Bills Gossip Corner
or reading the writing on the (phone?) booth wall..
24-june-01 Look for the A23p to have 3 different display resolutions, and be about the same as the A22p. Maybe the 1.13Ghz cpu and 32meg Video memory. T23 maybe by the end of july. (i sure hope the tea leaves are RIGHT on this one! The T23: 1.13Ghz, 48gig drive. WHY don't they put this one in the A series NOW, even, let alone the A23..?!
WIRELESS is coming to thinkpads.. .22-may-01. The A22, "i" series and the as yet unannounced T23 will al have some form of built in wireless capability. The T23 will be the best with its internal 10/100 NIC and a Mini-PCA modem/wireless combo card. The antenna (a most important item) will be in the top cover over the LCD and not buried in the palm reast like some of the competing laptops from other manufacturers.
Look for an entirely
new entry in the IBM line of ThinkPAD's.
It will combine features from the old TP730 with what might be a digitizer
tablet. Something like a transportable
notepad and a thinkpad all
rolled into a neat portfolio.
More on this neat new addition to the terrific ThinkPad line...
A little birdie
has this to say:
The Thinkpad TransNote has the exact look of (well,
in fact, IS) a stylish leather portfolio (about legal size, a bit wider). When you open it, the
right side contains the "ThinScribe" Digital notepad, a digitizer capable of acting both as a graphic tablet
or as a digitizer. The ThinkScribe resembles the now defunct CrossPad developed both by IBM and A.T. Cross,
the pen Company.
The left hand side of the ThinkScribe digitizer contains a new style of
"menu" consisting of pits and grooves (to be operated with the stylus)
that will let you choose the mode and scroll through the memorized pages. You must put a paper notepad in it
to be able to make it work. The stylus is a regular fountain pen and serves as a digital stylus.
A small LCD (like 48 x 64 pixels) displays the operating mode (ToDo, Memo, etc.), the number of pages
memorized (about 55). That is the first way of using the
TransNote.
The computer itself is on the left side of the portfolio.
Only the screen is apparent. This is the second use of the TransNote. Since the
10.4 inch TFT (800x600) is tactile, you can use the Windows 2000 menus without
any need of the keyboard.
The third way of operating the TransNote is by "unfolding" the screen. This recalls the world famous
"wow effect" known in 1995 by the TrackWrite keyboard
of the Thinkpad 701C when you opened it and unfolded it.
In fact, the TFT has a double articulation that allows it to be folded over the keyboard so that instead
of be folded the screen face down as with any laptop, the screen faces up. Like on the
750P.
The I/O ports are a CF-II slot on the left, a PCMCIA
Type II Slot on the back, along with 2 x USB ports,
RJ-11 (modem) and RJ-45 (Ethernet 10/100 Base-T)
The front of the unit has 3 jacks for sound (mic, line
in, line out) and IrDA port.
The unit tested had 64MB of memory, a Pentium III-600,
a 10GB hard disk (DJSA-220)
On the software side, there are a couple of drivers (for the touchscreen, for the ThinkScribe and a
WinPortrait driver to rotate the screen 180°). This ability has a psychological benefit,
(explained by an IBM exec): in any meeting, opening a laptop makes a physical and a psychological barrier
between you and the person in front of you. The TransNote eliminates this "barrier effect".
(Ed note: I wonder how well the display will be "seen" if
overhead lighting is harsh or bright. Like trying to read a glossy
magazine)
IBM installs the IBM InkManager Pro, an application
that links with the ThinkScribe part of the laptop to download the pages stored within the ThinkScribe's
memory (since you can use it without having the laptop
powered on). It can store full pages with scribbles,
sketches and handwritten notes. By default, it is
set up to recognize both keywords, gestures and
script text (i.e. attached letters), but you can change
it so it can recognize separate letters. There also is the 3M Post-it Notes applet running in the background,
ready to be fired up at any occasion.
The couple of days I have been using the TransNote have been amazing. It is truly a new way of using
a laptop. It is far more than a laptop, it's a new communication tool. It combines the benefits of
the tablet Thinkpads for their easy to write on the screen ability (which explains why there are still
a couple of TP 710/730 T/TE around), that of the CrossPad (for those who have known it), and that of a very discrete
and almost unnoticeable ultraportable - without sacrificing to power (it runs Win2000 perfectly). Windows 2000 shuts
down in exactly... two seconds ! Amazing. None of my Thinkpads can do this. Of course, chances are that the
TransNote's success will depend on third party developments, but it is immediately useable as it is.
More Editors notes:
I have had two TransNotes and I find that there is no handwriting recognition as there is on the CrossPad. Also, both required some "fixing" so that they will function. The problem is the preload was not complete. In one case, the machine was useless without the transnote specific apps and in the second case, I had to recover the preload from the hidden partition. This took at least one to two hours since all the Lotus SmartSuite apps are recovered. There is no way to avoid this. All in all, I think these are growing pains.
It will be available in left and right handed versions and with either W2k or W98..
In my opinion, the TransNote will fill a real need. Sort of an interface between larger devices and paper notes.
The next device I want to see is a business card scanner that will "snap" onto the WorkPad or the Compaq iPAQ PDA... IBM..?? Take that as a hint for the TransNote..!