When a new Tablet PC owner first gets his/her hands on a Tablet PC for the first time many things happen. I recently worked with a wonderful actor and musician, David Maga, (David is the one sitting in the chair in the picture from one of our productions) who took an interest in my Tablet PC and decided to get one for himself before heading off to do a show in Alaska. I asked David to do an inteview of sorts about his experiences and he agreed to do so amidst his packing and preparing to leave. I submitted the following questions via email and after the jump you'll see his responses. He'd had his Tablet PC for about a month when he answered the questions.
Followers of Tablet PC Buzz will recognize many of the comments and experiences David shares, as we all have them in common to a certain degree. But it is a good touchstone to remember just how magical and, at times, frustrating getting to know the Tablet PC can be.
Wicked Stage: What first interested you in Tablet PCs?
David Maga: I was in a play where the director was using a tablet PC to take notes. I thought, “Hey, they have laptops with pens that can write on the screen!” At the time, I thought that was really neat, but I didn’t actually consider buying one. Then when I was shopping for a new laptop, I saw a couple of tablet PC’s on display and I started fiddling around with one. It occurred to me that the pen input might work very well for Finale (a music notation program I use), which is fairly mouse-intensive. Tapping a stylus on specific areas of the screen is obviously much easier and faster than physically moving the mouse from place to place (or dragging your finger across a touch pad).
WS: What make and model did you choose?
DM: I have the Toshiba M400 with a 2.00 ghz dual core processor and 1 gig of RAM.
WS: How much did price affect your decision?
DM: Not much. I had some money saved up and hadn’t upgraded my laptop since college, plus I was about to start a new job that pays very well. Although I did decide for monetary reasons to get the 2.00ghz processor instead of 2.16ghz (which was the fastest available), and I decided to get 1 gig of RAM instead of 2, and I decided on an 80 gig hard drive instead of 200 gig. I also could have gotten a DVD burner but decided against it because of the price. (The default for this model is a DVD/CD-R drive.)
WS: What was the deciding factor in deciding to go Tablet PC?
DM: I thought the pen input would be good for my music notation program, plus it had been a while since I’d upgraded my laptop, so I thought I’d go nuts and try something different.
WS: What types did you consider? Slates? Convertibles?
DM: I didn’t know about slates until after I had purchased my computer, although I doubt I would have considered one if I had known about them. I considered an Acer convertible at first, but then I heard from several people that Toshibas are better. I looked at both and decided on the Toshiba. Though I was tempted to get the Acer computer because it had a curved keyboard and an nVidia processor. One of the major deciding factors was that the Toshiba is, in my opinion, exactly the size a laptop should be, while the Acer was a bit large. It seems like most laptops nowadays are either so large they hardly deserve to be considered “laptops,” or so small it’s hard to use the keyboard. The other computer I looked at was a ThinkPad convertible, but it has that eraser-in-the-middle-of-the-keyboard pointing device that I’ve never liked, plus it had only 32MB integrated graphics, which is, frankly, terrible. (The M400 has the Intel GMA 950, which isn’t exactly exceptional either, but it can run Civilization IV, which is really all I ask.)
WS: What was your reaction once you got your Tablet PC up and running?
DM: I have almost completely stopped using my desktop computer at this point. Granted, a lot of that is because it’s a laptop and I can sit in a comfortable chair instead of at a desk when I use it. Obviously, I spent a good deal of time fiddling with the pen and figuring out what I could do with it and what I couldn’t do. I was very excited when I found out how the programmable tablet button works, as it greatly increases your ability to use the tablet mode. Many programs, it seems, work with only the mouse (and are thus tablet-compatible) except for one or two commands which can only be executed using the keyboard. So the programmable button was an excellent idea. All in all, I found the tablet features to be slightly more useful than I had anticipated.
WS: Why did you decide on a convertible model as opposed to a slate model?
DM: My goal was originally just to get a new laptop (okay, Tablet PC), and I considered the tablet mode to be sort of a bonus feature.
WS: How do you plan to use your Tablet PC?
