The overwhelming majority of keyboards, whether desktop or laptop, have a stupid design. There are ergonomic keyboards, but there are no laptops with them.

Except for a one-of-a-kind SGI prototype.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090629230816/http://www.jumboprawn.net/jesse/projs/laptop.html
I learned of it from this forum, thread "If you had to use another brand of computer what would it be"

I like desktops, too. And I also like electronic typewriters. But laptops, typewriters, and most desktop all have stupid keyboards. The thing that bothers me most is the stagger: the left and right halves should be symetrical. I only have a basic ergonomic keyboard: a TypeMatrix. With it, I can finally touch-type the numbers and functions! Nothing fancy like a Maltron or DataHand.

My complaint is not about travel distance or the feel of keypress action, but about the physical positioning of keys. Acer (and eMachines, surprising to me) tried a curved laptop keyboard for a while, but in my opinion, eliminating the stagger is more important than adding a curve.

For a while, I was so fed-up with staggered keyboards that I tried a couple tablet slates, to make the statement "I don't want a staggered keyboard anywhere near my computer". But a tablet is much less usable without MS Windows, and I missed the hardware volume and brightness control. So now I am back to laptops, with an external non-staggered keyboard.

The day I find a laptop with an ergonomic keyboard will be the first day I consider getting one new (instead of used).

ausmike wrote:



You've owned laptops for the past four decades? Care to elaborate on that statement?

Voice control. Software like Dragon Dictation has improved significantly over time and I expect continuted improvement. Eventually, keyboards may be superfluous.

Might work at home, but I wouldn't want to type by speaking aloud when there are people around me.

Tablet is going to be very useful for portable uses. It's not meant to replace laptop, its meant as a compliment. If you think you should buy it as your main productivity computer, you're making a mistake. You're in a hospital, a delivery person, riding bus/train, in a work place that require moving around, Jake Humphrey walking down the F1 grid. You're not gonna lug around a big heavy folding device that required to be on a flat surface to use.

Before ordering the X220 I was going to buy a tablet. But after research I realized the market isn't mature enough (argue if you will, I still hold it isn't, there are many models of Intel and AMD Fusion APUs getting ready to enter the market, do a wiki search for "list of Intel Atom or AMD Fusion", they'll be plenty tablets coming out end of this year and next with these new APUs). I got the X220 to replace my desktop, it will mostly be a home computer. But I will get a tablet to use on the go and at work. Ideally I want a pocketable 7" dualcore Intel/AMD tablet. At that size might be small for touch, but I'm quite the marksman. The MSI Windpad 120W come close with dualcore CedarTrail and hyperthreading running 4 threads.

With that said, my Mokia N900 has full Firefox browser and does stuff the locked down iPad can't, too bad its underpowered now. I'll have to wait, it's probably better just to get a large screen Meego phone and skip the tablet, main thing is getting a full blown browser with flash support.

This CNET article is somewhat relevant to this thread:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20078 ... eStories.0

24.2% of those surveyed said they had replaced desktop/laptop computers by a smartphone or tablet.

I don't have a tablet but have a smartphone, and for me it completely replaces:
•Alarm clock
•GPS
•Personal planner
•Landline phone
•MP3 player (I never need one really)
•Newspaper
•Internet service at home

which makes you a prime candidate for the Google Chromebook!
http://www.google.com/chromebook/

I have a tablet.

It is a Nook Color.

I did my research and for the amount of money spent, it was the best tablet available spec wise and for aesthetic reasons as well. The Nook is super thin, looks great and runs Android. (Well a Barnes and Noble locked down version of it, which works great for what it is).

I have purchased a 16GB MicroSD card and installed Android 3.0 Honeycomb on it and it runs wonderfully. It allows me to quick internet look ups, listen to music (streamed or saved on my tablet), read books in multiple formats, watch videos and finally, do some light document editing. This basically means that for 90% of my portable uses the T43 has been replaced. Sure there are times when I need that ethernet port or USB port but other than that if it's a big job that what the tower is for.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Tablets / portable devices + cloud = the future. However I've been saying this for about the last 15 years. Technology is just now catching up with me. Eventually I will carry my widget with me and go to my buddies house. I dock my widget and there's all my stuff and all my settings. Same if he comes over to my house. Then we find a video and stream across to the backyard projector and watch it on the clouds at night. Think it wont happen? Think again.

I welcome the return of our Mainframe overlords.

What about the ergonomics of using a tablet, how do you use it. On a desk, on your lap ?

A laptop sits on your lap, you angle the screen to your advantage, and the keyboard follows the natural position of your hands.

I use a tablet PC in almost the same positions as I use a paper notebook. Flat on a desk, in the crook of my arm when I am upright, or in my lap.

