I'm one of those in the education secctor, but I am on the instruction end, ratherr than the student end. This is the first semester that I have been a sole tablet user, and I am lovin' it.

Looking from my vantage point, putting myself into the student position, I'm just not sure that the UMPC is quite the answer. I hope I can explain.

I bought an R2H last Spring and tried to use it to deliver my lectures. It just didn't seem to hack it. It was great for some things- portable, handy, attention-getting, and the inking was very acceptable. I haven't used a light touch UMPC, so I defer to Warner that the R2H is the best inking experience for a touch screen. And I also would mention that if note-taking is going to be touted/marketed to students, you have to employ an "inkable" screen. The R2H is just that. The problems that I encountered were more when I got back to my office- screen size, no CD/DVD drive, poor wireless, mainly what I would call expandability issues. A student would need to accessorize.

I would like to hear or see an Inkshow covering the HP TX1000. I was leaving my class last week when I noticed a student entering for his class, and he had one of these babies. I came straight back to my office and pulled up the Inkshow listed, but it was Rob interviewing an HP representative with the TX1000 in between them. I would like to see Rob or Warner(touch-screen inker) really give this one a once-over. I think that for a student's money, this tablet would have a lot of functionality- screen size is large enough, DVD drive with the entertainment package, touch, Vista, and some other nice features.

Compare the price of the TX1000 and its features to a UMPC and what the accessories would add up to, and you might have a unit that is worth a little more weight to lug around.

What say ye?

Best Buy has the tx1000. It's a touch screen only, and the inking experience is nothing short of horrific. The inking lags way behind (a half to a full second) where you're writing and vectoring of you're hand comes anywhere near the screen was very frustrating. I'm waiting to see what Dell comes up with, but otherwise will probably get the 12.1" Gateway (C-120X, E-155C, and some other number I don't remember). Best Buy has them too. It's both touch and Wacom enabled and has a very pleasant inking experience.

I have heard both good and bad about inking on the TX1000. That's good to hear. What I would say is that this continues to add creedence to what Warner has been admonishing.

There needs to be a solution to the touch-based inking, or there needs to be active digitizer UMPCs. Boy, I am starting to sound like Dennis Rice. haha

The way I see it, if a first-time tablet user encounters a soft-touch screen and tries to take notes on it, there will be enough frustration to never use it again. This is going to drive consumers away from tablets instead of luring them in.

I don't understand why the electronics in the stylus/pen can't cause the screen to go into active-mode. Then, if it is not sensed, the screen would return to touch/multi-touch mode. Let the pen control whether it is touch, or not.

Maybe you guys can discuss this on a podcast. Maybe I just don't know beans about screens and it isn't worth commenting. :)

I bought a Sony UX for a portale device.
At the time I didn't know about active/passive screens. Boy, it didnt take long to learn!
I was very dissappointed in the UX for writung on and almost gave up on tablet style computers.
Its great for pointing at boxes, menus, and genral mouse activities, but not for writing (my writing style)

One our sales reps had a Toshiba M7. I tried his tablet out and bought one before they were discontinued. But, its big for hauling around to jobs.

I would like to have a portable 7" or 8" active/passive convertable tablet with all the ports/connections and detatchable CD/DVD RW drive that the Toshiba Libretto u100 had. For me it would be the perfect tablet for field work.

Per which PCs have which digitizer -- I posted a chart last month that might be helpful http://www.whatisnew.com/2007/09/08/the-power-of-pc-touch/ An update to it would be that today we know that Dell's entry is a dual mode capacitive (for touch) / active digitizer (for pen). Just like Sierra described, when the pen is in range of the display, it switches touch "off" and you can rest your hand on the display and write with pen.

In terms of UMPC success in Education, yes, I'm one of those people who really loves this space :)

It's fantastic that so many K-12 schools now accept and consider Tablet PCs with 14" displays to UMPCs with 7" displays. We still have a ways to go to move 1:1 computing forward, but because of efforts like Project InkWell, WIPTE, all the OEMs, and Microsoft Research how the technology applies to learning is well on the road to being established. Check out The Impact of Tablet PCs and Pen-based Technology on Education, 2007: Beyond the Tipping Point (by Dave Berque, Jane Prey & Rob Reed).