Many of you have come to know GBM reader, Kevin Bals, through his insightful tips that he faithfully passes along to us.

This one is very interesting as it introduces a new 12.1" convertible into the market from Gateway. I'll let Kevin speak for himself:

I just got back from a 2 day technology conference for school administrators. I spoke to the Gateway rep and he told me in March Gateway will be releasing a 12.1 Tablet PC with built in optical drive, weighing around 4lbs. 

We'll see what more we can gather about this new tablet coming from Gateway. Known for their aggressive pricing, I'm sure Gateway will be moving alot of these. Hopefully, like their 14" convertible, we'll start seeing these showing up in the retail sector, too.

Okay, I picked up this in my email, and just had to pass it along.  Please note that we get nothing from a post like this other than hoping someone takes advantage of the deal!

For many years I have been saying that when Tablet PC's became comparably priced with regular notebooks, the adoption rate would climb.  I know -- it's not exactly rocket science.  When I saw this promo for a new Gateway CX210s Tablet PC for only $899, I realized that the time had come.  Now I know this is not the top of the line, screaming demon bursting with tons of memory computer we would all like to see for this same amount, but get over it and look at what you are getting!  Tablet PC's are still premium priced for premium models (but so are notebook computers), but this is a way to get into a Tablet PC without breaking the old bank account!  It also includes a Windows Vista upgrade, OneNote, and Microsoft Works.  Check out the specs:

Specifications:

• Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2050 (1.60 GHz, 533MHz FSB, 2MB L2)³
• Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition²
• Microsoft® Works 8.5
• $200 instant savings (reflected in price, limited time promotion)
• 512MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-256MB modules)
• 80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive⁴
• 7-in-1 media card reader (Memory Stick®, Memory Stick Pro®, MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital™, xD Picture Card, Mini Secure Digital™, RS-MultiMediaCard™)
• Modular 24x/10x/24x CDRW and 8x DVD-ROM combo drive
• Notebook Value Service Plan -- 1 year parts/labor/no on-site/1 year technical support⁵
• (1) Type II PC card slot
• (3) USB 2.0, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), VGA
• 14.0" WXGA TFT Active Matrix (1280 x 768 max. resolution) with rotating hinge for tablet functionality
• Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• Full-size keyboard and EZ Pad® pointing device
• Gateway executive stylus pen w/ Continuous Sensing Technology™
• Integrated sound and stereo speakers, headphone/speaker jack, and microphone jacks
• Primary 8-cell lithium-ion battery with AC pack and 1 yr. limited battery warranty⁵
• Integrated V.92 56K modem
• Integrated Intel® 10/100/1000 Ethernet adapter
• Six months America Online® Internet access⁶
• Integrated Intel® 802.11a/b/g wireless networking card
• Adobe® Acrobat Reader® 7.0 and Google Toolbar
• Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet (SP2) Backup CD
• No Security Subscription Selected
• Answers by Gateway Per Incident support card
• Microsoft® One Note, Microsoft® Experience Pack and Microsoft® Education Pack

I have owned a Gateway M280 Tablet PC for a while now, and have to say the Vista experience is pretty darn good.  With this updated model, I would expect the same.  14 inch widescreen, 1280x768, DVD, etc. -- all for under $1,000.

If you've been on the fence on a tablet puchase and on a tight budget -- I say go for it!

Tablet PCs and education are just a perfect match and this year has seen a number of school systems adopt Tablet PCs as a teaching tool. Today comes word that Gateway and the Illinois State Board of Education have inked a deal with $2.2 million that has Gateway providing their M285 Convertible Tablet PCs and support services to five Illinois districts as a part of the State’s Technology Immersion Pilot Project. It looks like 6th graders will be the target for this program according to this press release.

