Disclaimer: I am biased because I am a huge fan of the Tablet PC.
Being a person that takes notes, manage appointments etc. etc. all the times I always carried a Filofax agenda with me; in spite of this I started exploring the possibility to switch to an electronic device in 1982 when I bought a Casio device that was an ancestor of the modern PDA. To the left size of the device there was a kind of "blackboard" where you were supposed to draw the letter or the number you wanted to input. Since then I kept with this "schizofrenic" path trying newer electronic devices while I kept carrying my Filofax for years and years till I gave up entering information both on electronic and paper support.
While I am quite happy with my Exchange, Mesh, Desktop, Tablet and Smartphone environment I must admit that sometimes, while I can dictate a voice note to my smartphone or use OneNote etc., I miss the simpliciity of the old act of scrabbling something on a pice of paper, putting it in my pocket and be able to retrieve it with the simple act of pulling it out.
In my opinion this means that there is not a Holy Grail to how to interact with our devices: I am not a fast typist so I would prefer to write something on a screen and have it turned into a Word document; voice input could be a possibility but pronunciations could be an issue, an other issue, in case you are dealing with sensitive information could be security: someone could overhear you or read your lips.
Touch capability has its usefulness but could not replace a pen; they are complementary to each other.
Bottom line is that what I would like is a device with roughly 6 3/4 X 3 3/4 dimension (yes these are the dimension of my Filofax), with a touch screen, comunications abilities including phone calls, instant ON, enough power to handle smoothly handwriting, voice and typing input and a battery life that under heavy use will last 24 hours.
Would a device like this replace my smartphone? Probably Monday to Friday during business time yes; I would not carry it going out for a personal dinner :-), I would carry it with me during the week-end butI would leave it in the car.
Would it replace my Tablet? Absolutely not! If I am reading an Excel spreadsheet... screen size matter.
Last but most important the OS: I would like to see something like the woman on the plane uses in the
2019 MS OfficeLab clip.
Will I see it? Maybe, maybe not; maybe by the time technologies will be there people of my same generation will be out of the market, therefore irrilevant and younger ones, with different reequirements will decide the standards.
Like books: I like to read a real book, electronic ones do not give me the same feelig; nothing wrong with them, they just do not fit me.
This post was edited by Fritzly on Monday, March 30, 2009 at 09:18.
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