Beverly Howard [Ms-MVP/MobileDev] wrote:
> Just back from sam's where I looked at and used one for about half
> an hour and confirmed no video ports of any kind, in or out, just usb,
> (5) ethernet, firewire,(?) memory card slot, digital audio and
> analog audio out.
That's what the specs say.
I too wondered about that. But it seems to be the designers' decision,
God knows why ...
> The sam's $1,300 unit has half a terrabyte hard drive, four gigs of
> ram and the touch screen had no problems with anything I tried using
> fingers, although the screen was not calibrated correctly which
> created a few glitches.
> It's tablet on vista premium and includes windows media center.
Sounds good (as the video and the specs brochure).
As to the "tablet" features:
How about using a pen?
In the demos there only was a finger, but that might be pretty dumb for
sketches, the usage on ON etc., etc.
> One surprising fact was that the (very thin and light) RF wireless
> keyboard has excellent range... was able to take it far enough away
> to the point I could barely see the start menu pop up (~60-70') and it
> still had a good connection.
So it really would be usable from the sofa ;-)
Having been using wireless desktop sets (keyboard+mouse) - radio as well
as Bluetooth - for quite some years, I would have assumed that.
My proposals for add-ons:
a) Logitech "HarmonyŽ One Advanced Universal Remote"
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/re...FSbTXgodQEUigQ
or
b) Logitech "MX AirT Rechargeable Cordless Air Mouse"
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mi.../3443&cl=de,de
which is movement sensitive (technology licensed from Gyration)
or
c) Gyration "Air Music Remote"
http://www.gyration.com/ http://www.hera.hs-heilbronn.de/rt/Air_Music_Remote.gif
The Gyration technology is really great.
I'm using a Gyration "Air Transporter Presenter"
http://www.gyration.com/c-21-presentation-pointers.aspx
for my lectures.
It comes really handy in connection with my HP tc1100 for my "advanced"
PPT-presentations which are loaded with hyperlinks. Moving the hand
moves the cursor and it's just a click.
And the transmitter USB-stick has flash memory of 1GB (there's 2GB
models too) which holds a ton of PPT-files. So it's almost "presenting
everywhere" ;-)
> Had it had video out ports, I might be $1,300 poorer at the moment
> ;-)
The family's budget manager most probably glad about the missing video
port <gbg>.
Christmas will come pretty soon <bg> and by then you might have checked
USB and WLAN solutions for transmitting video to the TV (there are quite
some, AFAICS) ;-)
Rainald