So, I have been thinking about buying a tablet lately. I know there are many small manufacturers which are more popular in the geek scene but I don't know where the real quality is at. I have done zero research so far but hopefully this thread will spring some interest in other users to do some research and also point me in the right direction on where to do some finding.

Who's got some opinions?

Just to give you some background, I've had four Tablet PCs in my life. My first Tablet PC was an Acer C110 tablet that I found in the basement of my apartment building, but which unfortunately had a motherboard fried from water damage. The C110:


My next Tablet PC I bought in Freshman year of college on eBay, a Toshiba m205-s810.



In the summer between Sophomore and Junior year, I bought a Gateway CX2620, a truly massive machine that unfortunately used active digitizer pens from (not Wacom) requiring non-user-replaceable batteries rather than the transductive pens that Wacom-based digitizers use that require no batteries. The machine:



My current tablet is an HP Pavilion tx2525nr, which I got for $700 on Woot. I've been very happy with it, and I think it's almost lasted the longest of any of my tablets to date.



I've really enjoyed my tablets, and it's almost time for me to pick out my next one. I'll either edit this post or repost when I start preliminary research. Mexi, what are your primary criteria?

wow...
you really like tablets don't you XD

i wanted one my self... but since most of them are quite expensive, while not really meeting my needs in gaming and other stuff. i never got around to buying one.

What I'm looking at is something that would have multi-touch. Honestly I don't know much about current tablet technology at all though. I want something that has a battery life of at least or over five hours and preferably a small screen with a good resolution and small form factor. I'm going to start looking on newegg and other sites and see what I find.

Mexi, actually, I don't know how useful multitouch is, but one of my favorite features of my current tablet, the HP, is that the screen has a capacitive digitzer and a Wacom digitizer. Therefore, I can use my finger to touch the screen for low precision and ease-of-use, or the Wacom pen for accuracy, pressure sensitivity, erasing, and all that fun stuff. I'd definitely like to have that again in my next tablet.

Good luck finding a tablet that's good for gaming; unless you really want the tablet functionality, go for a regular laptop (if you really want a tablet get one with a Wacom digitizer; I currently have a Toshiba Protege M750 and it's awesome.)

So two things I have learned very quickly so far...

1. I will not be using a tablet for gaming.
2. Get one with a Wacom digitizer.

Any more helpful suggestions?

Be careful when buying a tablet/laptop made with an Nvidia chipset around 2007-2008; they had a pretty high failure rate due to overheating (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-10020782-33.html)

Well, I'm thinking something along the lines of this:

Toshiba Portege M78-S7210

That's pretty poor specs for the price. Integrated graphics, Core i3, and tiny hard drive for $1.3K? You can do a lot better.

I've heard some *VERY* good things about the HP tm2. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/series/category/notebooks/tm2t_series/3/computer_store

That's not too bad! I came up with a decent configuration for $950.

yeah... but then i guess you could always mod one, or make one yourself...

Eh, modding laptops for functionality is a heck of a lot harder than you'd think. I'd draw the line at modding netbooks, in terms of the monetary cost if you make a mistake, the amount of available space inside the case for extra hardware, and even in terms of knowing what exactly is going on inside (for example, the very very nonstandard connection between laptop motherboards and their display panels). In the past, I remember starting at CNet's reviews of laptops to see what's been highly-ranked. Unfortunately, it looks like they haven't reviewed any tablet PCs for years. Looking at NewEgg, it looks like stupid convergence has made all the tablet PCs have netbook-style specifications. :S

i see...
guess its not nearly as easy as moding desktops...

No, not nearly as easy by a long shot. Sorry.