So, today was the first day I’ve had with my brand-new Acer TabletPC (specifically a TravelMate C303XMi) and it’s great. I’m really looking forward to seeing what all I can actually do with this puppy. Just for starters, here are the main specs for the unit:

  • 14.1″ XGA screen (convertible format)
  • 1.7GHz Dothan Pentium-M (meaning 2MB Cache!)
  • Wireless 802.11b/g & Bluetooth & Gigabit Lan & 56K Modem
  • SmartCard reader
  • 4-in-1 Memory Card Reader
  • DVD+-RW Drive (8x speed range…don’t remember exactly)
  • 1GB DDR Ram
  • 80GB HDD (not sure about RPM on that one)
  • WindowsXP TabletPC Edition 2005
  • 4-5 Hour battery life (I’ve tested it – it and I can actually get around 4 – 4.5 hours so far on a single charge)

I plan to write up a full review here by the end of the month when I’ve had more time to learn about my tablet and to get used to using it everyday.

Tablet PC Advice – What do you like?

I’m considering buying a Tablet PC to use in my MBA classes.  I find that I’m carrying a leather legal pad / folder thing around with me everywhere, and I wish I could just carry a tablet instead because it would make taking notes so much easier…plus, I bought a laptop last semester because it was on sale and I needed one at the time knowing that it might not be good enough for what I wanted to do…well, turns out it really isn’t all that great.  It overheats quite bad (it’s an HP…apparently these just do that…moreso than other laptops at least), it’s pretty slow (Athlon Mobile proc…slower than my desktop that is 5 years old now when I run the laptop off battery power…and it’s set on maximum speed).  Anyway, I know several people here use Tablet PCs, so what do you guys (and gals) like?  I am looking for something with a fairly long battery life and it needs to be convertable so I can use a keyboard when coding.  I don’t care about a DVD burner, top of the line graphics, etc, but I need it to be fast and to last for at least the next two years without having to do many upgrades.

Space…here we come!

Well, SpaceShipOne made it back to Earth now… If you don’t know what SpaceShipOne is, it is a privately build spaceship and it launched this morning, hit an altitude of 100km (the edge of space), and then came back down.  This whole thing is being done in competition for the X-Prize.  Looks like SpaceShipOne’s team will be the winners…they just have to relaunch and land safely again within 2 weeks of today and then they will have $10 Million more to play with. 🙂

More info on SpaceShipOne’s launch is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5261571/?GT1=3584

And more info on the X-Prize is here: http://www.xprize.org/ (NOTE: This link seems a bit slow…probably since the majority of the world is not realizing there was such a thing as the X-Prize and want to check it out.)

UPDATE: As Alfred pointed out, this was not an official attempt at the X-Prize.  They weren’t trying for the prize, only for space…once they try, they will also have to have the weight of two passengers on board (either as real people OR equivalent weight of two average people).  Still interesting to see and they are still as close as anyone has come towards the X-Prize in any event.