Acer Aspire 1810 Tablets Thread

The HP TM2 looks way much better than Acer, both looks and specs...now let us see when it will really hit the shelves (in Europe).

Anyone with past experience and knowledge of HP releases?

If it is really out the 17th, then I guess Acer will not sell many 1820's, even though it is 200$ cheaper. I am sure their plan was to use the window from the launch of Win 7 until CES to become a leader in this still small segment....but they were delayed...

 

This bad boy is hot stuff.

 

@Synergi
Concerning "Wacom or n-trig" : Someone said he "identified" an eraser on the pen of the HP Touchsmart TM2. I dont know if its really a distinctive feature for Wacom - maybe someone of you knows more ?

Till yesterday I was sure to buy the 1820 PTZ, which I followed for months, by this morning I´m somewhat sold to HP´s TM2. It sounds awesome.

BTW: My first post - hello everyone !

 

Welcome to the forums Pütz!
That's a good catch. I'm fighting flu and missing things it seem. Anyway, the Fujitsu T4410/T4310 have wacom pens with erasers. HP's last Tx2 Tablet had scratch off but I don't think it had a eraser function. Maybe someone can correct me on this. I owned it a few days and couldn't dump it fast enough, but I don't believe it had an eraser on it.

What I did catch, is on one of the netbooks HP is making a touch screen available as an option. The guy on the video said it uses Wacom but I'm not sure what you'd need a Wacom for in a non tablet form factor. I guess we'll learn soon enough.

I'm still giving Steve a chance to WOW me first. I just don't think he can get me excited over a slate. I want a keyboard.

 

CES rly does change everything, just a few more hours and the second day starts.

 

Here is another hands on HPs TM2

Unfortunately the tester does not use the pen, nor does he say anything about the brightness or viewing angle of the display.

 

Nice one , but he did confirm the weight, 4.7 pounds aka 2.13kg. The Acer does take the place here , but brushed alluminum, streamlined look, antec lansing speakers, no way in hell a I can say no to that unless the battery is completly rubish compared to the 9 hours advertized.

Still I feel bad for Acer, since they set up their sight to overtake hp as the no.1 manufacturer of 2010, and now HP comes with an atomic bomb. And to put salt on the wound , we might just be able to buy the tm2 long before the acer tablet.

 

I'm going to wait and see what else is offered. HP looks great until he said 4.7 pounds.It needs to be at least another pound lighter for me. It might be lighter then the old HP but not by that much. The spec's on it is kicking, and the price is just right.

I'm going to check out Lenovo's netbook also with capactive touch screen but I have a feeling I may not be happy with touch on a netbook. We'll see. I wish someone would just put one out with Ion and I think it could work.

 

I tend to agree on the weight issue. Imo if it's lighter than the tx2 I can handle it but I don't want to continue favoring this tablet in fear of being more of a hipocryte than I alrdy am.

Anyway it's CES, Who knows. Maybe tomorrow if the hp ms courier turns out to be true some of us might completly ditch the Idea of a convertible tablet.
Edit: speak of the devil http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/lenovo-ideapad-s10-3-and-s10-3t-hands-on/
Edit2: Sry about it not having a pen. I doubt they would put one at that price with a capacitive touchscreen.

 

Urgh! What is it about companies coming so close only to make one dumb mistake that ends up making it a deal breaker. When this model doesn't sell they will say it was because it cost to much and no one want to spend that on a netbook. I mean seriously it wouldn't have killed them to make the stylus an add on option.

HP, almost perfect but I think my TX2 weigh like 4.8 pounds. They didn't trim much as far as weight went and that TX2 was to heavy to use it comfortably on your arm. At least it was for me. (Not that I could, it was so hot it would roast my arm) They took out the optical drive. Why is it so hard for them to put this laptop on a diet and drop a pound off of it. shesh.

 

Well about the 4.7 pound thing, Judging by the videos/pictures it doesn't look that heavy, I'm pretty certain they got the weight wrong. I mean grabing it in one hand to show it to the camera is somewhat hard with the tx2,but in the pictures holding the tm2 didn't look like the hands were tensed to much( just me trusting my gut )
As for the lenovo, in my case I was expecting it, since they said capacitive, last time I checked if you want a stylus for capacitive you have only wacom and n-trig and neither of them are mass producing digitizers for 10.1 screens.

Edit: And the hinge seems damn strong( tm2), I mean in the first engadget video at the end she lifts it up only by the screen.

 

I'm hoping you're right on the weight. If its right at 4 or less that would put it back to being the ONLY contender at this point.

