How useful would a tablet PC be to me?
The PDA seems to be evolving into a different kind of appliance, perhaps a smart phone. Could the same be true of the tablet PC?
A tablet PC is a special notebook computer outfitted with a digitizer tablet and a stylus that allows a user to handwritten text on the unit’s screen.
The stylus can take the place of a keyboard when users use an on-screen input panel or tap letters and numbers directly on an on-screen keyboard.
Tablet PCs have not had the success that was anticipated for them, with only about 1% of laptops sold being tablets, despite being backed by Microsoft. One problem is that traditionally tablets have cost $200~$400 more than notebook PCs.
Even so, these portable devices have found their uses, in a handful of schools for student use in classes on such subjects as English, foreign languages, math, science, etc.
More recently, Nokie, the company known for making cell phones, announced a mini-tablet Internet appliance that looks much like a PDA and is designed to connect to the web using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
For writing purposes, you can use the stylus either to tap the on-screen keyboard or to write on the screen and make use of handwriting recognition capability, after having trained the device to understand your handwriting style.