Guys,
Make sure Motion chuck a few spare digitising pens into the bag!!!

I can say that as an LS800 user for the past 6 months this is one comp that is really worth the effort.

Mel

Wow! GottabeMobile, you are the one!

"[T]his contest is only open to those residing in the United States," say the contest rules.

"Rats," says the Canadian. "Looks like the rest of you have a chance now."

:)

-- Steve

Ditto from this Canadian. ;-) Good luck to everyone else.

Ditto from this Englishman who lives in Norway. Guess I've lost out twice!

Make me mobile with Motion
Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is Fabian Dietrich, and I am a high school student in 10th grade. I am also a Tablet PC enthusiast and committed promoter of the TPC Concept in my school and hometown. So it is only logical that I use a Tablet PC for school, and as my primary computer. Due to cost reasons I am limited to a Gateway CX2724 Tablet PC, 5 pounds in weight, and a 14”widescreen beauty. This does not at all fit into my concept of using an Ink enabled “on the run” computer. I need something mobile, powerful, and ink enabled that can go anywhere I go. It’s unfortunate that I’m lugging around a big, chunky beast, because I could always use my Tablet PC on the go. Be it to take notes in school, or to hang out in a school lounge or café, I am a truly mobile person. I go to school, and use my Tablet, which works out pretty fine for me. But I also have a long bus ride home, and would love to just pull out that UMPC sized computer and start inking away. When I’m in the city, I want to capture a moment, to stay in touch, or to just chill and enjoy a downtime.
In school, my Tablet has pioneered a concept, and it has made my study life easier, more intuitive and just way cooler. I take notes in digital ink, I study heavily at home, and I do what I can digitally. But sometimes I wish I could do even more, and in more places than just school and my bedroom; just whenever and wherever I am.
“Flexibility is the key to success”. That’s one of my teacher’s favorite quotes. I believe him, and I am dreaming I could be more flexible. More flexible, that would be for example, checking my project and homework stats in the subway, or downloading lecture slides from my teacher’s side instantly while waiting for the city bus. But it could also be taking a time out in lunch, or just kicking it at subway sandwiches with a friend. My current Gateway Convertible Notebook is not offering what I need for true mobile computing.
I can imagine today, how I would use my LS800, and morph it into my life in school and at home.
To start my day off, I would have about 4 pound less to carry, and that’s valuable for a kid that carries a bag for one and a half hours to and from school 5 days in a week. School would be a continued dream: the versatility and ease of an ink enabled life in school already makes me learn and study more effectively. But now imagine (or rather let me do that ;) ) how much improved that experience would be without the extra weight while sprinting down a school hallway with two minutes to go till the beginning of class. With my current Tablet, I am the last one to leave the room - always. That’s because I firstly slip the convertible into a protective case that makes my life less miserable avoiding scratches and dents in the casing of the pc. And it is an additional downside that this case isn’t easy on me when squeezing it (virtually) into my backpack.
Here’s what it’d be like with the motion:
1) glide it into a slip case
2) chuck that case (+LS800) into my backpack
3) zip my bag shut
4) way to go
Sounds way more relaxed, doesn’t it?
Lunch break is now no more a painful locker jam (because I don’t want to lug the Gateway around still in lunch), but rather a welcome time out to review classes, or to kick back and enjoy an Audio Ink Show I previously downloaded. Still way more relaxed, aint it?!?
And the way home is a joy ride as I am praying for every day. For me it’s another 3 years with no car or driver’s license, so I’ll be stuck with the subway and city bus for a while. Imagine one and a half hours of productivity or downtime instead of boredom and the wish for a really mobile computer that can actually help me do something on the ride. As written before, it’s nothing versus homework, studying, listening to pod casts/music, or watching a movie all the way.
I was always quite happy with being able to sit in the living room and surfing, until I thought about what is possible with, for instance, the Motion LS800: eBook reading on the couch, kicking it in the garden, and lounging in the bathtub (-hey, I have try that sometime if I win!).
Besides going to school and living at home, I do one other thing on a regular basis. That’s visiting friends in the city.
Berlin is a beautiful place. Seriously. I love hanging out in the parks and chilling at famous, busy spots, like the Sony Center. (They have loads of hotspots here)
And I always feel like drawing that Motion Tablet out of a pocket, and inking away, or surfing the net, or whatever you can possibly do, just out of the blue, with not much to carry.

In conclusion, the Motion computing LS800 UMPC will make a sad kid very happy. I am looking for the ultimate mobile solution that does everything my current unit can. I am a student, and need to be as mobile as possible. The current situation is not what I expected of a versatile, mobile scheme. I am desperately hoping and begging for this computer to be mine. I understand it is very complicated to handle shipping to me end of the forest, but I cannot afford a usable UMPC, and I am in great need of something of this form factor.

So please Mobile Tech Community, PIMP MY LIFE!!!

could us internationals enter if we paid the shipping and taxes if we won?

