I wrote this review for another website a few months ago. Most of what I wrote still holds true, except for a few things that I have changed my opinion on, maybe I willpost about those later if I have time. Its pretty long, to sum it up, I think its a great overall machine, but there are a few things that I wish were different, mainly the tracking of the pen. Very good value compared to other tablets like it.
I have been using my cx210x for almost 2 months for school now. I am a pharmacy student, and use it for taking notes in all my classes.
I think academia is one of the few places where a tablet PC is more than just a rarely used novelty, I decided to get one because I am extremely unorganized, and end up with one big binder full of notes, handouts, slides, assignments from all my different classes. The tablet PC allows me to have it all in one spot.
Here are the stats of my rig: 2 ghz, 2 gb, dvd burner, 8 cell battery, dedicated 64 mb graphics card.
First I will explain how I use my computer: When I am taking notes, I use MS OneNote. This allows me to put everything in one place. In some of my classes, it is expected that you have the slides printed out before hand, so instead of printing them, I simply have the PDF open during the class. As I am taking notes by hand, I use the screen clipping function to cut out slides or images from slides that are useful or just too complicated to draw or write. By doing this my class notes are even more useful, since I don't have to search for the slide the professor was talking about as I was taking the notes, all of the relevant images are right in my notes. THis is also better than printing out all the slides and just taking notes on them because not all slides are all that important, so my notes are very neat and concise with no wasted space. And personally, I learn almost absolutely nothing from powerpoint lectures, where you just take notes on slides, so I write as much out by hand as I can. The tablet allows me to do this, but still insert a slide or image when I really need to. (On a side note, I think powerpoint absolutely terrible, it is more of a detriment than a tool, and I have yet to see a professor use it in a way that would be better than just using the chalk or whiteboard, and Ive been going to school for 5 years. In my opinion, if you use powerpoint, you are not a good teacher. Period. But everybody uses it now, so I guess I have to find a way to make it work for me, which brings me back to my review
.) For the classes I have that are not too note intensive, like non-science based classes, I simply open up the PDF of the slides or handout and the few notes I have I just write directly on the PDF.
Getting to the Hardware:
My notes are a mix of words, symbols, graphs and equations, so taking notes on a regular laptop wouldn't work. The stylus has a nice pen and paper feel, although its not perfect. The pen works well with the width set at about .3 mm to .5 mm. Using a bigger size than that and it feels like you are using a marker. The digitizer and the pen are good, but not great, but definitely adequate. For example, when you hover above the screen, the pointer is always vibrating like crazy, just moving back and forth like one pixel. If you write very slow, and use an extremely thin pen, you will notice that your letters are not made up of nice smooth lines, but little tiny zigzags that are so close together they look like smooth lines. On my computer, I have noticed that the digitizer seems to very a little bit across the screen. For example, if you were to start at the top of the screen, and write at the exact speed and exact pressure all the way to the bottom of the screen (and had perfect penmanship), you would expect a very uniform looking page. However, certain spots on the screen seem more sensitive, so they will look like you were pushing down harder, and certain spots of the screen, the writing gets thinner. Also, around the edges, like in the upper corner, the pointer doesn't seem to move smoothly with the pen. This makes hitting that little X with the pen difficult to impossible sometimes. Another litlle quirk i noticed, is that if you used the computer in landscape mode, with the batter bump furher away from you than the latch end, when you get to the last line, and are writing right by the magnetic latches, there is a lot of interference from the latches. If you tried to draw a straight line across the bottom of the screen, you couldn't. There would be two curves in the line by the two latches.
Pen Calibration:
I think the pen calibration actually kinda sucks. It is supposed to compensate for the tilt of the pen, but you have to play with it a long time before you figure out what its trying to do. You are supposed to click on the four corners of the screen, but to get the pen accurate, I had to tilt it in a way that was not ergonomic. After a series of trial and error, I finally got a great calibration. Maybe its my digitizer or pen or something, I don't know. Overall, I had hoped the pointer would track the pen better than it does.
