Slates were “madness” a few years back because:
- Mobile Broadband was not affordable to consumers
- Technology required for such device (touchscreen, tiny low-powered CPUs powerful enough to do anything productive) were not affordable either
- which dictates that any mobile device needs to be for productivity use to justify existence (Office, Email)…
- … usage scenarios which contradicts with the lack of keyboard for slates

Now, I think slate-owners do not seek productivity out of the device, they use it mostly for social-networking, and leisurely internet browsing & media playback… These usage scenarios only emerge the past 2-3 years and only became affordable these few months.

So looks like the slates actually have a chance to florish this time round.

… A bit off-topic, I wonder if the following concept device would be usable at all:
- Sliding or convertible form factor, or even “backwards clamshell”
- UMPC / e-reader hybrid
- 5″ LCD multi-touch screen
- instead of a keyboard, a multi-touch e-ink display
- e-ink display doubles as on-screen keyboard, touchpad, and gamepad for the device, with hardware buttons to bring out preset layouts of the keyboard/touchpad/gamepad, or to reveal e-book contents again
- Documents/ebooks can be dragged from the device O/S, into the e-book sub-system for low-power reading.

Not sure which way the device should Slide/convert/fold though… leaving the LCD out is nice for entertainment, but one probably don’t want to slide out/open the device to read the e-ink display either… “Backwards clamshell” provides no protection at all to either screens and may feel awkward…

Trying to do that type of reading on my Samsung Q1 Ultra (7″ display) would be AWFUL. If I was a student who had to choose between a GIANT 13″-ish physical text book, and reading that same material on a 7″ e-reader … I’d probably pick the physical text book every time.

The place where a 7″ e-reader seems appropriate is for small books (standard paperbacks, up to about the size of a “for Dummies” book, or the O’Reilly animal cover books). But not for full size text books. Anything that’s the size of an 8.5×11″ page size, or bigger, doesn’t belong on a 7″ e-reader.

I have settled on the SmartQ 7. It falls short in many areas, but is very close.

Here are the absolute requirements for a classroom tablets:
( 1) 7″ screen minimum, so you can read a text book. (Math books take more room than do novels.)
( 2) great pan, zoom, and scrolling – this must be as responsive as a desktop PDF viewer.
( 3) 12 hour battery life, with an easily plugged in external battery pack (i.e., USB charging)
( 4) web access via Wi-Fi, with support for Blackboard (XML, Java) and MediaSite (flash for .flv videos)
( 5) Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or 7, so we can use DRMed formats such as
( 6) real USB (host) for an external keyboard, USB drive, etc
( 7) boots in less than 30 seconds
( It must pay for itself in 1 trip to the bookstore. Take a typical accounting textbook. It costs $199 new, $149 used, and $107 as an ebook. If a student is buying 5 books, and 4 are available as ebooks, then that student will save enough in one trip to pay for the tablet.
( 9) ability to annotate PDFs
(10) very responsive; should not slow down even loading a large book
(11) rugged enough to survive in a pocket
(12) ability to hand write / draw

Inputting data is tough on 7″ tablets. Most students spend lots of time studying by reading, listening to audio, or watching videos. Few students spend all day every day typing term papers. If they do need that ability to type for hours on end, they can plug in a USB keyboard.

The author did not mention that today’s 7″ tablets are pocketable in a pair of pants or a pair of jeans. That’s probably because he tried the original 7″ origami PCs, and found them too bulky. Check out the Q7. It fits!

The Q7 I’ve been using only lacks (real; not CE) MS Windows for reading DRMed books, flash, and responsiveness. I’ve ordered a V7 that might just ship Wednesday. I’m hoping the V7 and a faster SD card fixes the responsiveness issue. The rest will not be fixed this year, but we have to start somewhere. The question is whether the Q7 is good enough to start replacing paper. The faculty on our Texas Campus will vote in January on wheter to get a tablet for every faculty member.

I studied the books used at our campus bookstore that were required books for the Fall, 2009 term. More than 80% were available as online subscriptions. It would be nice to have (real) MS Windows to read the DRMed PDFs, but we might be able to survive with the web subscriptions. These web subscriptions are usually 30% less expensive than the used price in the campus bookstore. Now, I’m getting other faculty members to request copies of the web subscriptions of their books to see if they are readable on the 7″ screens. I know that non-DRMed PDFs work, and can even be annotated with Xournal for Linux, but that’s not how the text books are published.

Some people will want a larger screen. My end-game includes a line-up of tablets in the campus bookstore. 7″, 9″, and 12″ screens would be nice.

