Shopping for Tablet PC, looking for advice/impressions

mausmalone

Okay ... so here's the story. I recently got a new job at a new university and will have to return my work-issued laptop when I leave my current job. I really liked having a laptop that I could cart around so I find myself in the market for a laptop of my own.

So here's what I'm looking to find:

* Core 2 Duo or Turion X2, any speed
* 2 GB RAM
* 100GB or more HDD, 5400 RPM is fine
* Active Wacom Tablet (none of that passive tablet/touchscreen bullshit)
* Under $1500

And I'm looking to use the computer to:

* Browse the web
* Take notes at meetings
* Watch movies while traveling
* Draw & paint things in photoshop
* Some application programming

So after some quick searching (which was tough because so many manufactures seem almost to hide their Tablets), I'm looking mostly at the Gateway C-140X w/ 2GB of RAM, the 120 GB 5400RPM HDD, the 12-cell battery, and the Radeon Mobility GPU (so that it doesn't use shared memory).

tl;dr: Here's what I'd like to know from people on the forum:

* I've never bought a laptop of any sort. What should I be looking for? What should I be avoiding?
* Does anybody have any experience with Gateway laptops? What do you think of them?
* Does anybody here have a Tablet PC of any kind? What are your impressions of it?

Veegeezee

Thinkpad x60 tablets are on sale at the moment. It looks like everything is $470 cheaper than normal until July 30, which means you can get everything you listed there for pretty derned close to your price limit.

I've been using the x41 tablet for almost a year, for taking notes at school, coding, etcetera etcetera, and my only regret is that I didn't wait a couple of months longer until the Core 2 Duo versions came out.

So that's my two cents.

mausmalone

Veegeezee wrote: »

Thinkpad x60 tablets are on sale at the moment. It looks like everything is $470 cheaper than normal until July 30, which means you can get everything you listed there for pretty derned close to your price limit.

I've been using the x41 tablet for almost a year, for taking notes at school, coding, etcetera etcetera, and my only regret is that I didn't wait a couple of months longer until the Core 2 Duo versions came out.

So that's my two cents.

I have a T43 right now and I like it well enough .. but I won't even consider a Lenovo tablet unless the screen is significantly better than the standard ThinkPad screen.

Also, it doesn't help that even with the $470 off normal price, it's still going to be $400 more than the Gateway for equivalent specs (except that I can't get a GPU without shared memory on the ThinkPad no matter how much I sink in).