I am currently evaluating the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC for my university. I have been using it for about one week, and I am really pleased with its performance. It came from Dell with the Microsoft’s Windows Vista Business operating system installed, which includes Microsoft’s new Tablet PC Support features. Click here to read about all of the tablet features in Vista–Tablet PC Support is included in the following versions of MS Vista – Home Premium, Business, Ultimate.
I spent about three hours with the “Personalize handwriting recognition” function when I first received the machine. This function has you write out 50 sentences, the English alphabet, numbers, and frequently used symbols. You can go back to this function at any time and select to either “Teach the recognizer your handwriting style” or “Target specific recognition errors.” You can also select whether to opt in to automatic learning for personalization. This allows the recognizer to gather information about the words that you use and how you write them and store that information on your local computer.
I am very impressed with the handwriting recognition technology. I purposefully write at the same speed as I normally would when I provide handwriting samples to the computer. This way I do not write the samples neater than I would in a normal situation.
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is great for taking handwritten notes on the tablet during meetings. You can choose to leave the notes in your own handwriting, or you can have OneNote convert your handwriting to text. OneNote doesn’t convert every word correctly for me yet, but the simple editing and formatting that I must complete is a lot easier than typing up a whole meeting’s worth of handwritten notes. (Most of the time, I never go back and type up my handwritten meeting notes.)
Finally, I have found that reading web articles is really comfortable in “portrait” mode on the tablet. You can use either the pen or your finger to scroll down the page, or select the next article that you would like to read. The XT is very thin and it weighs around 3.5 lbs.
Filed under: Educational Technology , Dell, Latitude XT, Microsoft, onenote 2007, PC, tablet, Vista
