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Sunday, March 05, 2006

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Interesting accessory for Tablet PCs - LX Notebook Arm

- Rob Bushway

I was browsing www.CDW.com for some pricing info on a Toshiba M4 Tablet PC for a customer of mine, when I happened upon this accessory by Ergotron . It is a Desk Mount Notebook Arm. Now, nothing too intriguing there, but then a couple of things hit me as I started reading more and then thinking about this little accessory.

The first thing I noticed was that the Lenovo X41T tablet pc was being demoed on it. Pretty cool. The I noticed that in the description that it is designed to work for notebooks and convertible tablet pcs. Not too much of a stretch to make that happen, but still cool to see a company even acknowledge the Tablet PC and suggest benefits for using it with a tablet pc. Then my mind started cranking….

I started thinking about the implications and real world benefits of such an accessory for Tablet PC users. Set your tablet pc in slate landscape mode in this device and raise the arm up so that it is eye level to you – you’ve got a monitor. Your external keyboard and mouse are also available to you. Now, here is the best part – with that same configuration, you can now write on the monitor with it directly in front of you, similar to what some docking stations give you, but much more ergonomical and much cheaper. In addition, if you set another monitor next to it in extended mode and you’ve got extended monitor display with the benefit of being able to write on one of them with them sitting side by side (click here to see some good pics). Notice that the arm has cable management, so you could set your tablet in its’ docking station for even simpler grab and go convenience.

I think I’m going to buy one of these and give it a whirl. On CDW, it appears to have a 2 week shipping time, so I don’t know when I’ll actually get it. When I do get it, I’ll post a review. Pricing on www.cdw.com is listed at $139.95.

Accessories

3/5/2006 11:54 PM MST

Interesting accessory for Tablet PCs - LX Notebook Arm Comments [5] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Monday, March 06, 2006 12:30:55 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

That looks really nice. I'm looking forward to your review.

Mental

Tuesday, March 07, 2006 10:24:35 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Rob,
What you might find is that there will be too much bounce when you are writing on the screen when in landscape mode with the screen flipped up like a laptop. Also, from what I can tell the arm will not allow you to rotate the tablet or the 2nd monitor which will be out of synch by 90 degrees when in tablet/portrait mode of a convertable assuming you are using a machine that forces you to rotate and flip the screen like the Fujitsu T4010. Ergotron has an interesting Desk Clamp LCD Arm to help solve the problem for the monitor giving you a full 360 degree rotation Part # 45-172-300. When you go from notebook mode (LANDSCAPE) to Portrait on the Tablet pc you can just rotate the entire external monitor to match the switch. Kind of a pain but a manual labor fix until Intel, Microsoft and Fujitsu and other tablet mfgs work through their disagreements on how to handle this issue.

Let us know how it works for you.
See ya
Stan

Stan

Friday, March 10, 2006 1:08:41 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

After thinking this through, reading your comments, and talking to a few other folks like Eric Mack, I've come to the conclusion that this probably won't be a good accessory for writing on the tablet pc - due to bounce issues. Consequently, I'm going to save my money and invest it elsewhere.

If any of you decide to buy one, let me know how it goes.

Rob Bushway

Friday, August 18, 2006 9:07:09 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I agree to what stan wrote. I just dropped this request at ergotron:

It would be really nice if you'd produce a Tablet PC stand solution, where a tablet in slate mode is located next to the ordinary, big monitor just like http://www.ergotron.com/ConsumerProducts/ViewAllProducts/tabid/184/ctl/Product/mid/595/PRDID/127/Default.aspx does for two monitors. This will avoid the problems concerning swinging and thus difficulties to write. Yea, tablets have different shapes, sizes etc. but I'm sure your engeneers will be able to create a stand :-)

A rough sketched idea: 2-3 clamps on the downside (just as LX Notebook Arm has in front) combined with a elastic strap on top / at the corners (be aware of hardware buttons that shall not be pressed by the strap!) hold the salte against elastic rubber background. A possibility for different tilt settings for monitor and slate (it's not ergonomic to write to something upright but to read from something upright) seems necessary. Rotating one/both on the fly would be nice, but is not that urgend IMHO.

Do not forget to announce such a product on all well-known tablet pc sites as most tablets have small screens thus in their desktop environment most users have external monitor, keyboard, mouse, drives and are possibly interested in a solution that keeps the tablet fully available (not that easy without any stand).

georg

Friday, August 18, 2006 10:37:57 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

It just seemed to be too great so I researched a little. Here is ergotrons list of TabletPC products http://www.ergotron.com/tabid/203/Default.aspx
and here http://www.ergotron.com/ProfessionalProducts/DeskMounts/tabid/71/ctl/Product/mid/396/PRDID/13/Default.aspx the kind of arm you described - but specialized for motion computing ONLY, so not for my Fujitsu Siemens Tablet PC :-(

Then there's a less sophisticated way, suitable for all tablets, but just a stand, so no flexible arm. At least it might put the tablet into a better position for writing. See http://www.mercateo.com/p/347-PBS866490/Notebookhalter_3M_vertikal_LX550.html

Hm, maybe it does exist, but at least it's not easy to find a stand / holding solution...so long, Georg

georg

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