To be honest, my "experience" is strictly playing with others' gadgets. I haven't seen anything that makes me want pay for one yet.

Cheers,

when are they gonna invent a laptop that is energized like those watches that are energized by movement? or anything but those battery packs? surely that's where the next technological breakthrough is needed -- we can make computers as tiny as we want now.

My handwriting is the worst. And tablet computers make me cringe, mostly because the point is to invite free-form input. I guess the mixed bag of virtual keyboard ala iPhone with big screen (to me, there's more than enough space for focused data/content) is the win, something I can fit in my pocket, but not what I'd use as a desktop or laptop machine, for my real work. All the same, I have a doc cousin (with easy to read handwriting) who is pining for a Mac tablet. What's your real-world experience with tablet notebooks and are you able to Just Do It as far as day to day use and work? Thanks for taking the time to comment. Joe

I guess it is about time I asked this question to a tech writer.

I love the idea of a PDA, but in every instance, the screens are just too small. I've looked into a Pepper Pad because the screen is approximately the right size, but so far they are targeted to a much different use than what I want (net surfing) and hence are quite expensive (and thick) for my purposes.

I want something thin, like a clipboard (most laptops screen sections are just fine). I want it to be a PDA, have a stylus-based interface, a USB port for plugging in a keyboard and interfacing with PC's, and handwriting recognition software (I don't want to learn Palm shorthand).

All these things are out there, of course - but usually in a laptop format, which is way more power than I want or need for this application.

Any thoughts?

My 15" Lenovo T61 and my 15" Lenovo N200 3000 each with a 9 cell Lion get more than 5 hrs. The T61 has 2GB/120GB the N200 has 1GB/80GB. The biggest factor for battery life is CPU draw. The T61 has a dual core while the N200 does not so the T61 needs some judicious power scheming.

From a production cost perspective, at least half the total cost of your laptop is the screen. Bigger screen more price. And yields and QA are such that anything above 17" is frightfully expensive. Conversely a 9" screen should be far cheaper than 9/15ths of the cost of a 15" screen. This is one reason why there are hundreds of millions of PoS/Cash registers with 9" screens, portable DVD players with them and why even cars are starting to get them. They're very cheap.

So once you have a uITX (micro ITX or even one of the up and coming pITX pico ITX) MoBo Form factor where just about everything is SBC surface mount and/or it uses a single uPCI header, and on board connectors for RAM are standard such as one of the half size DDR slots, the ONLY thing that represents a costly adder is solid state drive. Which honestly is more of a gew gaw at 6-8GB than anything useful. High durability flash with good R/W performance are still artificially expensive. A better solution is to flash the OS into ROM, and use a high capacity CF card or two or an SD type, for nonvolatile storage, or even a cheap hard drive. Remove all ports except for a USB and since we can't forget the pimp factor, you have to leave a DVD drive in. That's going to hurt battery life though so you'll have to add another row of Lion cells to the package and make a 'hanger' type battery pack that sticks out from the case. That would be the best relationship of small vs cheap.

But again, it's kind of a solution in search of a problem. It's not a notebook or a smart phone or a palmtop. It's something else. And yes atom is power miserly but in real world examples nothing runs like the spec. On average the atom's claim to fame is that it uses roughly the same amount of power under idle or full load. Let's wait and see how the gurus of low power, VIA do with their Isaiah.

Hey Joe, thanks for the review. I've had my eye on these little critters ever since they finally started coming out in the past couple of years. In fact, I've been complaining for at least ten years, maybe more, about the lack of a decent, truly portable, cheap microcomputer with a close-to-full size keyboard. These guys nearly fill the bill -- except for the price, still a bit steep for my taste.

So, here's my question: have you, or anyone else out there, tried out what seems to be the newest entry in this category, the Acer Aspire One? It's listed for about $400 and seems to have the same dimensions and most of the same specs as the HP. There's a picture of it at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/technology/personaltech/24laptop.html

Great. I do IT for a professional services firm, and computers that are high in flashiness (design) and low on functionality are exactly what attracts executives. They've got to show they've got the coolest and these days littlest piece of new technology. I'm dreading the day when my users start clamoring for them, then complaining that they don't work right. So far I've managed to convince them they the really don't want the iPhone, but it's only a matter of time.

Hey gang, thanks for the great comments already. Two quick points: The unit was outfitted with 2GB, and as for the trackpad and buttons, I used my thumb to click the left button, which is why I had to twist my hand in a way that stressed my wrist. I *forgot* to mention the Mini-Note does offer the tap to click option like most every other notebook, however I always turn that off because I tend to accidentally click way too often.