Thanks to a writing project I’ve been working on, I had the opportunity to spend a week with a Tablet PC. Prior to this week, I had never used a Tablet PC, so I can’t compare the previous version of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to the current Tablet PC Edition 2005 included in SP2. What I can say is the recognition feature in the latest version is up to the task of even the worst handwriting.
My handwriting was never great in the first place. Years spent typing, with handwriting limited to signing my name and scribbling the occasional payee line on a check, have not improved my writing skills. Somehow that doesn’t matter to the software. My worst scrawls get recognized; the exception being the day I got the Tablet and was paranoid I was pushing too hard on the screen, which resulted in over-compensation and writing too lightly.
Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and the free-form note taking tool OneNote all support handwriting exceptionally well. OneNote completely amazes me with its ability to accept handwriting as the input, and then later find words stored in my handwriting using a search tool. There are times when I can’t even do that.
OneNote goes beyond the notes to include support for pasting images in to the file (similar to Words insert picture) and there’s an audio recording tool which captures any audio perceptible to the onboard microphone and synchronizes it to the text being written at the time the audio was recorded. As an audio geek, I could see this feature being useful for music critics at concerts; take a Tablet PC, record the audio with the Tablet and make notes throughout the performance. The set list is all right there on the Tablet PC’s hard drive.
Before you get the idea that this is one big commercial for Tablet PCs, even with the cool features, I don’t think I will ever be a full time Tablet PC user. I found myself flipping the screen to access the keyboard quite frequently, because I could. I’m at a point where I don’t think I could ever go back to writing things by hand instead of typing. For me, it’s just not efficient. I found myself seeking out keyboard shortcuts that just weren’t there when I was using the pen. On the other hand, I can see huge potential advantages for people who do prefer handwriting or never learned to type.
If you are in the market for a new portable computer, try a Tablet out during your shopping process. Any number of Tablet PC evangelists talk about how great the pen on screen interface is, but until I actually tried it, I had no idea. I’m certainly not an evangelist; I’m openly admitting that I’m not planning on owning a Tablet. I do think if Microsoft started a show-and-tell program where they dropped off a few loaner units to businesses and colleges, these things could quickly replace laptops in certain segments of the PC market, because the handwriting tools do work incredibly well.
Tablet PC XP includes everything Windows XP is normally capable of and extends the feature set to include a ton of extra features. I’ve barely touched on the capabilities of the platform. Microsoft has as many Tablet PC specific PowerToys as it does for the core Windows XP platform (possibly more). Don’t take my word for it, seek out a Tablet PC at the local computer store and give it a test drive, if only because it’s fun.
