Tuesday 16 September 2008

Review: Compaq tc4400

I have just recently had the good fortune to get one of these delightful little items. I've always thought that perhaps the tablet pc was really over-rated. After playing with one for a while, however, though I find it to be a wonderful tool. The system is superb. I'll break it down into several areas.

Firstly, the keyboard - although a tablet is special for it's touch screen,  I have to mention the excellent keyboard this device has. It's very nice to type on - wonderful tactile keys and a great layout as usual. For extended typing it has been very pleasant and easy to use.

The construction of the notebook is sturdy and feels great in your hands. It's a nice weight and has a good sized monitor running in 1024x768 that swivels with the monitor as you turn it one to use it as a tablet.The pen is neatly hidden and has an easy release that is quite solid. Writing on the screen is very easy and this is probably the biggest surprise. It's a simple matter to write things in and have the hand writing analysis translate it to something readable.  Even with my surprisingly bad handwriting it makes sense of it probably 90% of the time. I've written this entire blog post on it and I've only had to correct a few small errors.

Under the hood, the system has an Intel Core 2 processor running at 2 GHz, with a 12o GB disk. An external DVDRW completes it and I've averaged 4.5 of battery life so far. I haven't used it to watch DVDs or the like so no idea on how long it would last doing that. It is an excellent tool and one I look forward to using in the future.

The biggest con for this device is the price tag - orginally priced at $3699 or thereabouts I would never have considered getting one. Finding them brand new on GraysOnline for $899 though - that's a price I was willing to pay. Be smart about buying your new toys and you can save a lot of money indeed.

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