Comparisons to Other Platforms

Many look at the Tablet PC and think it's a cool toy. It is, but it's also a serious business machine. It's important to know the differences between the Tablet PC and other machines before you buy one, and it's helpful to know the differences if you use multiple devices.

Laptops

Laptops are excellent devices for what they're supposed to do: Replace the desktop for mobile users. Laptop prices have dropped to within $1,000 of their desktop counterparts. In addition, the performance of many laptops rivals that of the desktop although laptops will always lag a bit.

The Tablet PC extends the benefits of the laptop to include direct pen input, which enables people to easily take notes, draw, edit graphics, and deal with the computer more naturally.

In general, Tablet PCs are lighter than laptops in both weight and performance. Most tablets that shipped immediately after the Tablet PC launch had processors in the 800 MHz range, while their laptop cousins were touting speeds exceeding 2 GHz.

Note

Tablet PCs are more capable than laptops in every way but screen real estate, processing power, and internal drives. That may sound significant, and it is, but many can benefit more from the extra capabilities of the Tablet PC than from those factors.

Although 800 MHz may seem acceptable for many, the Tablet PC is called upon to perform additional tasks that most computers are not asked to perform. Speech and handwriting recognition take processor horsepower, as does the digitizer interface itself. Newer Tablet PCs are mostly at or above the 1000 MHz (1 GHz) in processor speed.

Desktops

Unfortunately, the Tablet PC is slower than most new PCs, and with a price tag hovering around two to three times higher than a desktop, this can be troubling. Of course, if you have a desktop PC and haven't considered replacing it with a laptop, you may not benefit much from a Tablet PC anyway. If, however, you have been waiting for a more natural input method, you frequently deal with digital photographs and graphics, or you travel often, then the Tablet PC may be a great tool for you.

Many people do not realize that write-on digitizer displays are available now for use in graphics applications. Designers, however, have been using them for some time. Wacom has several models that attach to your desktop or laptop PC and allow you to write directly on the screen, just like the Tablet PC. However, you will lack mobility with this solution. If you don't need to move around a lot and still want the pen interface, consider these, but beware. The cost of a digitizer display is close to the price of a Tablet PC, if not more.

Pocket PC and Other PDAs

For most people, even die-hard PDA users, the screen on a PDA is just too small. The Pocket PC interface is excellent compared to other offerings, but it still comes up short when dealing with more than a small checklist. In addition, most PDAs do not have a great way to input large amounts of data. Although external keyboards can be attached, the screen is still too small for much useful work. Even so, the Pocket PC does remain more mobile than the Tablet PC.

Other Pen-Based Computers

One of the key differences between Tablet PCs and other pen-based computers is that the Tablet PC is not a touch-screen device. This is both good and bad, depending on your viewpoint. The Tablet PC is designed to use a pen for input. You cannot use a finger, stick, pencil, or anything else to write on the tablet. This is great for most of us who rest our hands on the tablet. Touch screens, on the other hand, require a hands-off approach otherwise, you will select something accidentally with the heel of your hand.

Note

The main differences between Tablet PCs and other pen-based computers are the operating system and the digitizer versus touch-screen interface. For most people, the Tablet PC operating system is much better than any other pen-based operating system.

In addition, the Tablet PC has the backing of Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. This provides handwriting and speech recognition, as well as numerous other tools and third-party add-ons. Other pen-based computers, many of which use Windows CE or an older version of Windows, do not have that. Any application that runs on Windows XP also runs on Tablet PCs.

Certain applications require touch-screen input, and some do not. If you need touch-screen input, don't get the Tablet PC unless you want to use the pen a lot. According to sources, the Tablet PC platform will not support touch-screen functionality in the future.

Table 2.1 compares the various computer platforms: Tablet PCs, laptops, desktops, PDAs, and other pen devices.

Table 2.1. Computing Platform Comparison

Criteria	Tablet PC	Laptop	Desktop	PDAs	Other Pen Devices
Operating System
Able to use a form of Windows	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Linux capable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Sometimes	Yes
Other OS capable	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Input Capabilities
Keyboard	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mouse	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Stylus (digitizer)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Sometimes	Yes
Finger/pen (touch screen)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Handwriting recognition	Yes	Sometimes	Sometimes	Sometimes	Sometimes
Voice recognition	Yes	Sometimes	Sometimes	Sometimes	Sometimes
Portability	Medium/high	Medium	Low	High	Medium/high