I've been holding off, partially due to the digitizer issue and partially due to my hunch that as soon as I bought it, there would be a price drop. The big college laptop rush is over now, right?

Anyway, Staples has just offered a $100 plus a $50 rebate off their $1,300 pricetag, down to a total price of $1,150. This is the 60 gig version. The rebate offer expires on September 11th, next Saturday. Here's the link to the online ordering page: http://www.staples.com/products/Spot...34/Default.asp

At this price level, I've pretty much decided to get one now. It's about what I would have to pay for a plain laptop with similar specs, but with a tablet mode thrown in.

I have also been in contact with a developer in the Microsoft Tablet PC division. He has mentioned it to a few developers in his group, and they are looking into the possibility of adding a Wintab-compatibility option into Ink services, so that all tablets with an HID-compliant tablet will work with Wintab pressure-sensitive apps, regardless of who made the digitizer. No guarantee they will do it or even if it would work well, but they are looking into it. So maybe we'll get pressure sensitivity even if UC Logic doesn't release new drivers.

Thank you for the information. This is good news.

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This is indeed a better price than Costco had. I checked at the Burbank Costco and there were none there. I had a guy look up to see what other stores might have them and he that Costco had discontinued them, but said Fullerton and Garden Grove had a few. There were none out on the floor at either of those stores, so I asked a lady at the Garden Grove store to check in her computer. She said there were 4 at her store and 3 in Fullerton (or was it the other way around), but they were all returns. I was all set to buy one, but now I don't know whether it would be a good idea, with so many bad ones.

According to the Staples web site, if you want to return it, you must do so within 14 days, which is a lot shorter than Costco's 6 months.

Stan Slonkosky

Did you find out how many these Costco stores initially received? If they each received 100 units then 3 or 4 units isn't that bad (3-4 percent). Anything above 5 percent would be bad news. I remember a well known and highly recommended motherboard had return rates well beyond 15% and one motherboard manufacturer had a board we used to call boomerangs because they ALWAYS came back. Still, we'd see these items listed with "awards" and "praises" from reviewers who had received the boards at no charge.

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Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

Please do not send private messages requesting technical support. Place your request in the proper forum and hopefully someone can help you.

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