With so many options on a device such as this, it is always best to start at the beginning. My day usually starts out with Rice Krispies in the keyboard… I swear my process of turning off my alarm includes booting my PC. Reading the news gets my brain ready for the day. I don’t subscribe to any “normal” newspapers so the PC-breakfast interaction is my routine. Having a device that is handy, mobile, and can actually be read at a comfortable distance would bring my breakfast right into the area with the aptly named nook. After my morning activities it’s straight off to work and in thirty minutes I’m sitting at the PC that this is being typed on… with a keyboard no less!
My interaction with computers is a necessity where I work. This is not to say that I’m always using my computers for doing work. Right now I’m trying to piece together thought and notes I’ve made about this dissertation over the last few weeks. Having just one place to take all the notes I need for any project I’m working on would be paramount, alas I’m trapped in the analog age of Post-It notes. A plethora of these multicolored pixels of paper adorn almost every sight in my triubicle. The device I seek can handle the amount of note taking I can produce, both verbal and written, no matter what sort of rush or confusion I am in. Trying to decipher my notes on who had what toolbar that needs removed, and even remembering when I wrote some of them tends to be a steadfast reminder that I should take better notes. I actually have that on one note here… This may even be the first note; I swear it’s written on papyrus!
In my office there is not a happy relationship between mobility and usability. My PC is a tank and I have my personal laptop here that is on par with something you will probably find free* after rebate this Black Friday. Only if I am in desperate need of having a PC with my programs on it do I undock my laptop to take to a coworker’s desk to diagnose their issue of the day. With a tablet I could be much more sophomoric and keep mIRC fired up to talk about Molten Core with some guildies while I watch progress bars for installations siphon time out of my life. My cover for that would be a map and inventory system for our office which I would keep open to start a project I’ve been meaning to finish for the last two years. With a USB barcode scanner tracking non-networked assets would be a breeze. Also making notes on the condition of workstations while I’m visiting them would be effortless and hidden from coworkers because I would be able to use my own fashion of scribble and they wouldn’t have a clue…
Sometimes I’m not working on work work but working on work that I have worked into my schedule of working. This would be to design a website, and I want to have a few more features than just a static website. This began the pursuit of knowledge of PHP and MySQL. So far Ubuntu has been the most forgiving OS in terms of my attempts to work in a Linux environment. I have jot down some notes on what I’d like to make into a website, these are the yellow stickies I have at home, but I’d love to be able to sketch it out. This would be fine on paper for someone who loves the process of converting paper drawings to digital artwork but I like to wrap everything I do with the digital dimension (that would be the 9th dimension for those of you who are keeping count.)
Not a tangent, I swear, but I love camping and the outdoors. Much of my time away from work is spent volunteering for the Boy Scouts. In order to provide a fun and safe environment to teach children about fire and sharp objects there has to be a whole bunch of paperwork. This year I am going to be taking a much bigger role in the administration and organization of the Troop. We have to keep medical forms, permissions slips, expense reports, menus, campout plans, tour permits, and socks organized and ready to be reported on if they get requested. Something of a fantastic convergence device could alleviate many of the problems I see on a weekly basis. Just imagine one tablet that had every one of our forms on it that each parent needs to sign every time their son wants to participate in an event. No paper printouts, no summons from the woods, and no tree jail.
All my life I’ve lacked the interaction a touch screen with a digital pen can provide. Now that the era is upon us to create digital works where “from scratch” means “from a digital sketch,” I do believe I’m ready to jump into graphics and design much more than I’ve ever attempted. Annotating documents, manipulating images, editing video, composing music, designing websites, and playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure all seem so much closer to being an every day reality. Touching is good!

*Free after a 4 year subscription to some crappy ISP that only supports dial up which will continue charging you for access even in the event of your death or the end of the world.

I wished that I had known of the contest a few days earlier so that I could have entered. I work for a nonprofit organization that provides medical and dental care for children and at-risk families throughout the Western Arkansas region. We have many programs designed to help families help themselves.
Because we are a nonprofit organization, purchasing some items is simply not within the means of our budget. I believe that a mobile unit, such as one of these is just the ticket to help our medical providers access data without having to continually leave the exam room and/or patient to get to their computer. The ability to electronically access patient records/information with the touch of a finger would be a valuable asset for our dental and medical providers.
Below is a little history of our organization.
Healthy Connections, Inc. is a nonprofit organization founded in 1998 as a home-visiting program for Polk County's pregnant and parenting teenagers. The first volunteers quickly found that the struggles facing those young mothers were more than volunteers could provide for.
The scope of the mission was greatly expanded. Using government grants, gifts and a smattering of fees for services, Healthy Connections now operates a medical and dental clinic in Mena that kept 12,000 patient appointments in 2005.
We provide free dental sealants to all second thru sixth grade students in Polk County each February.
The program for pregnant teens still makes about 120 home visits per month, but the teenage pregnancy rate that was among the state's highest in 1998, is now in the bottom half.
Healthy Connections also operates a court-appointed special advocates program and is working with Southern Good Faith Fund on a program that offers matched savings accounts to low-income families.
In less than eight years, Healthy Connections has grown from a single program staffed by volunteers to a multifaceted community health organization with 30 employees and an annual budget of $2 million, which is not alot when you consider salaries, building expenses, utilities, etc.
And still the organization continues to grow as it rises to meet the needs of the community.
It has been a great place to work, too.