I don’t really need a powerful laptop that much these days.  I spend most of my time at a desk.  My current laptop is a HP Probook, the spare office developers laptop (we always have one kicking around in case of failure) that I picked up as when my my faithful Dell Precision decided it needed to install the same 7 windows updates every day.  That’s now rebuilt and the spare.

Anyway, one of our developers has a need for a laptop so rather than buying a new development spec machine, I volunteered mine. 

I’ve been thinking about a tablet for some time and this was the excuse I needed.  So I had a look around and read some reviews.

The choice

There were 3 contenders

Ipad

Pros

• definitely the coolest
• good price and lots of apps
• its built for the job OS means it performs well with no hassle
• probably the best pure tablet offering

Cons

• unknown suitability for business tasks
• no flash
• that whole were Apple lockdown no integration stuff kind of annoys me a bit

Android device

There are a fair few of these emerging on the market.  I use Android on my phone, having changed from an IPhone to the HTC desire.  My opinion on Android is its a better OS than IOS, but IOS is easier to use.  Android requires you to get much more involved with it.

That said, in the long run I think the mobile market will be dominated by Android and Windows 7 mobile.

Pros

• Cool for geeks (like me)
• proper tablet with lots of apps
• great openness and integration

Cons

• again, not really a business tool?
• not as good as the IPad

Inspiron duo

The Inspiron duo has been around a few months now.  It’s basically a Dell notebook with a cool rotating screen.

You can also get this nice docking station for it.

Pros

• for business use – runs Windows 7 (ships with Home Premium but I confirmed with Dell support Pro) – so supports all the software I have.
• has a certain cool factor
• Nice docking.
• Can be used for a bit of development.  I wouldn’t want to do full time development on a screen or processor that size – but they don’t let me do that anymore anyway.  Might be OK for the pet projects and research I do.

Cons

• Heavy
• Not a proper tablet.
• poor battery life

The outcome

In the end, the ability to run all my standard windows apps outweighed pretty much all other considerations so I went for the Dell.

I went to town and bought the dock, paid extra for blue and a blue manbag to carry it in.

The story (so far)

Upgrading to Windows 7 Pro

This was pretty much the first thing I did.  Was a bit of a pain as Dell had not provided a drivers disk.  Also, their online site did not take me to the drivers from the service tag but hat to work out the required ones from the make and model.

This was disappointing from DELL, maybe it’s because this is classed as a home machine rather than a business machine.

Also, there stage software, when re-installed, did not set itself up right and I have not yet figured how to fix it.  I’m not the only one – but Dell’s fix did not work.  In fact it barely made sense.

Accelerometer overheat

After a lot of hassle getting drivers installed etc. the accelerometer (that flips the display) stopped working with a code 10.  After a bit of googleing, again from this and other discussions, this appears to be a common overheating problem! 

I waited and it fixed itself.

Tablet use

As I expected, aside from the Windows Touch Pack applications and Dell’s caitoniStage software – your running windows application that are not specifically designed for tablet use in the way Android or IPhone/IPad apps are.

That said, I wanted a browser on my lap, and bot IE and Firefox work pretty well in tablet mode.  I can easily scroll and navigate with gestures and the onscreen keyboard is just fine for the bit of typing required.

The touch screen seems to work great.

Watching flash is great and watching streamed TV on flash in the dock is great.  On my old laptop the sound was just not good enough.

Flash

I did have an issue (post windows 7 pro upgrade) with flash disabling the sound when maximised and docked.  I disabled “Hardeware acceleration” in flash and it seemed to cure it.

Business Use

I’ve loaded office 2010 and it runs fine.  Im writing this blog on it – I’m sure it would be tough to do that on an IPad

Development

I’ve not tested this.  Expecting not great performance – but acceptable in emergencies – which is what I need.

Out and about

I didn’t think I’d need this too much so lack of mobile SIM did not put me off.  That said, I used it out and about yesterday simply by setting up a private wireless network on my HTC desire.  I hadn’t considered this before and it worked great.   I was able to create a couple of invoice on Fusion Accounts.

Verdict

Upgrading to Win7 Pro has caused a few teething problems and Dell’s support on this has not been as good as usual.

For people like me who want a notebook for out and about but also want to use a tablet for browsing or watching a film this is perfect. 

If you want a fully fledged tablet, buy an IPad or wait 12 months for the next gen Android’s to overtake it.