Hardware
Adjusting to Life with a Lower Res Screen
I’ve always been in big favor of higher resolution screens on Tablet PCs. That battle has been won and lost as OEMs have moved their focus to the widescreen format (WXGA 1280×800). I can see their point given the marketplace, and of course the advent of Touch has something to do with this as well. Supposedly Touch is more difficult to implement on higher res screens.
As I’ve been evaluating the HP 2730p Elitebook and the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PCs, both of which have WXGA screens, I’ve found myself having to adjust my workflow quite a bit, but in reality not in any great detrimental way.
Here are some things I’ve noticed.
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When I’m in brainstorming mode with the Tablet PC in slate mode, I find I’m more conscious about how I write or scribble notes on the more limited screen real estate than I am on the X61. I’m hoping this will change with time.
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I like to keep multiple windows open, and I like to take advantage of the feature in the Google Chrome browser that lets you pull a tab out of the browser, essentially creating its own application on the desktop. When I’m at my desk, I do this on my desktop computer now, instead of with one of these Tablet PCs. It just takes up too much room.
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I like to have Twhirl, and application that pulls Twitter feeds open throughout the day. It is a great way of finding out what’s happening as the Tweets of those I follow just scroll on by. (It can also be a great distraction, if I let it.) I find that I either don’t do this at all when I’m using one of the Tablets or relegate this to my desktop at the office.
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I use the Windows Key-Tab combination to switch between open Windows on these two machines more than I do on the ThinkPad X61 with SXGA+ resolution. (Check out this InkShow of the Vista Flip on the ThinkPad X60.)
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When I am home, working on a multitude of things and decide to take a break and check through my RSS feeds, I am finding myself using Google Reader on the iPhone more frequently than opening it up on the Tablet PC. I’m feeling more productive that way.
Again, in my mind, none of these are deal breakers to me, but they are requiring some re-training on my part.
Check out these other posts in The GBM Lenovo/HP 2730p Tablet PC Shootout