Gaming
Compared to the average notebook, you could even consider it a "gaming notebook." Its not one of those that are as fast as the fastest desktop oviously, but I use it for playing Civ 4 a lot (and i mean a lot), with the graphics maxed. The game runs very fast on here. If there are any civ players reading this, you know how that game bogs down toward then end. On my 2.4 hz P4 w/256 mb graphics, the turns toward the end of the game took like 3 to 5 minutes each, just waiting for the computer to make its turn. On this machine, even in the modern era, when you are moving like a hundred units a turn, the game still runs fast, and there is very little "waiting for the computer" to make its turn. The only other game I play is UT2004, which runs maxed out on here. I have played GTA San Andreas and Half-life 2 breifly on here. They ran very well, and I was able to have the graphics slightly higer than on my 2.4 ghz 1 gb ram desktop.
The Design.
Because this is a computer that tries to be everything: a desktop replacement and a portable tablet pc at the same time; it is somewhat heavy. I have just the 8 cell battery, which has the "Battery Bump" toward the back of the machine. Some times I love this bump, and sometimes I think it gets in the way. In general, its actually a great thing. One underappreciated aspect of it is how it actually save on heat and battery life. By keeping the laptop propped up a little at an angle, the heat dissipates SIGNIFICANTLY faster than other laptops. This is really a factor when it is on a desk, in a classroom. Because of this, the fan almost never comes on, and because of that, the battery lasts longer, and it doens't make a noise at all. THe huge oversize battery also allows me to go to all of my classes w/o having to take my power supply. This totally makes up for the extra weight, not having to deal with lugging that around. IF you put it on power saving mode, it goes well over three hours. Since I never have more than three classes in a row, I never need to bring my plug along. The only bad thing about the battery (becides the weight), is that it digs into your thighs after a while if you are using it on your lap. The hinge is sturdier than one would expect. The screen is not any more wobbly than if it had two hinges. The magnetic latches work great, and i think that it is great that they use the the same latches when the cover is down and when it is turned around in tablet mode. I am not crazy about widescreens in general, and on this computer I dont think it makes much sense. One would think it would be great, since you would use it in portrait mode, so it more resembled a real tablet. However, you cant do this well because of the battery bump, if you did you would be writing at a slant. It feels best taking notes with the battery bump away from you, so the tablet is slanting down toward you. This does help a lot with the viewing angle, which isnt that great. After some of my longer lectures, my back feels a little sore from being hunched over the computer looking down at a 90 degree angle. The Viewing angle is another reason why its hard to use it in portrait mode as a tablet. When it is in portrait mode and sitting on a desk, you simply cannot see the top of the screen because it is so far away from you and the viewing angle isnt great. In this respect, it is a good thing this is widescreen, because if the screen had more vertical pixels, the same thing would happen while using it in landscape mode, you wouldnt be able to see the part of the screen furthest away from you unless you were sitting in a very uncomfortable position, hovering directly over the screen.
Overall, I think this may be one of the best options for a student. As I have said, I cant think of any better use for a tablet than using it for school. It does a lot more than I expected. I never dreamed I would be able to give up my desktop and use this as a desktop replacement. Its a great desktop replacement, a great laptop, and a good tablet.
The biggest positives that stick out are:
-Battery life is great
-Ultimate all-in-one machine, no need to compromise speed for tablet function
-Can organize virtually all school work into concise, neat looking documents
-Better than average wi-fi antenna
-Its hot, but its noticeably cooler than previous laptops I have used
-Battery options, you could have 6 , 8, 14, or even 18 cells by using the modular bay
-You can turn the LED lights off (this is actually very useful, for one thing, the little LEDs, especially the power button, generate heat, and it also saves power I suppose)
- IT just looks futuristic and you feel like a big shot using it
This that need to be worked out for future version:
-The microphone could be much better. Audio recording of lectures is very easy w/one note, but the microphone just isnt good enough to record lectures well
-Make the pen and pointer track better. I really wish it were more exact. I want the pointer to be directly below the pen tip, exactly, no matter what.
-On the screen, there is more than 1 inch all the way around of plastic, that could be screen space. I think some of this has to do with the glass. Unlike other laptops this screen needs a little more support, since there is a whole lot going on (a hard glass screen, not a soft screen). I want the screen to look like those newer apples where the actual lcd screen is like a quarter of an inch from the edge of the monitor.
). Battery life seems okay, but we never use it to the extent that it runs low and mostly keep it plugged in. I can't say how good it is for surfing the internet, playing music/movies and stuff, but it's good for the simple business stuff. Toshibas are also good and reliable (hey, mines lasted me this long) but I agree that they are on the higher price end.
