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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"A great value on a versitle machine"
Pros: very nice wide screen, large hard drive, DVD-RW, sturdy hardware
Cons: very hot when used in the lap, hard drive access is very slow for large files, not enough buttons availible in tablet mode
Summary: This Convertable Tablet PC is great for occasional tablet use. Because of its size and weight, I'm sure there are better options out there for hard-core tablet users. What I do enjoy is having the option of the tablet when I'm working in Photoshop (it's not pressure sensivtive though) or taking notes with the included Microsoft OneNote. There's a major "wow" factor when you swing the screen around to show someone something or begin writing on screen.
The hardware is pretty solid with a brushed aluminum surface on the lid. The hinge feels solid and the latch works well, but is difficult to open single handedly.
The screen surface is decent for writing as long as you don't mind having fingerprints. In most lighting situations the screen is pretty bright. I like the button for switching screen orientations, but I've rarely (if ever) used the portrait orientation unless I'm using the doodle program. Movies look great on the large wide screen as well.
The built in speakers are decent, but distort at high-volume. They really won't be loud enough for watching movies in anything but silence. They do pretty well for listening in an office though.
The shape of the battery is great as a grip and offers a tilt to the keyboard, but it makes finding a laptop bag a little bit of a pain because of the unusual 'depth' of the unit.
The handrest is spacious - I even put post-it notes there without interfearing with anything.
I've only had ONE major problem since buying this machine a few months ago... the unit does NOT ship with a complete restore DVD, instead you have a partial CD that relies on data stored on a partitian of the hard drive. Well my unit shipped with one of the two RAM chips being faulty. This currupted much of data that ran through it and as a result the system crashed and needed to be restored. But because the partition became corrupt as well, I was stranded without a means of restoring the system after the replacement RAM arrived. Tech support then informed me that I should ahve made a restore DVD using the software that resides on the system. This is only MENTIONED in the manual, but there's no indication that the disc you have was made incomplete.
Tech support mailed me a complete restore dvd after this incident. So from crash to restore, I was wihtout my system for A WEEK which is alot when ALL your work is done on the computer.
I'm going to upgrade the hard drive to a 7200 rpm drive. Installing programs and other hard drive intensive tasks run twice as fast with a faster drive.
The memory (RAM) is great, but I have to completely replace the ram to upgrade (since they shiped with two 512 chips rather than a single 1gb chip)
I paid about $1029.00 from Best Buy during their back-to-school sales.
Overall I'm very happy with my purchace. I think I could learn a bit more about making it more useful as a Tablet.
