Tablet Woes...

So sad... WL shall now talk to himself about Tablet Woes.

In this year, I intend to buy my 2nd Tablet PC. The question of course, is... when?

From current generation models, i.e. Lenovo X61T, Fujitsu T4220 and HP 2710p, the obvious choice is Lenovo. Why?

Lenovo X61T has a max battery life (min screen brightness, power saving mode) of 6hr. That is on par to my TC4400 with a single battery. Extra 8-cell battery only cost S$130+ from NUS too. So replacement costs are cheap.

Fujitsu T4220 has a max battery life on 5hr. That's bad. Extra 6-cell battery cost S$250-300 from NUS (discounted price already still so expensive!!!) Replacement cost for batteries is ridiculous. Not to mention that T4220 still suffer from heat management problems.

HP2170, I think has about 6hrs max battery life, unfortunately it is using a castrated ULV processor. Fucking HP dug their own graves... If they did not do ULV, I might purchase from then again.

So current generation aside Lenovo X61T is the winner.

Thus, the question now is should WL buy now or later (i.e. end of the year). So far there are only 3 options:
1) Buy from NUS direct
2) Buy from Lenovo SG direct and try to negotiate for lower price (i.e. student discount)
3) Buy from Lenovo US, which is already cheap

Buying from NUS direct is a problem, cause there is no guarantee that they will bring in the X61T. Oh ya, FUCK YOU NUS COMPUTER CENTER. Apparently, the great idiots there only know about the lousy Fujitsu.

Buying from Lenovo SG is going to be a long shot, as there is also no guarantee that it will work out, i.e. get discounted price.

Buying from Lenovo US is a possible option, but my efforts thus far has been plagued by warranty options. However, I believe that one may workaround it by contacting Lenovo US directly and making a custom order through email. I THINK. I dunno... trying that now to see how it goes.

As for the timing, I was thinking maybe WL should wait. Should I? The Montevina platform released this year isn't that impressive. In terms of CPU power, we're scomparing Peryn vs Merom. Supposedly the Peryn chip has a TDP of 29W, which is 6W lower than Merom's 35W TDP. This may translate to longer battery life... But seriously what is really important to WL?

In order of importance and with justifications, I would say that:

1) Battery Life. This has become the most critical aspect of the Tablet PC. No power = Junk = Useless. As simple as that. In normal NUS conditions, I expect the maximum stretch of lectures to be 8hrs straight. That means I need my Tablet to last 8hrs. Currently, my TC4400 with both batteries can last 12hr max or 9-10hr under normal mode (med brightness, Wi-Fi on). Sad sidenote: This is not the case now as my main battery has only about 70% capacity left due to aging, and the secondary battery is operating on 40-50% capacity thanks to NUS for short-circuiting the damn thing (or maybe the HP design of the secondary battery is just fucked up). So bottomline, one needs 12hr of max battery power and about 9-10hr of useable battery power. Only X61T with 2 8-cell battery can fulfill that condition. Arguably, the Fujitsu T4220 with 2 6-cell main batteries have a max battery life of 9-10hr... but under normal performance it's gotta be cutting it close. Bottomline: One needs 10hrs battery life min, with 12hrs+ recommended. This should be achieved by just using 2 batteries, which preferably should not be more than S$200 per battery.

2) CPU Power. CPU Power is second most important because of Microsoft lousy software design. CPU Power is needed to process MS OneNote and MS Journal, cause if you handle lots of ink at one go, CPU usage spikes. Now, we all know faster is better right? But WL will say he is happy (OMG did I say I am happy) with his current Yonah 2.0Ghz dual core. In fact, I guess 1.8GHz will do fine... but 1.6Ghz is a fuck no. Since Merom on the whole in terms of performance-per-clock is about 200Mhz faster, i.e. Merom 1.8Ghz = Yonah 2.0Ghz, I can live with a Merom 1.8Ghz CPU. Merom 1.6Ghz CPU if I really need too. However, more importantly Merom has 4MB L2 Cache, that is twice my Yonah's 2MB L2 Cache, which would make office applications execution smoother. Bottomline: Merom 1.6GHz CPU is the minimum, with 1.8+GHz CPU as recommended.

