Tablet PCs and Penn State

Posted by | 04/09/2009 | 9 Comments

penstatetwist22Loren Heniy has linked to a news report of Penn State students using Tablet PCs. HP provided 63 Tablet PCs for the engineering program.   The video shows us what most of us that use Tablet PCs already know. And I guess I find that both comforting and frustrating for the same reason.

The fundamental usage scenarios of Tablet PCs haven’t changed since their inception, and cases like this drive that home. The frustrating part of that is that in many instances those fundamental uses just don’t seem to matter on a larger scale.

Yeah, I know. Niche product.

Video after the jump.


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Category: Hardware

About the Author (Author Profile)

Warner Crocker is a professional theatre director, producer and playwright and also a Tablet PC enthusiast. He is also a Microsoft MVP for Tablet PCs. Send email to Warner.
  • sbtablet

    Wow! An amazing NEW product! That’s so sad.

  • feralboy

    Oh man, that was painful to watch!

  • http://www.jembepoetics.com Mak

    Sometimes I feel like I live in a bubble, I have nothing but tablet pc’s since 2003. And I am totally dumbfounded by the attention I get when I pull out a tablet PC in public. I can’t believe people are still asking me what “that” is. What got me was how the news anchors didn’t seem to be struck by how the tablet PC could be put to good use in their work environment.

  • Z

    im a pennstate student in information sciences and technology, and i take my toshiba m700 everywhere i go. my friend next door in the dorms thought it was pretty cool, and now he has the hp tablet. i show off my tablet whenever i can, and i recommend the hp tablet. everyone who sees a tablet pc thinks its cool, so why does practically no one use them?

  • Frank

    Yes, it’s sad that tablet PC’s are such a niche product. Three of my friends also bought a tablet PC after I showed them mine, a fourth friend plans it, but it’s maybe too expensive for him. It’s not only a cost factor, most of the people just don’t know that such a thing exists.

  • http://rcd.typepad.com/ Robin Capper

    How old is that video? It’s depressing how badly Tablet PC’s are marketed. I was in a major dedicated PC outlet yesterday, laptops, notebooks, netpc of every flavour (they had HP/Sony/Toshiba/Acer) NOT ONE TABLET

  • blash

    Absolutely disgusting how little recognition TPC’s get. I honestly cannot imagine trying to work without a TPC anymore, my X200T is an absolutely indispensable tool. Academia the world over would be SCRAMBLING for these if only they knew that it existed – Bill Gate’s dream lost amid the realities of marketing, product placement, shelf-placement in retail stores, etc. etc.

    I’ve had so many people come up and admire what I’m using, veiled envy “oh right you don’t need a pen anymore because you’ve gone completely digital”, it’s not even funny. I love my machine and I feel REALLY sorry for all the bozos who spend $2,000 on a MacBook Pro just for it to be a Facebook Terminal because they have to hand-write their math notes, their electrical and physics notes, hand-write annotations to readings, list goes on and on.

  • http://www.archiwiz.blogspot.com archiwiz

    She actually called them “special computers.” Like, really? Really????

    Totally agree that that was a painful video. I also get many oohs and aahhs when I whip out my tablets, and I hastily tell my fellow students that for $500 or less they can get a used/refurbished tablet pc for themselves. Its such a wonder that tablet pc’s are still being treated as a niche product…. Soooooo 1999.

  • harv

    Two points:
    1)I am disturnbed, but not surprised, that our American Playstation-infused electrical engineering college students, needed to have the college introduce this technology to them. WAKE UP kids and smell the technology. Orplan to spend your life as the employee of someone from Asia.
    2)Tablets have been around since 2001, but only recently has the battery technology and writing recognition really arrived where most technologically illiterate (read american) people will actually tolerate using it.

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