The model Lenovo should have turned into a tablet is their 12'' netbook with Ion. But someone pointed out that won't happen because they don't want to cut into their business tablet profits. A business tablet you still can't order with enhanched muli-touch. The screens have been on back order for 3 months now. Urgh!

I'm hoping company steps up soon with a surprise I wasn't expecting. Fujitsu has been quiet, hopefully they'll come out with a new tablet at the show.

 

You guy's have seriously misguided yourselves when it comes to tablets and CES. Yes tablets were predicted to be a huge trend and they are, but for entertainment, not inking. The Lenovos (one convertible, one detachable slate) are capacitive, which means no stylus. Even as popular as the iPhone is, there still isn't a sufficient stylus solution for it.

The TM2 is the only consumer inking tablet to be announced for the near future. Even the 1820p is obviously an entertainment tablet with inking as a gimmick feature (slow software palm rejection with a stick stylus).

Also how can you expect the TM2 to not be heavy, it's the same screen size as the tx2 and is made of metal. Just be happy they dropped AMD like a hot potato and went for a CULV. And don't get overexcited about dedicated ATI graphics, I'd bet that the 9 hours battery life and $949 price is for integrated Intel 4500MHD. But hey, with a coupon the tablet could end up in the 800s!

 

Either that or the market has misjudged how we would like to use touch. Sure I want to flick a magazine page, but I'd also like to make notes in a book. I think touch will be big. I think these slates will only be big if Apple does one heck of a marketing job to win people over. Some of the biggest complaints on CES is, I need a keyboard, or whats the point of a tablet without a pen? If they are going to charge 500 for a slate, I'd rather have a netbook. I can do more with it. I think they are misjudging what a lot of us are waiting for. I don't need a single divice to flip through web pages. I still need the full functionality of my laptop to flip through a magazine and take notes if I want.

For the record. The Lenovo x200t weighs 3.69 and is magnesium alloy. Its a 12.1 tablet with 9 hours of battery. I still don't see why HP (if what they say is true) still weighs almost 5 pounds.

But that's just my take on it.

 

I completely agree with you on a lot of your points. A slate is less functional than a netbook and I'm extremely surprised that the slate is being pushed so hard. BUT, from the comments on the TM2, I see lots of people saying the keyboard should be dropped and the price is way too high. This just shows me consumers actually just want a slate for entertainment or they have no idea how complicated inking technology is and think that touchscreen=writable screen.

The x200t is not made of magnesium alloy. It has a magnesium alloy top (LCD back) and a magnesium bottom, the rest is a light carbon fiber.

The TM2 is probably completely aluminum cerca HP Envies and MacBook Pros, which are heavy already without having the parts needed for a touch and pen enabled screen, which is what is adding to the TM2's bulk.

Edit: Just saw HP's 'Bump It' software, looks absolutely silly and unresponsive. This is why I fear Apple is going to invent the tablet on Jan 26. Everyone has been making tablets the better part of a decade and yet their software bundle is mediocre at best. They are just twiddling their thumbs while Apple will truly integrate software with the touchscreen interface like they did with the iPhone/iPod Touch

 

Let's try to classify tablets a bit

No. 1 inkers means active digitizer
No. 2 inkers means ressistive with pressure making it feasible.

notebook convertibles:A. capacitive touch with active digitizer ( No. 1 inkers)
B. resistive touch but with multi and pressure sensitivity( No 2 inkers)
C. resistive single touch no pressure( only old convertibles are like this)

netbook convertibles, aka netvertibles: D. Resistive multitouch pressure( Asus T91tm) (No. 2 Inkers)
E. resistive monotouch no pressure( gigabyte t1028+ Viliv s7+All the konjinsha ones)

slate: ex-notebook slates Wacom pen slates( fujitsuu stylistic etc)(No 1 inkers)
atom slates( to many to name)
ARM slates( tegra, snapdragon etc)

The most Awesome thing would be an ARM slate with a wacom digitizer +10hrs life

And just for kicks: Once notebook convertibles 15 inches and up show up let's call em slabs. Bad pun aside, huge convertibles are every multimedia artist's dream.

 

I am afraid that is probably true - Apple will probably re-invent the "tablet" or "slate". The minus is that I am sure hardware wise there will be something important missing (like in the original iPhone lousy camera, no 3G,...), and the same goes for the software (like copy-paste, multitask, bluetooth file transfers...) - and probably they try to find a way that you can only use iTunes and alike:-S
But they will probably again aim at UI, responsive and well integrated.

Like the iPhone, this will not be a great innovative step, it will be just making basic things right, something that no one else seems to focus on. Though the market here is a little more mature (when the iPhone came out, there were only a few almost unusable touch screen phones.)

