I finally bought an Android tablet. Given my twenty year history of liking thinkpads, I snapped up a reasonably priced one on eBay….. Lenovo’s tech support is so bad that I don’t buy new, full price anymore.
As a wiki developer I’m fascinated by the incredibly strong pull of computing device makers towards content consumption oriented devices.
this tablet is no different.. it has the potential to be a pen and paper replacement – sporting a pen, but the hardware fails in some subtle ways, and the software reinforces the read only aspect thouroughly.
hardware wise, the pen is stored on the left side, presumably to give the primary top corner to the webcam. thus making the right handed user reluctant to get it out (I hope this is and advantage for left handers)
I’ve also found myself using the tablet only in landscape mode, as the thinkpads weight and bezel size make portrait mode uncomfortable.
software wise, Android appears to have no competent handwriting, making it a realm of single apps only.
personally, I seem to be able to type reasonably quickly using the on screen keyboard, but I really really want handwriting recognition built into the entire device – its 2012, and my old original apple newton managed to do it seamlessly.
I could not use the TinyMCE editor on WordPress, and selecting and correcting spelling mistakes in the text area is almost impossible. ouch.
This might be time to look at writing some Android Java. Oh well
