ahh, laptop arrived... my new acer travelmate c302... (see my other post for why i chose this on this model).
out of the box... it didn't come with all the extras my first acer laptop came with, no notebook carry case, no port breakout connector, no euro power adapters (nice perk last time). but lucky for me all my old port and power adapters are all totally compatible.
i spent some time with a power meter convincing myself my old 60 watt power adapter was perfectly safe. laptop consumes about 20 watts. the rest is all gravy to charge the batteries. the higher wattage rating on the new charger is probably warranted to charge the larger battery, in a reasonable period of time. so i have -3- power adapters now -- with one at home, one at the office. which means i don't have to carry one around all the time.
also comes with a memory card adapter by way of a pc card. hmm, this is what i like about acer -- instead of a useless built-in proprietary memory stick interface, acer just threw in a pc card to the deal - done. might even be the only thing i use the pc slot for. it's so versatile, i used the card with my *other* laptop while traveling. eat that sony.
the laptop came with windows xp tablet pc edition SP1 installed. i thought the pen would be a novelty. since i can touch type i would tend to do that more. i was surprised how fluid the writing interface is. the pen recognition is unbelievable. this is no palm pilot. i showed a few of my friends. one jaw dropped when i swiveled the screen around into slate mode. 'no way, no fucking way'. another didn't want to give it back after trying it out.
i've made an effort to take meeting notes and whatnot with it. it's nice to know that i can get and sign a fax, 100% electronically now. the keyboard will always be faster for me, but the tablet interface is very cool. one design feature i like is the central screen swivel. the shape and lines are nicely done here... the screen floats in the air, just a little. yah!
for meetings it's less imposing to have the laptop in slate mode. the C300 is still rather heavy to hold. so it's not exactly like having a thin paper notebook to scribble on. the larger screen is nice when you need it. but if i had to do it all over again, i would seriously consider the C100 instead.
i flipped the screen around to watch movies (without the keyboard in the way)- but the speakers are really tiny. once you flip it around, the tiny speakers are facing away from you, so it's even worse. it doesn't really work, you need external speakers or headphones for this.
i've upgraded to SP2 -- "windows tablet pc 2005". some nice improvements here! there's a floating pen input, better recognition. a few grips, but nice stuff. it's really nice for web surfing for those moment you're lazy, on the couch.
keyboard is a dream to type on as expected. keys in all the right places. touch pad works well, though the buttons are much tougher to click on, compared to my pervious travelmate. the screen is great. i don't notice any of the reported off white colors from the screen electronics. plus, i'm actually not much of an xbrite screen fan (that type most other new laptops feature), due to the glare from reflections. so, i find the c300's brightness, resolution (1024x768), and color, ~just~ fine.
battery, wireless, firewire and the lot, work well. smart card is spring loaded and the pc card eject button is flush with the case. i think these design improvements are better than previous versions. i wasn't sure about the rubber flexi-plastic port coverings, but i like them now. i image they might break, some day.
now for the cons. i get erratic right-clicking in the corner running on battery (a known problem). so i decided this week to send it in. acer was kind enough to sent fedex to pick it up, it's in the shop now. hopefully some additional shielding should fix that. i also noticed towards the edge the pen interface seems off from it's position. i think other tablets don't have this problem. while not major, that can be annoying.
the speakers are too small for watching movies. the auto-dim feature doesn't work. when enabled, it dims the screen once in a while without much rhyme or reason. so i have it disabled.
at one point the power drained so completely it wouldn't turn on at all. the battery must have settled and after some time charging - eventually powered up. frequently, well nearly every time i have to hit the power key *twice* to power it up. lights blink and all, but it just doesn't catch the first time. not a major problem, but annoying! it also takes quite a while to toggle the wireless wifi / bluetooth on and off. you can't activate one until it's done handling the other - you have to wait. my travelmate was 10 times faster here. oh yeah, not a big deal but the acer logo is upside down when you open the screen upright - i guess they didn't learn from apple when they changed theirs?? oh yeah, and the bluetooth led is super bright, and super annoying here. i'll have to put some black tape over it, to dim it!
on quality - well i can't speak about the internal fan... we'll just have to wait and see on that one! overall, the laptop is fine but not remarkably sturdy. i think it's painted though? the plastic chips really easily showing the black underneath. why couldn't they just leave it black? the paint is just started to rub off in places, and i'm *not* abusing it, or using any more than my other acer. i've only had it 4 months. same with the touch pad button. the silver is rubbing off. as with the key label on my left control key, but i expect that to some degree having had that happen with my prior laptop. still, it's on only been 4 months - not years. so i swear they've used some cheap paint here. i hope they replace the worn parts - because that's not average wear and tear. a delicate paint job = defect. in fact now that i'm thinking about it, my travelmate 350 isn't painted at all, and it's held up!
the smart card is pretty much the same. seems to work a little faster/better. i thought i could set up smartcard login for windows, but that's really for a domain login only - and you still have to type your 'pin' anyway. not much benefit there, so i skipped it. i do like the right click option to encrypt files, that works well.
i had trouble installing Reason V3 -- i believe due to an unrecognized version of windows. it's the only software i've had trouble with. also you can't install sql server standard edition which is annoying. (there's no server edition for tablet pc). tcserver.exe seems to crash on me a lot. perhaps totally unrelated, outlook 2003 crashes all the time. grrr.
so there you have it. it's too heavy for my tastes, portability is a factor. a few other grips, but this is so cool.... yep, now i'm with the camp... all laptops will be tablets in the future. no doubt about it.
cheers!