 

Personally, I want a tablet mostly for multimedia and entertainment. BUT, I would still like to have the possibility to take notes, whenever necessary. (it means that inking and keyboard are a absolute must)

The same goes for HDMI, I will not used it all the time, BUT I would like to have the possibility to easily connect the tablet to any LCD TV and watch a movie, for example.

I suppose most consumers looking for a tablet like me, for private use, within this price range, have similar expectations.

 

Dam, I'm afraid you could be correct. We let ourselves hype each other up only to be let down on something that never existed

I just asked JKKmobile about tablet/inking on twitter who is at CES and he tweeted this:

"Hope for inking.. not really.. most are going with capacitive touch which is not good for ink.. no active diis on any.."

Where do we students go from here? The applet tablet will be a great large iPod touch that I will love to have but useless for note taking.

Back to waiting...actually I don't know what the hell to wait for anymore

I've lost almost all hope.

 

Acer 1820PT or HP TM2...

 

The german onlineshop that set the 7th of January as shipping date for the 1820 ptz just delayed it another time. Now its "probably next week".
That (normally more reliable) shop anounced last year to be one of the first to have the convertible in stock as they are an official Acer partner or something like that.

 

If you need the consumer related features, then the TM2 is really the only good new inking solution. The Fujitsu t4310/t4410 already has the same features, albeit with lower battery life (need the additional modular battery to reach the 8 hour mark), restricted to Intel graphics and costs $1100 for a touch enabled screen (I can't figure out how to customize it on Fujitsu's website though). I would gladly take either but my budget isn't quite high enough for the Fujitsu and the TM2 is too heavy.

I would not bank anything on the 1820p unless you have the lightest of inking needs.

There is a sufficient inking netvertible already out but it is a Type C according to sharaktengu. The Intel classmate has perfect palm rejection with good ink flow, but it is a single touch resistive netbook (no HDMI and slow as any other netbook). Unfortunately it has a small 8.9" screen and the keyboard from the 7" EeePC. There is suppose to be a 10" version coming out sometime. I've heard this from article comments and from a M&A salesman (a distributor of the Intel Classmate).

So this is what I'm waiting for, a 10" netvertible presumptuously with an Atom N450 delivering 8+ hours of battery life using the proven touchscreen from the last Intel Classmate.

 

Now I'm confused. I always heard Capacitive was better for inking? Resistive doesn't have palm rejection or may that is built into a active digitizer? I thought this is why people were going with HP/TX2, XT2, Fujitusu etc..

 

My thoughts as a student on this whole predicament:

First I'll point out that the tm2 and the 1820p are the only viable solutions atm for me as a student. Their prices compaired to yesteryear's tablet domain are humane, but for the following requirements much better could be done.

Student requirements: First the necessary ones.
_Long battery life 8 hrs+ (typical day of classes without breaks). No1 wants to lug a charger around
_Some form to enable inking:Be it capacitve with an active digitizer like the tm2( which means no need for palm rejection) , or a resistive passive digitizer( that has great palm rejection); like aznguyphan pointed out the palm rejection software in the 1820p in not rly perfect but for sketching graphs and everything it's good to go, however since it's software it can be updated , wheter from acer or enthusiasts like us.
_a notetaking program like onenote or evernote. The later works on linux making windows irrelevant if the tablet is a secondary pc.
The not so necessary ones but nice to have never the least:
_pressure sensitivity, it gives a whole new level to the realism of your inking, all active digitizers have it, and the 1820p altough resistive has it aswell. + it means you can have fun with art in programs like photoshop.
_ hdmi and 1080p playback
_multitouch , altough it's still gimmicky it does have it's restricted uses.
( Gaming performance it still far off from being integrated into any tablet form factor, so for us starcraft 2 waiters a low cost desktop solution is best, for other games consoles do the job)

Now let's talk about how to get the minimum price with all these requirements.
The tm2 should be the upper limit since it has the best of everything I mentioned. Next runner up at a lower price is the 1820p coming a bit short on the inking experience but delivering on everything else.
Now to go lower down the price range unfortunately there are currently no viable options but i'll explain what is needed.
Atom or Arm(Tegra2 would be the best) slates. Atom should only be for those that must have windows since they have to sacrifice on thing like video playback performance. A tegra2 slate with some form of linux is ideal. Why:
_why a slate and not a convertible is because slates are cheaper to build and portable bluetooth/wireless keyboard have been around for ever.
_highest possible battery life, with the same battery as the 1820 they should have a runtime of 20+ hrs, 10+ of 1080p playback is humongous.
_An active digitizer is prolly not gonna be included in an arm based pc since most manufacturers want to be competitive against other (non existing) arm slates.But have no fear Stantum technologies is here( google them or look back on my posts, they have a cheap resistive mutlitouch screen that rivals active digitizers)
_Windows is not required because as a secondary pc these slates should be priced below 350$, ideally under 200$ but since they are a not yet existing market they will probably be closer to the former.