If you call that natural. But I do not. My arms start at my shoulders, so having the hands on the lap, they naturally rest at an angle, between forty-five and ninety degrees (depends on front-to-back position). Since laptops do not have spit V-angle keyboards, that means I must turn the hands until the fingers point forward, which makes the wrists bend an aweful amount.
Since I write with one hand, a tablet does not need to rest in my lap at tidy square angles. Using a tablet is much more comfortable for my hands, although it does make text entry terribly slow. Then, that's where Microsoft targets speech-to-text.

I use it both places as well as others depending on whether I'm browsing the web, wandering around my kitchen putting together a grocery list, reading through Twitter, working through my RSS feeds, watching a video, etc Right now, I have the cover sort of unfolded so that it's sitting up rather like a tent in my lap in my recliner. Other times it may be flat or the cover folded to only slightly prop it up at an angle on my desk, or i may have it cupped by my hand and resting on my left forearm while I tap it with my right hand. Since moving around on it only requires a very light touch, it's very comfortable to use and gives my right wrist a rest from a pointing device (even the beloved TrackPoint).

well the move happens definitely in segments .. the mobile phone segment is a great example, to predict the trend in rise/fall of tablets .. for example, when the first windows mobile phone came in, business/power users were the majority of users who switched from basic phones .. when the BB came in, even more users who were more inclined towards security/keyboards, they moved in .. but when the iphone/android came in, there was this huuge movement becoz of the catering audience it was focused on i.e., apps ..

similarly on the tablet region, the ipad was the first one to set the trend and will not be the last one for sure .. considering a insanely huge userbase .. but as more n more day-to-day activities are possible on the tablet, i dont see any reason why the customers will not switch to a tablet ..

For example, last week i was in the market to buy a tablet that had a good keyboard dock .. reason was, i should be able to ssh into my servers for any office errand irrespective of the location .. i ended up buying the transformer .. but returned it the next day because the terminal apps in android, do not give me the full functionality of the shell .. i could use by netbook instead .. i mean there's lot of work that needs to go into busybox, but i am definitely sure that within the next few months/an year.. there will be something that will cater to this need of mine .. similarly step-by-step, they are other areas that will improve within this one year and and as that happens, more and more ppl will make the switch ..

a simple comparison would be .. the netbook gives me 6-7 hours of battery life whereas the tablet with the keyboard dock gave me 16 hrs .. so when i have the option to have complete ssh access with 16 hrs of battery life, why not !!!! and not to mention lighter/slimmer than netbook ..

my two cents !!

Needs way more pen-enabled tablets.

Conventional computers will never replace tablets.

When they go home after working from 8 AM to whatever, usually, normal people do not want to type a 10,000-character document.

In fact there are a lot of normal people who do type a lot of characters "after work" for a whole host of reasons

Cheers,

Bill B.

My son and I just finished an epic session of "Empire Earth AOC"...

Hotkeys pressed (me): 9865
Hotkeys pressed (him): 8801

Also I "mud" (text based rpg), I can easily press keys 10,000 times in a session

And I know there are consoles for gaming, but there are MANY reason I prefer a real computer for games. Even Angry Birds blows on a tablet or phone in comparison to playing with a mouse on a PC.

I received my 32GB HP TouchPad this morning and have been playing with it for several hours. It has confirmed that for me, tablets will never replace laptops. Typing on the virtual keyboard is too slow. If I use my left hand to hold up the tablet while typing with my right hand, my left hand gets tired quickly. Granted, the 1.6-lb TouchPad is one of the heavier tablets, but the 1.3-lb iPad2 would still feel heavy after just several minutes. Typing becomes easier if I put the tablet flat on a desk; however, I have to view the tablet from above and my neck starts to hurt after a short while.

I think I will keep this TouchPad because I paid so little for it -- $149 plus tax. I may use it on trips where I need to travel very light and don't expect to have to type much, or when I just want to spend a couple hours at a restaurant or coffee shop to read PDF files or browse the internet. But I suspect I will mainly use it simply as a 32GB USB storage device!

Sad/bad buy!
HP is ditching all its PC related branches, incl. the Touchpad.
For only a handful of $$$ you can buy a 32GB USB-stick, much smaller and LIGHTER.

It is true that HP has stopped making more Touchpads, which was why they were selling them for $99 and $149 and why I bought one. I knew that HP would not be providing any software updates or apps in the future. However, the rest of your statement remains a rumor. See http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/78009 .

Like I said, there will be situations when I will find the Touchpad useful. For example, I will be on a four-day vacation next week and I will want some sort of a computer on me. However, my Toughbook would be overkill and too heavy, and so I plan on taking this Touchpad. And I just realized that it works well for displaying sheet music on my piano.

When I decide I don't need it any more, I can easily sell it, possibly for over $149 because many people still don't know about last weekend's fire sale.



I already have a 32GB USB flash drive.

I still use my Nook for most things. However I have also been using my T43 for a lot of things where I need a real keyboard and the virtual one one the nook doesn't cut it.

Now I have a Samsung Captivate and I use it a lot.

Yay technology.

Speaking of tech I want this: http://www.virtual-laser-devices.com/