Although the Tablet PC was launched with much hype and fanfare, many media outlets have been sceptical as to the validity of the technology. However, the experience delivered by using a Tablet PC firsthand, for any length of time cannot help but impress. I myself went from cynical observer to total convert after trialling three tablets.
Enter ViewSonic's V1100, a Tablet PC that was mentioned in passing in last month's coverage (December 2002, page 36), but one that will reach our shores sooner than expected. Eschewing a keyboard in favour of the more portable slate form factor, the V1100 is one of the first pure slates - along with Fujitsu's Stylistic ST4110 Tablet PC - to be made available in Australia.
On the design side the V1100 is a slim and light unit that's comfortable to hold in your hand, or placed resting in the crook of your arm. It does have some quirks and foibles, however.
On its plus side are capable graphics, a very bright display and some decent componentry, but its problems detract heavily from the overall user experience.
Internally the V1100 runs a respectable 866MHz Pentium III-M CPU with 256MB of RAM (8MB shared) that places it between the Toshiba Portégé 3500 and Acer TravelMate C100 tablets in terms of processing grunt. It also has a 20GB hard drive which is passable in terms of storage, but where the unit fails is in the most important arena: the screen.
Although the V1100 boasts a 10.4in display its large bezel - at least 2in to a side - makes it appear smaller than it is. Even though this is illusory the screen itself has a disappointingly narrow viewing angle.
We found that holding the V1100 in the crook of our arm was excellent for taking notes and writing, but it had to be held just so in order to avoid the picture from flaring to white.
The underside of the tablet has a hinged prop to lift the unit from a desktop, which helped a little, but it still requires you to lean forward a bit.
A separate dock is also available however, which lets the unit stand like a monitor, and can be combined with a USB keyboard and mouse. The other downer was that the unit could not keep up with fast pen strokes – they appeared on the screen as dotted lines (that were sometimes filled in afterwards) – which was disconcerting.
Even though the strokes did not appear in their entirety, it was only occasionally that the actual pen-stroke data was missing, so conversions to text were fine.
Aside from the ergonomics required with the display, the rest of the V1100's design was simply superb.
It's a light unit, weighing in at only 1.55kg, and the black plastic edges and backing have a grained finish that is not only comfortable to hold, but also non-slip, so it's unlikely that you'll drop the tablet, even while you're crazily scribbling out a 1,000-page autobiography.
It also comes with a faux-leather cover to protect the screen when you're travelling.
The bezel has many hotkeys including the Windows security key, a fast-switching display mode button for changing the display from portrait to landscape, an escape button, plus hotkeys to bring up the Input Pad and Journal. The battery life is rated at around three hours but the model we tested conked out after two. This could be a severe problem for the road warrior but it is on a par with other notebooks and about the absolute acceptable minimum. An extended battery is available that pushes the battery life to a rated six hours.
One thing that pleased us was the reasonably low heat output of the tablet. Although the V1100 did get a little warm with constant use it never heated up to the point where it was uncomfortable to hold.
More so than a notebook, assessing a Tablet PC comes down to design, aesthetics and functionality. As a concept ViewSonic's V1100 Tablet PC earns merit points for trying, but it fails in the execution, which is a shame.