levels after 256 had greatly diminishing returns.

Couple of them you have to just keep reading down through the thread until you get past the folks going ooh and ahh about each others artwork <grin>... I guess the main point of the first one is to ensure this is the type of artwork of which you're thinking. (Might have to copy and paste a couple of these links)
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=89032

This one is an artist discussing what he does with his Acer
convertible tablet/laptop.
http://www.highend3d.com/articles/reviews/21.html

News story about ArtRage winning a WinXP Tablet edition award. There are a couple links in the story that look promising.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/dec04/12-01TabletPCWinnerPR.mspx

These newer Axiotron Modbooks seem to have 512 levels but they're very new so hard to find used.
http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=36&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=81&tx_ttnews[backPid]=2&cHash=882b9ab7c1

Commentary here
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=6701

and here
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=8668

and here
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=9143

And I just found it while I was typing, some tablet pc recommendations from the forums at Ambient Designs, the folks that make ArtRage.
http://www2.ambientdesign.com/forums...ighlight=slate

Hope that's helpful to you. Of course in all of those forums you can post a question too. They do seem to like the Toshiba M400 and Fujitsu st5121 (or 20, whichever was the bigger screen)

Good luck!
-w

nekokami · 08-08-2007, 08:58 AM

Thanks, wayspooled! But to simplify my question, I'm just looking for a way to find out which tablets use a pressure-sensitive pen, if you like, vs. those that are "touch sensitive" and will work with any stylus (or a fingernail). I am not, at this time, concerned about how many pressure levels are supported, or niceties like that.

08-03-2007, 10:38 AM	#16
wayspooled Crab In The Dark Posts: 486 Karma: 2328180 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Virginia Device: Tablet PC until a 10" comes out that I like	Thank you all for taking the time to reply The information is very helpful. I've never done much with a tablet pc before and I've never even had my hands on an ebook reader. I know they're too small though from trying to read on my home pc. All the reading I've done is on one of my "too big to move around" home pc's. One day they'll make a reader with eInk that's big enough for me. Since none of you posted "DON'T get a tablet pc" heh... I guess I'll give that a shot. To the kind person who mentioned the cost of the tablets, that's just what I was thinking .... No, I have no intention of blowing $2k on this, there are 250-500 $ reburbished Fujitsu tablets with 10 or 12 inch screens on ebay, Toshiba M200's similar price, Motion Graphics a little higher. I could go through quite of few of those for the same money - and since all I want to do is be able to move to the den or porch chair or flop on the sofa somewhere, power (with an adapter) is available and one of those should suit me. Couple of things about buying used pc's for those not familiar. Because you folks have been so kind and because I get the impression one or two of you may not have realized used ones were affordable. I was head of IS for 20 years, currently underemployed and have bought millions worth of computer equipment. Though not on Ebay. I'm willing to risk my own money Here's a few things I've thought while considering buying a tablet there. ----------------------- Some come with the cds for WinXP Tablet Edition and some don't. If it doesn't, you want to check and see how much those sell for because you'll probably want it sooner or later. Don't buy one that at least doesn't say it has the COA (certificate of authority) stuck on the back of the unit. Don't hesitate to ask a seller questions. Don't do business with one with bad customer comments in their profile. Check out the cost and availability of the accessories you think you might want before you decide which brand. Some brands, a new accessory might cost as much as the used tablet. Some have reflective front lit screens for outdoor use, some have transmissive back lit screens for indoor use. You folks probably know all about that already. Always google the brand and model name and find professional reviews of the product you're interested in. Motion and Fujitsu and Toshiba and Lenova/IBM (too expensive even used for me). Other customer comments are revealing but not entirely what you want to base a purchase on. You can search on ebay and other places like google using the same operands commonly used searching databases. ie: You can use * as a value for a discrete character, you can use -<value> to exclude things from a search. For example you can go to "tablets" on ebay and in the search block, key in --- Fujitsu st** -- it will return models ST4010, ST4011, ST5011, ST5020, ST5021, ST5022, ST5030, ST5032 etc... key in --- Fujitsu ST5* -- it will return just the ones beginning with ST5. key in --- Fujitsu ST*2 -- it will return just the ST4020, ST5020, ST5021 and ST5022. key in --- Motion LE**** -LE1800 and it will return just the LE1300 LE1400 LE1600 and LE1700 and "not" the LE1800. Don't forget to go into advanced search and search for completed sales of the same item and you can get a feel for common, recent prices. Always make sure you find where the shipping cost is hiding. It looks to me as if sometimes people don't know what they're selling. Be sure you're buying a tablet or a convertible tablet/laptop and not a non-convertible laptop. Some vendors, the difference is only 1 digit in a model number. Couple of the Dell's and the Lenova X60 are like that. The person selling an item doesn't always realize that and list something with the word tablet when it really is a laptop. It's up to the buyer ultimately to know what he's buying and not buy things that aren't exactly specific. Don't be in a hurry It's not a good deal at any price if it's not what you want. I'm not posting links to any of them because I don't want you to think I'm one of the ebay vendors just fishing. I've never sold anything there before. hehehe... Edit #2 - btw, I've been using ICE Book Reader on the home pc and rather like that. I'm going to give a try to a couple of the ones you've suggested. Last edited by wayspooled; 08-03-2007 at 10:54 AM.

