I recently purchased a HP Compaq tc4200 TabletPC for Brad Feld. He’s wanted one for a while, and had one of the first generation Compaq ones when they came out. Since he ddn’t like that one we sent it back and now he’s decided to give it another go.

My prediction: He’ll hate it. Here’s why.

If you ask me (and since you’re reading this you kinda did…) TabletPCs fit a VERY specific niche. A VERY specific one. They are NOT for general purpose computing. While the tc4200 is a laptop/tablet combo (meaning it has a keyboard and can be used as a standard laptop) it just isn’t useful in tablet mode. The main issue is that it’s just too heavy and hot. Ok, so Brad wants to use it in Alaska to read his email and blogs while lying on the couch (sounds good to me) so I figured that’s how I’d evaluate it.

As a Tablet
So this weekend I spent about an hour lying on my ass playing with this thing (after 5 hours of landscaping so don’t give me too much crap!). I figured I’d do what Brad will do, read blogs/sites and magazines. So I switched to tablet mode and started surfing away. First problem, man is this thing heavy! At 4 1/2 lbs it’s a lot to hold in your hands, and too heavy to rest on your chest/stomach. After about 10 minutes you really feel the weight, oh and next comes the heat. While it’s not nearly as hot as my OQO was (and man was that thing hot) it still gets uncomfortable. Then there comes surfing. The issue isn’t with moving in a page (the jog dial on the side is really nice, but it’s located too high) its with opening new pages/links you don’t have bookmarked. The handwriting software sucks for surfing. What I mean is this. I write slashdot.org (and I’m VERY careful with spacing) and it thinks I wrote Slash Dot org (since it tries to interpret what I’m saying). So I switch to the other mode (where you get little boxes) but that’s really restrictive. Ok, you could bookmark everything but come on… Next is the pen as a mouse – it SUCKS. Plain and simple. They should have put a small pointing stick on the front so you could use that…

As a laptop
Ok, so as a laptop it’s not bad, but it’s no IBM T Series (which is easily the best laptop ever made…). After using IBM’s for years there is just nothing that comes close, not even a little close (ok, maybe my powerbook, but still not as nice…). The keyboard just doesn’t feel right, the mouse buttons are TERRIBLE, the glide pad sucks, on and on and on and on.

Oh, and I didn’t mention the worse thing. The screen SUCKS. SUCKS!!! It’s just no where near bright enough. I have 20:8 vision and I can barely read the thing. Even in a low light room it’s just not enough.

So in short HP just missed it here. And I think tablets are just for VERY specific purposes, purposes where you would NEVER use a keyboard (think doctors, factory workers, anyone that moves around all the time). So, next it’s to Brad, we’ll see if my prediction is right. Hell he may keep it just to spite me