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A few weeks ago I replaced my Thinkpad T60 with a Thinkpad X61T. My reasons were:

• I want something smaller
• See bullet #1

I got tired of lugging around a 14 inch screen even though the T60 was the best laptop I've owned in many years.

Lenovo X61T

I was looking for something small that had a high resolution screen, and that only left a X61T for consideration (I was only looking at Lenovo laptops). The regular X61 has a 1024 x 768 screen and Homey don't play that!

I have to say, using a Tablet again is fun. There are some features in Vista (flicks) that I helped the team with over 2 years ago (I was an early tester using the flicks stuff on XP). It's nice to see them in the product.

Anyway, I very much like my X61T. There are a couple of things I don't like:

1. The screen has some weird coating that is impossible to clean
2. The resolution is high for a 12 inch screen (1400 x 1050)
3. It only has VGA out on the docking station and laptop. I plan to fix this with this gadget I just ordered.

But there is a lot to like. 4GB of RAM, 1.6 ghz Core 2 duo, 1GB of Intel Turbo Memory (flash memory for my hard disk allowing for Vista ReadyDrive).

I really like this laptop, and shortly thereafter I got to play with a MacBook Air that I bought for my Dad to replace his ancient Sony Vaio with cracked screen.

MacBook Air

When the details of the MacBook Air were unveiled at Macworld I was like "Bleh". Not for me. Steve just fixed one set of trade offs and created a new set of problems.

However, unpacking, holding and using a MacBook Air will change anyone's mind.

This product is special, it's so ridiculously light it reminded me of getting my first iPod nano... You just experience disbelief that this thing is a laptop.

However, the MacBook Air is not for me. The first thing I did was install Vista on it and get it all set up. Within an hour I saw a bluescreen. That was the only one for a few days, but lets just say this thing is a bit temperamental about waking from sleep, running on a battery, using the DVD drive and so on.

If the MacBook Air survives (I'm not sure it will, it could end up like the G4 Cube), v2 will certainly be the version worth getting.

I'd also like to see a higher rez screen. The laptop is quite large even though it's very thin.

Lenovo X300

Yummy. This meets every need I have in a laptop except 2

• VGA only video
• SSD only drive option

SSD is not worth the sacrifice yet. I hope they offer an old skool drive like Apple and help bring the price point down.

I've very excited about this laptop though...

Oh, it even has special feet.

Josh Einstein is a poster child for pushing the envelope with new Microsoft Technologies.

Josh, the creator of TEO (Tablet Enhancements for Outlook) was pushing the envelope with ink and Outlook a few years ago... his latest app is a program that renders your OneNote Notes in a Calendar view inside an application.

What I find interesting is that this program:

• Is the first application I have ever used that is a ClickOnce application.
• The install experience is how it should be. No downloading some temp MSI/ZIP file to some folder that I can't get to later etc
• Takes advantage of the new OneNote 2007 APIs
• Uses the new Vista Control that you see in Media Player and Photo Gallery

All things that I've not used before in any third party applications.

Nice work Josh!

It’s kind of sad, but I’m no longer a Tablet PC Owner. I had a Toshiba Potege 3500 and then a Toshiba M200 for the past 3 years. I truly believe in the tablet platform, but not in convertible notebook designs. I ended up getting a regular old non-sexy boring looking laptop and I could not be happier (well I have some problems I need to blog about later).

My #1 reason for getting a normal laptop? The Screen. I stare at a Laptop for way to many hours. I need a bright, high resolution screen that is beautiful. The Tablet screens have an awful plastic coat to them and are not very crisp. Also I found that I would use the pen stuff about once every 2 months. I now have a Moleskine to write in, so I stopped using digital ink. Instead I copy relevant notes to OneNote later on. Finally, I CANNOT take the thousands of Toshiba processes that run on these things. I don’t need a stinking process for each hotkey on my keyboard. I hope people at Microsoft realize that the OEMs are destroying the user experience for end users. It's my belief that our platform should have all the "hooks" necessary to make OEM customization and expansion of hardware a consistent and seamless process. If I have to install 15 things from a clean Windows Install to make the laptop work, then we have failed. This is not tablet specific, but Laptop specific, and the Tablet just makes the problem worse since there is even more custom hardware.

Here are my other reasons:

Toshiba Tablet

• Screen is Dim
• DPI is too high and Windows support for changing DPI is frustrating
• Screen at 12 inches with 1400 x 1050 is eye killing
• Fans are always on
• Machine is hot
• Has 5000 little processes that run all day hogging up CPU, memory and space in my task manager
• Wireless support is flakey
• Battery life is mediocre

Dell Latitude D610

• Beautiful 1400 x 1050 14 inch screen
• Fan is never on, and when it is I can barely hear it
• Wireless support rocks
• Has little to no processes for proprietary buttons and crap. The Power Management software doesn’t get any better.
• It almost fully charges its batteries in 1 hour! This is killer
• Built in smart card reader
• Shock protection for hard drive
• Support for 2 batteries and about 5–6 hours of juice with 1 hour recharge in the middle = all day battery power.

When I do get another tablet, it will likely be very small, and dedicated for just using a pen. I would love one of these OQO devices as a Tablet PC or this Motion if it weren’t so expensive.

Now this Dell is not without it’s problems. I hand picked it and the only choices I had were a Toshiba M4 (bigger M200) or a Tecra M3 (I’ve heard they are noisy). So I had a Dell custom built and ordered. So far, the big problem I have with this Dell is that it’s worthless for listening to audio with headphones. There is some nasty white noise that I’m guessing I’m stuck with as Dell is silent on the issue even though numerous folks have complained about the problems in their forums. The good news is that a $20 USB Gizmo from Turtle Beach is an adequate work around for when I actually use headphones on my laptop (I have a portable audio player, so not often, maybe for watching movies). I’m beginning to wonder if I should have gotten a Thinkpad, but I can’t deal w/o a Windows Key on the Keyboard.

Anyway, I’m sad to say goodbye to the Tablet, but hopefully it’s only temporary. I hope my tablet fans don’t take this the wrong way, but the reality is, the screen thing was just a deal breaker.

You probably don't care, and should not care, but after many months of living with this bug, we have released a fix for it.

Unlike Jonathan, I had a repro (it was called using my computer for 2 days w/o rebooting), and was basically told to pound salt. Then magically it was prioritized the "right way" and now we have a fix. In about one day my tcserver.exe process could go up to 300 MB of working set. Then an exception would occur, and the process would recycle. Not the end of the world, but pretty annoying.

I actually don't care much for the extra overhead of all the processes that come with my toshiba m200 tablet. I figure you pay at least a 256 MB memory stick in overhead. But my biggest problem is that the screens on these things are blurry, dim, and not very sexy when compared to a widescreen 4lb laptop with a DVD drive and an XBrite Screen. My next laptop is going to be a laptop. I've gone so far as to disable tabtip.exe from starting up on my machine. When I click the button near the start menu it comes up anyway.

Yes, I get to be grumpy every once in a while .

Here is a cool Outlook tip when using you M200 in tablet mode.

By default the button above the joystick is configured to type the escape key. If you go to the Tablet and Pen Settings Control Panel, you can change this to type delete. This basically allows you to rapidly read and delete items in Outlook w/o using the pen. Instead you use the joystick to move around outlook, and then the button above it to delete mail.

I scan and delete a lot of mail in Outlook and find doing it in Tablet mode very comfortable. I did this for about 2 hours on a recent flight. It was really a nice setup since I was on an American Airlines flight with Less Room Throughout Coach (don't ask, it was a ghetto 757).