Where can I buy a decent tablet?

[noetus]

I have a trusty X61 tablet. It has a 12" 1400x1050 screen and it is fine.

It's a bit underpowered though and I really don't like the Intel graphics card - its biggest weakness and I really wish Lenovo had stuck with ATI.

It's coming up to 3 years old and I'ld like to replace it. But with what?

I HATE every single tablet screen I have seen so far. First off, they are ridiculous in the vertical direction. I know the "widescreen" has become the new fad but I just don't understand it. For large screens like desktop panels and even the 15" panel in my Macbook Pro it is fine. But for small screens less than 15" it just looks ridiculous and stupid. It just looks like someone has taken a regular 4:3 panel and chopped off the top 1/4 of the display (which if you look at the resolution is what in fact they have done) and you end up with this ridiculous narrow horizontal strip of a display which looks just worse than useless to me. I mean not only is it useless to use but it just LOOKS stupid. I can sort of understand useless things if they look pretty, but this sort of screen is both useless and horrible to look at.

And then there is the resolution. It seems to be very hard to find any panel that approaches the 1400x1050 I am used to in the X61.

So what is a faithful Lenovo user to do? I have even looked at the Dell and HP websites but they are useless too. "Tablet" just isn't a category there, even though they make them - at least on the Lenovo website you can find a tablet category right away.

[ZaZ]

So what is a faithful Lenovo user to do?

Keep what you got. There's nothing really like it on the market right now. You could get a newer tablet, but that means a WXGA LCD. I think there's a HP tablet with the ATI 4200 GPU, but it's an AMD machine, which means it'll run hot and won't have very good battery life. Plus it's a consumer machine with the lesser quality and support. I'm curious, in what way is your X61t underpowered? Perhaps a clean install of Windows and/or a SSD would liven things up a bit.

[sanjuro]

And then there is the resolution. It seems to be very hard to find any panel that approaches the 1400x1050 I am used to in the X61.

Apple is using 1024x768 IPS panel in their ipad. It may eventually dawn on Lenovo and other panelmakers that 4:3 ratio and IPS panel makes more sense for small notebook/tablet devices. This may take a while though.

In the mean time, may be someone will figure out a way to build a frankenpad by implanting i5/i7 motherboard to 4:3 thinkpads.

[ZaZ]

Apple is using 1024x768 IPS panel in their ipad. It may eventually dawn on Lenovo and other panelmakers that 4:3 ratio and IPS panel makes more sense for small notebook/tablet devices. This may take a while though.

I don't know that XGA makes more sense on a 12" notebook. You're getting less vertical and horizontal resolution. If you're doing SXGA+, then perhaps so, but not a lot of people can use a 12" SXGA+ LCD as the pixel density is so small. If it's a 14" then I'd prefer SXGA+ because the extra vertical resolution is more advantageous for typical notebook usage like office and internet.

[crashnburn]

X61T ... the last of the best.. Doesnt get any better (for now).

[sanjuro]

I don't know that XGA makes more sense on a 12" notebook. You're getting less vertical and horizontal resolution. If you're doing SXGA+, then perhaps so, but not a lot of people can use a 12" SXGA+ LCD as the pixel density is so small. If it's a 14" then I'd prefer SXGA+ because the extra vertical resolution is more advantageous for typical notebook usage like office and internet.

I wasn't advocating XGA format since 768 pixels in XGA leaves much to be desired. I was pointing out Apple's choice of 4:3 format in iPad. 16:9 or 16:10 formats aren't very useful for internet or other applications where 800 or 900 vertical pixels provides a limited utility. I agree that formats like SXGA+ or even SXGA with 1000+ pixels vertically is more useful for non-movie watching applications.

[aceo07]

I also have a x61t. There doesn't seem like there's anything that is a complete upgrade without giving up on the screen.