DM: Mostly I use it for music composition, word processing, and internet access. This summer, I’m sure I’ll be using it to watch DVD’s quite often, and I sometimes play games on it.
WS: What have you discovered that you didn’t know before you bought the Tablet PC?
DM: I was unaware that the input panel allows you to ink text even in programs that aren’t specifically designed for inking, such as Internet Explorer. I had thought the pen basically just worked as a mouse unless you were using a special inking program like Windows Journal.
WS: Being new at inking how do you find inking affecting how you use the computer?
DM: I have always had terrible, illegible handwriting, which was a bit of a problem when I started using the input panel. But now I find that it’s actually encouraging me to write more legibly, which I suppose is a good thing. I find myself entering text with the pen quite often, unless I’m writing something that’s more than a couple of sentences. I should mention my two inking pet peeves, though: *Every so often, I’ll come across that one word that it just…won’t…recognize. I’ll write it over and over again, more and more neatly every time (and it’s usually a very common word) and it always thinks I’m writing something else. Fortunately, there’s a pen-operated keyboard that you can use in these situations so you don’t have to swivel the screen around just to type one word.
*I was writing an email one time, where I attempted to use the term “Whatever floats your boat.” So I inked “Whatever,” and the word “Whatever” appeared just beneath my inking. Satisfied, I went on to the word “floats.” Again, success. Then on to “your.” Perfect. Then, I wrote the word “boat.” Now, it correctly identified the word “boat,” but for some reason it suddenly thought that I had written “Whatever Floyd yaw boat.” Annoyed, I erased the word “boat,” and it changed back to “floats your.” So I wrote “boat” again, and again it changed to “Floyd yaw.” Repeat five or six times. It seems to do this relatively often. I think I have a vague idea why it works that way, but really it would be better if it would just leave a word alone once you’ve gone on to the next word.
WS: For inking what program(s) are you using most?
DM: Technically, the input panel. But I use Windows Journal, when I’m fiddling around with ideas for lyrics. It’s nice to be able to make notes in the margins, circle things, etc. Sometimes if I’m using Internet Explorer, and I want to write an email that’s just a couple of sentences, I’ll just go ahead and ink it.
WS: What have you discovered about the Tablet PC that you didn’t anticipate?
See #6. I’ll add that I was surprised at how responsive the technology that reads the pen is (for example, how you can just hover the pen above the screen to move the mouse).
WS: Given that you’ve chosen a convertible Tablet PC do you find yourself in laptop mode or in Tablet mode most often?
DM: It really depends on what I’m doing. If I’m using Finale to arrange music, I’ll probably be in tablet mode. I also use tablet mode for Internet Explorer, and for when I play Civilization IV or Chessmaster. Generally, I use it in tablet mode unless I have to do a lot of typing.
WS: What’s your biggest surprise so far?
DM: The handwriting recognition is surprisingly good, in my opinion despite the pet peeves I mentioned earlier. Those things may annoy me, but I’m still impressed at how well it does work.
WS: Your biggest disappointment?
DM: After the first week or so, a tiny piece of grit found its way onto my screen, and I moved the pen over it. Now, I believe Toshiba when they say the PEN will not scratch the screen, but that piece of grit that found its way under the pen definitely DID scratch it. Fortunately, it’s a very tiny scratch off to the side, and it’s practically invisible unless you’re looking for it, but it is nonetheless definitely a scratch instead of a smudge. So I ordered a screen protector from Strong Engineering, which I must say was reasonably priced and arrived very quickly. I would actually recommend them. It doesn’t obstruct my view of the screen (although it does tend to make small moiré patterns if the screen is bright and the protector is dirty), and it doesn’t seem to interfere with the pen input at all. I actually find that I prefer the smooth surface of the screen protector to the grainy surface of the actual screen, and I appreciate the peace of mind of knowing that I can touch it and get hand grease all over it as much as I want. It also bothers me that the computer didn’t come with an install CD (though I’ve learned you can make recovery CD’s), and that you have to remove the keyboard to add RAM (although that doesn’t really come up that often). However, those are specific problems with the model and not general tablet PC issues.
Thanks, David, and have fun with your gig and your Tablet PC in Alaska!
