Looking strongly into purchasing a convertible tablet, and Averatec seems to be the most decently priced one at about $1100. Reading the boards I have a couple of concerns.

Primarily with the digitizer. I spoke with a tech support representative who was oblivous to the issue and he assured me that any issues like this would be corrected. I then spoke to another representative who said this was an issue with adobe and they used the standard file that is provided in MS Tablet edition, and that the their stylus was a completely different technology than what Wacom uses. Due to wacom being primarily for drawing tablets but not for any tablet pcs. Of course that sounds a bit shakey to me so I am wondering if there is a way around it. Possibly installing another OS, or is it simply possible to get a third party Digitizer and use it with this tablet? Or is this that big of an issue, what does it not work with? Does the digitizer not work at all in these programs, or does it operate incorrectly, etc? Can someone waid through the bull to get to the truth on this issue?

Secondly, is there another tablet for anywhere near this price?

Finally, I see a lot of issues with Costco purchased 3500's. Is this simply a bad batch for them, or is this true for 3500's purchased everywhere?

The C3500 does not use a Wacom digitizer but the reps from Averatec have not provided which digitizer it is ... posts on other places are stating it is UC Logic but Averatec has not confirmed this as the digitizer.

My review unit has not arrived so I cannot tell you for certain but from what I can tell the issue with Adobe photoshop is pressure sensitivity. People who are artists will definitely want this feature and therefore complain about the Averatec. The program will load, etc. and it just will not have pressure sensitivity.

No.

Well, we do not know the percentages of returns and the reasons for the returns. For example, if a costco store received 100 units and 5 were returned because of defects then that is a 5% error. This is a typical industry number to watch. If the number climbs above 5% then there is an issue. Just remember, that people want to do different things with this averatec unit - if you simply want to take notes, keep records, etc then the unit is fine. If you are an artist then forget it. Several people were purchasing these units just to see them and then returning them. This artifically inflates the return numbers.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

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There is no technical reason that pressure sensitivity cannot work. It is a software issue.

Averatec support is absolutely correct; they have a driver that works with Microsoft Tablet input. It is Adobe and others who have not developed applications that accept this input, and continue to have only Wintab compatibility. Initially, Wacom tablets also could not provide pressure sensitivity on a Tablet PC. Adobe and others ignored this problem, so Wacom developed a kludge to allow compatibility.

The digitizer manufacturers are not at fault here. Sure, Wacom is being nice and providing a stopgap measure. But Microsoft moved to a new input standard, and the software companies refuse to update their applications. If they did, it would not matter who made the digitizer, it would just work.

This issue will be resolved. Either Adobe will finally get up to speed, UC Logic or Averatec will release a new driver with the Wintab kludge, Microsoft will add a Wintab compatibility layer to their own Ink services, or some independent developers come up with their own solution. Someone has to quit pointing their fingers at the other guy, and just do it.

Does the Costco version of C3500 have some differences from the normal model besides 80 GB hard disk?

Strangely most of the complains about c3500 refers to Costco version of c3500.

Scaro