Okay. I've got the keyboard resized for login (thanks Josh). I disabled the
light sensor in the softbuttons. I also found out that the shorting of the
display is only on the bottom lefthand side, because it doesn't happen in
secondary portrait view (unless I squeeze the top left corner, which is unlikely).
Mind you, the shorting is good enough reason in my mind to return it before it
gets worse.

But, since I can't get an RMA before monday (I have to go through support and my
account manager isn't in on the weekends), I thought I'd poke around further.

Here's some, somewhat disappointing stuff I found--

--the 80gig HD is only 4200 rpm. I was completely misinformed by my sales rep. I
use VPC extensively, and that slow speed to access the drive is a problem. I am
willing to test it though and see if the slower speed is surviveable. I could
maybe buy a faster (but smaller) external drive for the images (ahh, trying to
justify keeping the tablet...)
--Oddly, and maybe someone can explain this, the centrino processor seems to run
at 210mhz when the battery is fresh, and then kicks to 600mhz (?!) when it is
almost drained. At all times, only browsing static, or near static pages.
--The TIP began (when used for more than a few minutes) to not bother showing ink,
I just was writing invisibly, then it would send what I wrote to the field
selected. No ink in the input panel. This would occur in either portrait
(tablet) or landscape (laptop) modes.
--Then the TIP began to freeze up (in portrait only), becoming completely
unresponsive. The taskbar would also freeze, as would the start button. The
desktop would remain unaffected (making me think it was the TIP and explorer.exe.
The problem could only be resolved by converting back to laptop (folding the
screen back up and using the keyboard), and doing a ctrlaltdel, going into task
manager, and ending the process for the TIP. This did not seem to happen in
laptop mode.
--I did let XP install its updates (I did rollback the smartcard drivers as they
have caused me problems on previous laptops). I wonder if that could be causing
or exacerbating the TIP problems.


Any suggestions?
--


-callahan
"Callahan" <ca_callahan@WHATZA_HEYcomputer.org> wrote in message
news:eI0y7xYVEHA.3620@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> I have been lurking on this board since the tablets came out, hoping against
hope
> that one day I would be able to justify the purchase of one of my own.
>
> That day has come. It was a toss up between the good old workhorse, the HP
> nc6000, and the Acer c303xmi. The additional 512mb ram, 80 gig drive and dvd
> burner-- for only about 96$ more, really sealed the deal for the 303xmi. Yeah,
> I'd get a strong machine and a tablet to boot.
>
> Well, despite the fact that I have never worked with any acer products before,
and
> wasn't really thrilled with the limited warranty, I decided to go for it. I
paid
> for two day shipping, and voila, it's here.
>
> I took it out of the box, and first thing I noticed is the screen doesn't line
up
> properly to latch in tablet mode. It is slightly off to the right, and you have
> to sort of shift it over to get it to lock.
>
> Then, during the setup process, a large keyboard popped up onscreen and obscured
> most of the
> display. I had to keep moving it around to actually see the text and fill in
the
> fields properly. This keyboard disappeared after the reboot (or two) that was
> required before the system actually moved into the operating system for the
first
> time.
>
> When it actually booted up to a desktop, and I clicked through the tablet stuff
> that loaded, I decided to try messing with the stylus. I flipped the screen
> around, snapped it down (with a jiggle), it changed from landscape to portrait,
> and I started writing....
> ...then it flickered, then it shifted back into landscape, then portrait....
>
> ...I think you get the picture. Is that a common problem with the C300 series,
> 303s in particular? Did I just get a bad machine (figures, that is my luck)?
It
> seems to "short out" if I hold onto the bottm left side (in portrait mode, hinge
> to the right) of the laptop while I write. Also, if I tip the laptop while
> writing, it spontaneously shifts from one mode to the other, but not back.
>
> In addition, it seems to darken and lighten the display spontaneously as I move
my
> hand over the "rim" of the screen as I write (I am left handed). What's with
> that?? The screen does not move, there's not a cloud in the sky, yet the it
seems
> to be responding to lighting changes that do not exist....
>
> Please, could someone give me an idea of whether or not the thing is broken (it
is
> now almost three hours old) and needs to be sent back or if there is a patch,
fix,
> or tweak that will make the issue go away.
>
> I was so looking forward to getting my own tablet...
>
> --
>
> -callahan
>
>
>
> --
>
>
> -callahan
>
>