I was really hoping for CES to show me some of these elusive tegra slates but I'm not seeing them.
Apple for all I care can make or break the tablet but at their price premium I can't help but scratch them of my list. Indeed they could very well make something near to what I just mentioned , but it's so hyped up by the internet that I have a bad premonition about it. However I SO wish for it to be the perfect tablet regardless of price , because it's gonna be an automatic success eitherway and so other manufacterers will follow the rainbow leading to the pot of gold.

Why such a tablet has not existed up till now. The people that need it more than all the others are students. And all manufacturers know that students are poor => they invest in only proven markets regardless of how cripled the product line is( netbooks where great at start , but this pinetrail is not gonna stand against arm slates if they come into fruition, hey maybe that's the reason the are NO good arm slates) and they leave the fate of us stundents in the hands of high brand name holders like Apple.
I apologize if this seemed boring for most of you that alrdy know everything I just spouted, but I just can't help that some Good Hearted manufacturer reads this post and decides to create this risky unicorn tablet.

 

Capacitive has nothing to do with inking it's only touch. A capactive screen if it is to have inking it can only opt for an Active digitzer( Think of the usb pen tablets from wacom like the bamboo ,I'm not sure what type of wireless transmision the technology is based on but it has two parts)

First is someting that detects position that can be put under the touchscreen overlay( all old tablets, this added greatly to weight , thickness and power consumption) or in the screen( n-trig duo sense) and the second one is the stylus that wirelessly transmits when it touches the surface and with how much pressure( hence pressure sensitivity's birth, but now ressistive also has it)

For example the Hp 2730p or was it 2710p , doesn't even have a touch screen , only a wacom based active digitizer since it is like 90% of existing tablets business orientated.

An active digitizer doesn't need palm rejection because when the pen comes in proximity of the screen it turns off the touchscreen if there is one, regardless if it's multi/nonmultitouch, capacitive/resistive.

 

You are confusing a Capacitive Screen with an Active Digitizer.

A capacitive touch screen is what's in iPhones and is basically what is in every laptop touchpad. To record movement, capacitive devices use the conductivity of the human touch to detect when the user is touching the device. This means you need your bare touch for it work; gloves and stylusses do not work.

A resistive touch screen (the direct opposite of a capacitive one), is based off of pressure. No matter how light, you still need to push down on the screen for it to get a signal. This is what is in most touch screen devices because it is much cheaper. It allows for stylus input but it also cannot discriminate between a palm and a stylus (or any other object for that matter). That's why their needs to be software to reject the palm resting on the screen (Acer 1820p/Asus t91MT).

An active digitizer is the best solution for inking because it only accepts the tip of its specially designed pen like a capacitive screen only accepts human touch. Like sharaktengu said, screens with both an active digitizer and a touchscreen (resistive or capacitive) disable the touchscreen when the pen is within close proximity to the screen so that your palm does not interfere with your inking.

 

cancelled my 1820pt pre-order (availability was pushed 6 weeks anyways), awaiting tm2 tablet - loving the design

 

Don't hold your breath but here come the tegra slates

live coverage

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/live-from-nvidias-ces-press-event/?sort=newest&refresh=60

 

It is hard not to agree with these points. Although, evernote doesn't hold a candle to OneNote.

These are a bit of a stretch. Pressure sensitivity only comes in handy currently for art students.
Gaming performance isn't a priority when the vast majority of students play flash games.
Multitouch is viable, but must be expanded through software development, not hardware.
HDMI and 1080p...... would be nice, but I'd ditch it in favor of weight savings.

I see plenty of students running around with 2K+ MacBook Pros, $30K+ cars, living in $800 a month housing wearing $400 coats. I don't think price is as big of a factor as people make it out to be.

A slate only form factor is garbage. People type faster than they write. A convertible is far more practical, productivity and engineering wise. Plus they allow for more cooling, which has been a large engineering hurdle in convertible tablets.

I'd take an active digitizer over multitouch anyday. Multitouch will never be the center piece of notetaking.

Again, below $1K price isn't as big of a factor as people make it out to be. Marketing and productivity is king. Look at the incredible popularity of the Mac's ease of use.