08-03-2007, 11:37 AM	#18
jbenny Addict Posts: 323 Karma: 358 Join Date: May 2007 Device: Tablet PC and Nokia N800	Refurbished My Fujitsu 5031 is a refurbished unit. I got it on ebay, as that seems to be how Fujitsu is selling all their factory refurbished units now, as opposed to selling them direct. I am very happy with it. It came with a 90-day warranty, a new battery (3-4 hours of use) a mouse, screen protectors and the software CDs. My one complaint about it is the quality of screen protector that Fujitsu uses. It noticeably blurs the screen. I still haven't found another vendor with a screen protector for this model. I may have to custom order one. Unlike a lot of PDAs and even my Nokia N800, the 5031 really needs a screen protector. The front of the glass looks like it is coated and would scratch easily. This may only be because it has the indoor/outdoor screen. I would like to know if the indoor-only screen is the same or not.

08-06-2007, 06:08 PM	#26
wayspooled Crab In The Dark Posts: 486 Karma: 2328180 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Virginia Device: Tablet PC until a 10" comes out that I like	Duplicate post, sorry. Last edited by wayspooled; 08-07-2007 at 09:36 AM.

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08-03-2007, 11:16 AM	#17
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	Wayspooled, Thank you! As someone who is also likely to buy a tablet PC to replace my laptop (when it finally gives up, anyway), all of that info is useful to me! It's just a shame that there are fewer and fewer venues to go to and physically check out a particular model... it makes it tough to get what you really need. But your tips will make such a purchase that much safer for the rest of us.

08-03-2007, 07:47 PM	#19
\|2eason Connoisseur Posts: 61 Karma: 56 Join Date: Jul 2007 Device: Tatung Tablet	The latest model from fujitsu is the ST5112. It's a dual cored beast. There's a great review on youtube here. If you're going to be using a tablet for reading, I'd recommend going for the latest like the IBM X61 convertible and ST5112 slate. They have a better quality of screen than previous models. You can still pick up a factory refurb quite cheap on Ebay if you live US (<$1000). Buying the latest tablet will also allow you to run vista in all it's glory (ie with aero). That might not seem important, but bare in mind that Vista has significantly better support for tablets than XP tablet edition. The handwriting recognition is more adaptive, the on screen keyboard is more refined/integrated and the speech recognition is better afaik. You may be able to run vista on the old tablets, but you'll likely be stuck in 'basic' mode, which really does suck. I personally wouldn't recommend a tablet for plain reading purposes tho. It's heavy, the battery life isn't great and even the latest screens have glare (more so that a desktop TFT because of the extra screen protection and the digitizer). I personally find them difficult to read from or concentrate on for long periods, so I have to take breaks at regular intervals to give my eyes a rest. The noise from the fan irritates me too at times, although this might be specific to my slate (known in the US a an Electrovaya sc3100) I'm waiting for a large format eInk reader, but until then a tablet really is the only thing to do most of my books justice (well, an Iliad might at a pinch, but it's too expensive). Even when I have an A4 Eink reader, I'll still keep the tablet. I just don't think I could live without OneNote and Photoshop.

08-05-2007, 12:27 PM	#21
yvanleterrible Reborn Paper User Posts: 8,616 Karma: 15446734 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Que Nada Device: iPhone8, iPad Air	I wonder how Digital Editions would perfom on a tablet. Any Windows machine would do well, how about those? Anyone tried?

08-06-2007, 08:13 AM	#23
yvanleterrible Reborn Paper User Posts: 8,616 Karma: 15446734 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Que Nada Device: iPhone8, iPad Air	Bugs? Well I haven't found any in the 3 months I used it! I like it because it works quicker than Acrobat, that it's a dedicated pdf reader and does only that. I use it to browse through the pile of parts catalogs I need for work, they're all pdf with lots of graphics and pictures and I have no time to convert them. It does a decent job so far and it's the quickest to use. What do you use for reading on that tablet?

08-06-2007, 11:39 AM	#24
\|2eason Connoisseur Posts: 61 Karma: 56 Join Date: Jul 2007 Device: Tatung Tablet	For pdfs? Foxit. It's quicker than d.e. Especially at page scrolling. And it has full screen mode, which i didn't see in d.e. Admitedly, it doesn't have a fancy bookshelf thingy, but i tend to use explorer for that. It's less hassle than watching d.e. crash every time you drop 2000+ pdfs on it.

08-06-2007, 12:02 PM	#25
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	I hadn't realized prices had come down so far on used tablets. Last I looked they were all over US$700 still. This is great -- while I wouldn't use one for reading (too hot), I would like one for creating/editing artwork.

08-07-2007, 10:17 AM	#28
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	wayspooled, I'm looking for an older tablet that has a pressure sensitive digitizer-- I want to use it for artwork. It can be older because I plan to use ArtRage, a natural-media program that is fairly lightweight and doesn't require a system with a fast CPU or piles of RAM. However, I've been having some trouble finding out whether tablets listed on eBay have pressure sensitive digitizers or not. Do you know of a comparative matrix somewhere that I could check? (Or if you'd like to make recommendations, that would be great too!) Thanks!

08-08-2007, 08:58 AM	#30
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Thanks, wayspooled! But to simplify my question, I'm just looking for a way to find out which tablets use a pressure-sensitive pen, if you like, vs. those that are "touch sensitive" and will work with any stylus (or a fingernail). I am not, at this time, concerned about how many pressure levels are supported, or niceties like that.

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