What are the practical advantages of having a convertible?

What are the practical advantages of having a convertible + wacom pen?

The main thing that crosses my mind is that I won't print as many documents- I will just save them into a folder on google drive and mark them up. Is this feature worth getting a convertible + wacom pen?

What are the practical advantages of having a convertible + wacom pen?

I'm an engineering student in college now and I want a touch screen computer or tablet because I find them fascinating but I am unsure in practice what my actual functional gain will be. Will I still end up printing everything out anyway? Will I still end up using paper notebooks for most classes or typing intstead of drawing my notes anyway?

What does it look like from the other side for you guys who have convertible with or without pens?

 

You can draw/write on the screen.
You can hold it in some different ways.



Yup, that's it; anything else you can do with a conventional laptop.

I've been buying convertible tablets for drawing since 2008, primarily as a cheaper alternative to buying both an ultraportable and something like a Cintiq. For this use, they have worked well.

As a college aid, they were not that helpful, or just not more so than conventional notebooks. The only paper I saved was what paper that would have otherwise been used as scratch paper for problem sets... I still had to print the deliverables because that's what the professors wanted. Classes that print handouts will still print handouts for everyone, even if you have a tablet. And I was still faster typing my notes than trying to write them on the screen.

And if you have a convertible without a proper digitizer... well I personally think all of those are just gimmicks.

 

As a student, I find using a convertible Wacom laptop to be extremely useful for taking notes in class, especially so in classes with plenty of graphs, mathematical notation, and other stuff you can't easily/quickly type. The biggest gain I'd say you'd get with one in college would be that you won't easily lose your notes while using it (all goes to the laptop's drive, and/or Cloud services) and that these notes are less prone to damage than paper notes (I've had more than a few occasions where my bookbag would get soaked and my paper notes would be barely readable for about half of the pages, whereas I've never had that sort of problem using a laptop).

Not sure what you're getting at with printing stuff out. If you mean assignments, I suppose so, though personally most of my assignments are digital (partly because of BlackBoard and course-specific web portals, and partly because I'm a CS major and pretty much all of our work is digital by nature). As for if you'd still use paper notebooks, I doubt it. It'd be much more convenient to use a laptop to store all your notes than to keep track of several different paper notebooks during the semesters (that was another problem I faced), and a Wacom laptop would make it even easier to keep all your notes in one place (unlike a regular laptop, where you'd probably have to pull out a sheet of paper to draw those diagrams and the like). Personally, once I purchased my X61t, I haven't used a paper notebook since, except for my last math class because I'm sometimes easily distracted by the Internet and I can't afford to do that in a math class, so I forced myself to bear with a paper notebook one more time.

I agree with Commander Wolf on convertible, non-stylus laptops though; those are nothing more than a gimmick imo (as well as clamshell touchscreen laptops).

 

The main computer I use for school stuff is a convertible ( a 5 year old T5010). I find it very useful especially since I can copy and paste diagrams and modify them as the instructor goes over different scenarios. I also find it useful since I can have years of notes with me at all times and I can print them out if I want or just send the files to other people if they want a copy of my notes. Having a choice of a lot of colors and styles also making taking notes on a tablet PC convertible more fun as well.

 

What's the cheapest 12"+ convertible with a proper stylus?

 

Probably something like a X61t. Though if you're looking for something newer, you could try either the X220t or X230t.

 

Thanks.

Any chance I can get something high-res? 768p on the ThinkPad defeats the purpose of having a relatively big screen.

 

Just get a well-kept, pre-owned machine.

Both X60 and X61 tablets were available with SXGA+ (1400x1050) AFFS LCDs, which were pen-only.

They are not light - especially with an extended battery - but the screen real estate alone is worth it in my book.

 

They're not even that heavy really. Would I want to one-hand it like a pure tablet? Probably not, but they're comfortable enough to hold on your lap or on a hard surface.

 

Good input guys...I have always teetered on the idea of a convertible. Those Thinkpads were so tempting. Fast forward a few years and with so many tablets, I just can't commit.

 

Anything over 1.3Kg I doubt anyone will actually use it as a tablet. The X's are pretty useless in that regard IMO - just too bulky and unwieldy. As much as I relied on the X's myself because there were no better options, I couldn't imagine using one (or even the Thinkpad Yoga, which is basically an update of the X with only a slight weight reduction) now.

I have to say I quite like the Duo despite the numerous compromises involved. I haven't felt the burning need to replace it with something else, which people who know my posting history will realise is actually saying quite a lot. I've been carrying the Surface around a lot because I wanted to be fully familiar with it, but now the honeymoon period is over I'm finding I alternate between the Tablet2 and the Duo, and rarely pick up the MS machine - if the SP2 was 600-700g as opposed to 900g, I'd find more of a niche for it and the Tablet2 would be bumped for sure, but not as it stands - for just under 200g more than a Cover'd SP2, I get a much more solid machine in the form of the Duo.

To me the practical advantage is the flexibility the form factor and the pen input affords, which is obviously quite obvious. What may not be obvious is that in a well realised convertible, you end up using touch and pen a lot more than you think you would.

 

I use my T5010 as a tablet all the time. The huge screen is amazing. I wanted a bigger tablet PC but the only ones I can find are the Sony Flip 15 and an Acer (I forgot the model) which aren't as well built as my Fujitsu.