Non-DRMed PDFs are much better than the garbage we get fed by the publishers today. My end-game is to bundle the price of the book into a class fee, and then hand out non-DRMed PDFs.

Prof Andy Allen

once the handheld devices can be docked at home to external devices & then undocked to take on the road, their functionality will be magnified. one day the only people left using PC’s will be the highend backbone content creators (corporations, banking, servers, entertainment).

leaves me a bit worried about MS other products, things like X-Box could cease to exist. the ONLY reason MS has so many side projects is because Windows & Office provide all the funding. just because X-Box has finally become marginally profitable (after nearly a decade) doesnt mean its profitable enough too survive…

These slates are because of Android? Why are non of them running Android?

the Archos, Ramos, Dell, compete with highend smartphones more than anything else. some people dont want to compromise with iPhones, Pre’s, etc. they would prefer getting a basic cellphone & carrying an Android based slate. although 4″ 800×480 smartphones like HD2/X10 could be the best of both worlds.

7″ or larger, unless your a woman or carry a man-purse, will be left at home when you leave the house. they will primarily compete with netbooks & tablet PC’s.

personally i think we are about to enter the most exciting time of mobile computing ever. i have always felt vertical computing was FAR more natural than desktops/laptops, but the main problem it had was is input, reducing them to mainly consumption devices & not production devices. capactitive screens have gone a long way too solve that problem for some folks far more than HWR ever did.

MS needs to be eternally greatful that W7 has been as well liked & sold as it has or they could be in serious trouble. with the likes of Office on its way down to Google Docs & Online Office the only real cash cow they have left is Windows. some of their other ventres are profitable but not enough to sustain a giant like MS, Windows/Office funded every other project MS chas taken on.

we are about to enter a world of post-Microsoft (they will be around, but the world wont be dependent on them anymore).

not bad, not good…. The evigroup wallet will be released in the end of the year. We’ll be able to compare.

To me, the devices to beat are:

1) Entourage eDGe (which has some holes in the design, but is still pretty far ahead of the alternatives — if only it had two PixelQi displays with multi-touch, some form of display out, and would confirm that the USB ports can be used with keyboards and mice)

2) The Moto AMP 10 (which may not hit the market til 2011, but is otherwise pretty solid looking … but, again, if only the display was a PixelQi … and if only it would be out about a year earlier)

Both are the right size (10″ screens). The eDGe seems like it should have some pretty amazing possibilities … but the Moto looks like it hits just about everything right on the head. It’s just about perfect.

It’s ok, but the keyboard could be better (I wish it had a dedicated number row, for example; and a control key on the right side instead of left). But I found it’s a little too small for general use, and with Ubuntu on it, it doesn’t do screen rotation well … nor does it work well with an external display (it wants to drop to 800×600 resolution).

* As a pocketable, slates have no physical keyboard, and most of the 5″ slate I’ve seen aren’t phones.
* As a mid-range device (reading, taking notes, etc.), 5″ is too small.
* And, I’m not interested in carrying more than 2 devices (unless the 3rd is a mifi type device that I shove in my gadget bag, and never actually use/touch except to turn on/off).

Those three factors pretty much rule out a 5″ slate.

Also, for me, I don’t want to carry two pocketables. So, that 5″ device, has to be my phone as well. That rules out the Archos, for example. And, my pocketable will be used for a lot of texting, so it has to have a physical thumb keyboard* as well.

7″ is more do-able in that regard. But it’s really at the lower end of what I’d want to use for meetings, couch surfing, IMing, etc. What I really want is a 9″ or 10″ tablet.

(* virtual keyboards aren’t acceptable for my pocketable; they’re only acceptable for the mid-range device because that’s likely to have a big enough screen where I can use a portrait mode keyboard + view the full application at the same time … I have yet to see a pocketable that can have both a large enough keyboard and enough of the application showing at the same time; I wouldn’t want to use it for extensive input, but as long as I can, say, have a full 80×24 ssh/terminal session at the top of the screen, and a full size thumb keyboard at the bottom of the screen, that’d be workable for emergencies and quick notes)

Nor could Pocket PCs or current WinMob phones. Doesn’t stop those MS fanboiz from buying them.

Ben, you give Apple WAY too much credit. i highly doubt any of these manufactures are entering the slate space because of Apples vaporware device, they are doing it because of Android pure & simple, nothing else. Apple will probably enter this market eventually after everybody else & release something flashy with much much muchhhhh less functionality. Apples simplicity comes at a price, it wont be a “real” computer like Android has the potential too be.