3) Screen. Probably the next most important aspect is the screen. Besides normal XGA resolution touchscreen, there is the high resolution SXGA screen and the multitouch XGA screen. WL would like a SXGA screen, cause it means he can see more on the screen, which is like having a larger table to work with to spread out all your documents. However, the counter-argument to that is that with WL's move to purchase an auxillary laptop, i.e. Eee PC or its equivalent, the screen real-estate argument may not be as solid as before. Cause, I can forsee myself using my Tablet and the Eee PC together, e.g. PDF textbook on my Eee PC, MS Journal on my Tablet PC. In fact, this configuration would be better, as it is more efficient and closer to the traditional "two-pieces-of-paper" format, in this case "two-pieces-of-screen" format. With regards to a multitouch screen, i.e. can use digitizer and/or finger to manipulate the desktop, it's also another controversy. In theory, if the palm rejection is good, i.e. when I write with my hands on the screen, the screen must not receive input from my hand, then I'm fine with multitouch. Another factor to consider is sometimes I use ruler to draw straight lines over the Tablet screen, and I have to know whether multitouch will have such "ruler rejection" too. So, this is homework for me. Bottomline: Since this is an upgrade, I will have a strong preference for Multitouch or High-Res Screen, which is only offered by Lenovo X61T. Of course, if the Multitouch palm rejection isn't good, I'll go for High-Res Screen then.

As for the other factors, it's not an issue. RAM is easily upgradeable. Wifi-N standard is still not finalized, and Wifi-G works fine for me. HDD should be 120GB, preferably 160GB.

And of course, warranty must be international (i.e. US and Singapore).

So after talking so much (Hey you still with me? No right...), we are back to the question:
When and Where should WL purchase his Tablet PC?

The logical choice would be to:
1) Wait till August 2008 and see what notebooks NUS are selling. Hope X61T (or its successor) will be sold.
2) If not, try to negotiate with the company direct, since NUS is so fucking inflexible and useless.
3) If unsuccessful, try to see if can purchase from US and import through VPost and hope the cost comes down to a reasonable amount.
4) If really cannot, FUCK LA NO CHOICE MUST TAKE FUJITSU!!!

But the bottomline I conclude is this, I don't really need to wait till Dec 2008 to place my US order. Unless there is going to be some revolution in the Tablet PC arena, which I strongly doubt... it doesn't make sense whether I'm using Santa Rosa or Montevina. Why?

What are changes from Santa Rosa to Montevina? Presumably faster Peryn over Merom... once again after a certain point CPU power is no longer that important anymore. Merom has easily achieved this point. Presumably Peryn has lower TDP than Merom... but the X61T currently already has "good enough" battery life. Other factors are not much of an issue. Solid State SSD are still pricey, and so are Hybrid HDD, and the Robson Cache thing hasn't worked since its launch, and it probably won't be working anytime soon.

The only possibility that WL anticipates that could warrant waiting for next generation product is a High-Res Multitouch Screen. Unfortunately, information on next generation products are non-existent as of now. In addition, after some reflection I think a LED-Backlit Screen may also be a huge improvement. Not only would it conserve power (LCD lighting sucks 40-50% of the power consumption in a laptop), it would also be brighter. This means that I can afford to turn up the brightness and yet maintain a good battery life. But then again, I would argue this is more of a luxury... but then isn't a high res or multitouch screen a luxury? Hahaha...

So the BIG CONCLUSION is that WL shall wait till Aug 2008.
However, if anytime before Aug 2008, WL can purchase the X61T at a reasonably cheap price with international warranty (heck care the source), I will do it. I'm placing my bet here that the next generation Tablets will not have High-Res Multitouch or LED-Backlit Screen. Quite a gamble eh? Even if they did so... I don't think it's that much of a loss since they're not essential/critical to me. Ok, I will probably bitch about it for mths to come if such a thing would to happen.