The race is on. What race is that? The race to get drivers read and in the pipleine for Vista now that it has been Released to Manufacturing. OEMs are anxiously working to make sure existing hardware will work with Vista, and of course that means a new set of drivers. Over at TabletPCRevewSpot a reader has spotted new Finepoint Drivers for Gateway Tablet PCs are now available on Windows Update. Expect to see lots of news like this in the weeks ahead as new drivers appear along with updated versions of those that have been out there in Beta. Expect also to hear about things that work and things that don’t in the early going. We live in interesting times.

GBM Forum member, Big Wes, has posted a two part series on his first year of Tablet Computing on his blog, Big Wes’s Corner of the ‘Net. (Great name for a blog by the way.) He uses a Gateway CX200S Tablet PC (or is that a Convertible Notebook?) In part 1 he covers the software he uses, (you’ll recognize a lot of familiar titles) and in part 2 he looks at what is in his gadget bag. I love this line:

One of the biggest challenges to being a gadget freak is finding a bag to haul your stuff around. Some ladies buy shoes-I buy gadget bags.

So, Big Wes, will there be more parts to the series? I hope so. Good stuff. You might want to subscribe to this blog.

As some of you might now, my family was recently blessed with the addition of two new children: my nieces from Mississippi, ages 6 and 11. I traveled to Mississippi a couple of weeks ago to pick them up and they are living with us indefinitely. So, that raises the number of children in my house from 4 to 6.

Besides the need to look at a new vehicle that seats 8, clothing for the girls, and all that goes along with bringing two new kids in to the house, we also have a need to get at least one more computer. We homeschool our children, and the older kids do a lot of their school work on the computer.

My requirements:

• Low cost ( under $1400)
• Convertible Tablet PC
• DVD / CD ready
• 1GB of RAM
• 14” screen
• Will handle Vista well

Bottomline: you cannot beat the prices and features of the Gateway CX2724 at Best Buy; plus,  I can go in and pick one or two up TODAY for $1249 each. That is a a heck of a price considering the feature set and the CX2724 makes for a fantastic notebook with Tablet PC features. I’ll also be installing NetNanny on the computers as well for Internet monitoring.

Why not the Toshiba R25 from CompUSA at $1299? I like the screen on the Gateway much better. It doesn’t have the graininess that the Toshiba’s are known for. Plus, I can save $50 each.

So, a little insight into my picking a Tablet PC for my family….

The Tabletscape is full of sad tales of many a lost Tablet PC pen. One of the first things I add to any calculation when I’m thinking about a new Tablet PC is the cost of a replacment pen. Well, this post from Loren Heiny details some help for those who chronically misplace their pen from Gateway.

One of the nice features of the Gateway Tablet PC is a bios option that causes the Tablet to beep if the pen is not in the pen holder after shutting the Tablet down.

I hadn’t known that before, but it seems like a nice option that other OEMs should think about as well. More details on The Incremental Blogger.

Tablet PC power and flexibility is becoming more and more affordable. If you’re looking for a Core Duo power in a Tablet PC, take a look at the weekend ads for Best Buy and CompUSA. The Gateway Convertible CX2724 is going for $1099.99 at Best Buy and the Toshiba R25 is going for $1149.99 at CompUSA.

Via Sumocat’s Scribbles.

If you remember from all the news stories several months ago, the School of Engineering at Virginia Tech recently decided that all students at the School of Enginnering had to have Tablet PCs. Fortunately for Jeffrey Hasnain, a new engineering student, and the rest of the student class, VT signed some partnership agreements with Toshiba, Fujitsu, Gateway, and HP in order to help pass along the best cost possible to the students.

Well, Jeffrey Hasnain ordered a Gateway M-285 and has posted his full review of it at NotebookReview.com. Jeffrey is pretty impressed with the Gateway Tablet PC; and I should say he did an awesome job on the review. Check it out.