Probably the best form factor I've used is the Dell XT2. Light, thin, optional battery slice, active digitizer, multi touch. The current drivers do leave some to be desired. Plus it is now the only mainstream convertible with a scroll wheel, which is immensely useful (I can't believe Lenovo got rid of the NavDial in the X200T).

All my gripes about the current tabletPCs aren't hardware related. They are all software. Few applications are written to be tabletPC aware. Skinny scrollbars (which is why the scrollwheel is so convenient), icons along the bezel (near the bezel is where digitizers are the most inaccurate), and crappy pen button support (scroll lock would be handy if you could activate it from the pen) are just some of my gripes from using a tablet for many years.

But you are on the right track though. Software development for the tablet won't accelerate unless the form factor becomes more popular.

 

Anybody track down either screen res or processor spec on the TM2 yet?

Also, do we have any insiders @ CES to do an inking demo on this thing?

 

Su4100/SU7300, 1366x768.

 

So exactly the same as the 1820 then...Perfect!

 

Gottabemobile.com reports its a Wacom digitizer so I expect inking to be great.

 

I'm sold. I doubt some other tablet could top the tm2 till 17january.

 

Xavier Lanier from the same site says its using the new Wacom hybrid touch/pen digitizer per other tablet forum.

Could someone bring some clarity to what this means? I thought anything capacitive is no good for inking. I'm clearly lost on this one.

 

I've never heard of that....

 

Please read my posts and aznguyphan's posts on the previous page.

Capacitive and inking are two different things , non related , you can have one without the other , or together. This hybrid thing means that instead of having two seperate parts ( the capacitive touchscreen + digitizer) wacom made it into a single part. On old tablets the digitizer used to go under the screen, n-trig changed that with duo sense and this is wacom's response.

 

Neither had I, I read it from a reply of Jkkmobile on one of his tweets in my asking him if there were any inking tablets at the CES. He basically said no "Hope for inking.. not really.. most are going with capacitive touch which is not good for ink.. no active diis on any".

I then twetted him again based on reading Gottabemobile.com and he tweeted "yep, that TM2 is good for inking"

Thanx for the explanation.

 

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I like the catchy music.

same youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtV9ChCDo7c

 

Well, Wacom has traditionally had a very good inking experience. I don't expect the tm2 to be any different, hearing that it is a Wacom.

 

Could the tm2 be compatible with an Intel X25-M G2 SSD?

 

I don't find that unlikely.

 

I don't see why not, ( I'm thinking of doing the same thing )
Only problem would be a dreaded warranty sticker over the hdd compartment.

 

Well, the good news is practically every HP laptop I've seen allows for the user to replace parts, just like Dell.

 

From cnet I read this on the tm2: "In our anecdotal hands-on use, the tm2 screen was not as fast and responsive as, say, an iPhone or iPod Touch screen, and the cursor dragged just slightly behind our fingers"

After seeing the videos from CES it showed just that. So initially I was turned off by it and shot it down even before reading that mini-review.

Then it was revealed to me to it's good for inking.

Could the negative comments above be software related or strictly hardware and its just something one has learn to live with?

Also, could inking have similar lagging issues? If yes then it would not be ideal for note taking.

Or are are we on a wait and see game like we were before on the 1820p, until Denosha got his hands on one and tried inking for us?

 

Ok that lag is well under noticeable and it's caused by windows, even when you use a trackpad the same lag applies but since you don't have the cursor next to your finger you don't notice it. And just so you know , it's prolly the best touchscreen experience on a tablet up till now, check the review videos on the tx2 on youtube from before windows 7 and you will see.

Second. Unless you're crazy and want to ink with your fingers and not the pen, touch lag has nothing to do with the pen. Pen will always be more precise, and since it's the new one from wacom I expect great things.But just so you know , even pen's used to have lag in photoshop or other programs, but that's just because of the application code not the hardware.

I tested one of the new fujitsuu tablets with the slightly older wacom digitizer, and multitouch completly sucked on that one in windows but in the crapware applications it was fine. This TM2 however according to the videos is by faaaaaaaaaaaar the best thing I've ever seen.

 

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As opposed to the cursor on the iPhone which follows your finger perfectly? Oh wait there is no cursor on the iPhone. Kind of ridiculous to make that a point of comparison. The tm2 would be just as responsive if it were just running a lightweight touch-friendly OS too.

 

Hopefully its not a heat issue that makes it lag. That was a huge problem with the HP TX2.

 

Hell will freeze over before a culv notebook has heating issues.

Don't get me wrong. But those issues were cause by the amd proccessor and the cooler not keeping up with it. For a culv notebook to have heating issues it would mean that the cooler is not moving at all for some reason.