HardwareCentral - Gateway Tablet PC Review

Gateway Tablet PC Review

The Tablet PC Experience

January 30, 2003
By Eric Grevstad

The Tablet PC Experience

Let's interrupt this mixed review for an unqualified rave: You've probably used pen-stylus PDAs or maybe even earlier touch-screen PCs, but the Tablet PC's accuracy and convenience is leagues ahead of those devices. The secret is the active digitizer that responds only to the special pen (even if the latter is hovering just above instead of actually touching the screen), leaving you free to rest or drag your hand across the screen without messing things up.

It's not perfect -- the pen's "ink" invariably seems to appear just a millimeter or two away from where you think you're pointing, even after you use the provided, four-tap calibration utility a couple of times -- but it's a far more natural, comfortable way of writing or drawing, and one you can adjust to quickly (even though Gateway's pen, unlike some Tablet PCs', doesn't have an "eraser" on the blunt end).

For instance, it takes hardly a minute to get used to the Tablet PC pen as a substitute for a mouse -- tap to click, double-tap to double-click. You can right-click by tapping while pressing a rather flimsy button on the pen barrel, or (our usual choice) by pressing and holding the pen down for a few seconds. We initially turned off the Start menu's "Open submenus when I hover over them" option, since unwanted menus were popping up like dandelions, but later learned to master even that function.

The M1200 complements the pen with six buttons to the right of the screen, below the pen-holder slot and above the rather small and stiff-sliding power switch, that let you control the M1200 when there's no dock or keyboard in sight. One duplicates a PC keyboard's Esc key; another the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence to log off or check Windows' Task Manager. A four-way compass or rocker switch serves for cursor control, with a straight inward push equaling the Enter key.

Another button is a Fn key that can be used in combination with the remaining two, programmable buttons to launch applications or perform various functions. By default, one of the latter two switches the LCD between portrait and landscape modes, while the other launches Motion Computing's Dashboard utility -- a handy mini-control panel that lets you toggle wireless networking and adjust power-saving options, screen brightness, and speaker volume, as well as several program-launching or keystroke-combination shortcuts.

For entering text without a keyboard, you turn to the Tablet PC Input Panel, which lets you tap letters one at a time on an onscreen keyboard or write naturally in a one- or two-line handwriting recognition area; when you pause (or tap a "Send" button), the OS translates your writing to text in your word processor, e-mail client, or other active application. (Alternative settings let you write in a large, floating text box if you find the default input area too small, or try a Pocket PC- or Palm Graffiti-like simplified character set.)