His concluding thoughts:

After spending some time on this laptop, and setting things up just the way I like them, I think overall, it's a great buy. The performance is top notch, and the quality is also surprisingly nice. There are few things wrong with the laptop, but for some those few things may be what ultimately may decide on whether or not they want to buy it. Size is one of the major concerns for some, and that is definitely something that will need to be determined when choosing this laptop. This is a 14" screen, and thus adds quite a bit of weight to whatever you may be carrying this in. With the additional 12-Cell battery, it adds even more weight, and protrudes out the bottom, which may be something that some users may not want. However, this for me is a small sacrifice as in return I am getting amazing battery life. Overall, I would definitely recommend this laptop to anyone who is looking for a replacement for a desktop, while still keeping all the functionality of a laptop, as well as having the added functionality of a tablet for whatever they may need it for (in my case, VT's Engineering Program).

Winona State University is apparently quite happy with its Tablet PC program and with Gateway. They have announced a one year extention to their original contract which will provide 4,200 M285 Convertible Notebook Tablet PCs.

If anyone from WSU reads GottaBeMobile.com, we’d love to see some pictures of the students with their M28x’s, and hear some first hand reports from students using them.

Via PRNewsWire:

Gateway, Inc. the nation's third-largest PC company, today announced it has extended its
contract with Winona State University (WSU) to include $6.5 million in M285 Convertible Notebook PCs and associated training, technical support and services. The one-year contract is for 4,200 notebooks to be used as part of WSU's Laptop Program, the largest tablet PC implementation for higher education in the country. Now in its seventh year, the WSU Laptop Program has put a total of 7,600 Gateway convertible notebooks in the hands of WSU students, faculty and staff.

I love reading the impressions of new Tablet PC owners.  Sheryl Schelin is The Airport Lawyer. Or rather that’s the name of her blog. Like most new Tablet PC owners she had some apprehensions and concerns going in, and she shares those as well as her discoveries. Here’s my favorite:

“My main purpose in buying a tablet as opposed to a laptop was to be able to write notes and capture them immediately for later searchability. Can't really do that with a regular laptop or with paper and pen. After a full 24 hours of playing around with George, I do know one thing, however: tablets are no longer "faddish" tools that will pass like a trend, if they ever were. This tablet is a bona fide next-generation development that offers true strengths and functionality you just can't get with a regular laptop.”

She also blogs that she has named her new Gateway CX2620, George. Curious. How many others name their Tablet PCs? Share the names if you do.

.

CIO Today  has posted a review on Gateway’s CX2620 Convertible Tablet PC:

The coolest feature is the way the large LCD screen rotates 180 degrees and folds back onto the keyboard to convert into a pen-based, handwriting input system. It was easy to cradle the unit on one arm, grasp it with that hand, and use the other hand to write on the screen. 

The Tablet PC continues to make in-roads in to education, this time with the Air Force Academy. The graduating class of 2010 will all be getting Gateway M280G Tablet PCs. Being from Colorado Springs, the home of  the Air Force Academy, I’m going to see if I can get on campus for the delivery - that would be major cool.

From PR Newswire

GTSI Corp. , a leading information technology solutions provider to the government, today announced that it has been awarded the U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 2010 Cadet Purchase Buy. GTSI, along with Gateway, Inc. , will be providing the cadets with a Gateway M280G Tablet PC. The Tablet PC and accessories will be specially packaged and priced for the students.

"We applaud the Air Force Academy's decision to become the first military academy to offer tablet PCs to its cadets," said Scott Friedlander, GTSI Executive Vice President. "We are delighted to support the Academy and to be teamed with Gateway who offers such a feature-rich product. The tablet PC has many possibilities for improving the educational experience of the cadets in the future. With the Air Force Academy leading the way, the tablet PC could become an important tool for all institutions of higher learning."

"We're excited to support the United States Air Force Academy with the provision of one of our most feature-rich and performance-oriented notebook PCs for educational institutions," said Vin Riera, Gateway vice president of government sales. "Combining the benefits of a standard notebook with the advantages of pen computing, the Gateway M280 is ideal for the academic environment, where it is tangibly enhancing teaching techniques and increasing student engagement and learning. The flexible option of being able to handwrite text and draw diagrams saves time, paper and costs for students who want to use it for note-taking. It is also ideal for educators who can comment directly on student's work without having to print a page."

"We are excited to be introducing tablet computing to our new cadets this fall," said Larry W. Bryant, Director of Academic Computing at the United States Air Force Academy. "Tablet computers offer all the advantages of notebook computers in the classroom, but the tablet's ability to capture handwriting, formulas, and drawings make it even more valuable. It still allows the students the mobility and freedom to work almost anywhere, and the addition of special math and science software designed specifically for tablets extend the concepts instructors can teach and the way students learn. We look forward to pioneering tablets with both our students and the faculty."

GTSI estimates that the Air Force Academy will order between 1200 to 1400 tablets and accessories. Accessories include an external hard drive, external keyboard, 128 MB memory stick, Ethernet cable, power strip, and carrying case.

David Radin of Post-Gazette.com has just posted a nice article on the improvements in handwriting recognition since his last review.

Tablet PCs have come a long way. The last time I reviewed one, I had a good experience with the software; but the hardware had its problems. Recently, though, I've been using a convertible laptop from Gateway -- and those hardware problems, so far, have been nowhere to be seen. Better yet, with the increase in hardware speed and large memory configurations, it has been fast and accurate.

I just saw this come across the pr food chain at about the same time that I started getting news tip emails ( thanks William ).

Gateway has updated their convertible notebook line ( now the M285–E and CX210) to include core-duo processors and upgraded the memory card to include an option for the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400.

What I found really interesting is this little tidbit that highlights just how successful the Gateway Convertible Notebook / Tablet PC is:

In addition, the Gateway Convertible Notebook is currently the best-selling notebook with Tablet PC capabilities in retail. According to The NPD Group's data for the weeks of October 9, 2005 through March 26, 2006, Gateway's Convertible Notebook models totaled 54 percent of all Tablet PCs sold via the retail channel. The new Gateway Convertible Notebook with Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology will be
offered at retail later this year.

Sounds like their pricing strategy is working! In the press release, they detail the differences between the M285–E (business) and the CX-210 (home). The press release says that the M285–E ($1399) is available for ordering now and the CX-210 will be available in May. After a quick look on the Gateway site, I don’t see it listed, but I’m sure if you call their direct line, you can order that way.

You can watch my video review on the M280 here.

-- Rob Bushway 

Gateway launched their Convertible Notebook series last summer and they have been a hit with the consumers – mainly due to price / performance benefit. As you’ll see in our latest video review, it is not a small tablet pc, but if you are looking for screen real estate and a very powerful notebook computer with tablet features, you don’t need to look much further.

I give a tour of the tablet pc, compare it in size to the X41, and then how it would be used in tablet mode. You’ll laugh my attempt at figuring out how to hold the tablet if I were left handed.

• Watch the Video Review ( 10:13, 47 mb, Flash Video streaming format)
• Visit the Gateway website
• Read more about the M280 Convertible Notebook features

Pricing:

• prices start at $1299

Hugo Ortega has written up a review of Gateway’s Convertible Tablet PC. He offers up a very honest assessment, and one I tend to agree with – it is a great laptop with tablet added as a feature.

Tracy Hooten, of StudentTabletPC.com has written a very good, objective review of Gateway's M280 Convertible Notebook. Her overall conclusion matches mine:

Overall, the Gateway M280/CX200X makes for a great laptop and a poor tablet. I can easily see why it was advertised as a laptop with tablet functionality, because that’s what it feels like. This is for the person who plans to spend less than 50% of their time in tablet mode, such as if they only planned on using it during meetings or for conveying a quick concept through a drawing. I don’t think it’d be the best bet for a student who planned on using it for notes, homework, and studying, but the price point may make it the only option for some.