So, please give me a stylus.  But also, give me good handwriting recognition and an editable platform-independent handwriting solution.

I do agree that Microsoft and partners have done a very poor job of marketing the Tablet PC platform. However mainstream IT journalists such as yourself talk about these devices AND DON’T USE THEM! Experience on an 8 year device that ran XP just isn’t modern experience. I see reviewers for instance complain about the touch UI in Windows 7 while doing idiotic things like dragging scrollbars with their fingers when finger panning or dragging is supported virtually everywhere in Windows 7. I could go on and on about the erroneous information that I see from mainstream IT journalism concerning Tablet PCs.

Yes the marketing of Tablet PCs is poor. The mainstream IT coverage of them is even worse. But I do appreciate your effort to at least attempt to explain just how powerful and flexible this platform can be though I do think your lack of modern experience doesn’t allow you fully convey those ideas.

So, I’d say I do understand a lot of what makes “proper” tablets special. My complaint is – and has always been – that manufacturers don’t position them properly. Someone like Apple (who I mention because they’ve just reported huge success with their own tablet sales, not because I’m a knee-jerk fanboy) does a very good job of not only showing you the product but explaining how well it will fit into your life. WHY you need it, not just leaving it up to assumption or geek-lust.

Until rivals figure that out, I’d say most people have learning to do about why tablets like the EP121 have promise.

Got my EP121 64 GB SSD/4 GB RAM model on pre-order, can’t wait. And yes Windows 7′s touch interface needs much improvement but you do realize that on a device of this size and power web browsing is MUCH faster via touch than an iPad. Yes pinch zoom is much smoother overall but tap a link and 95% of stuff will load INSTANTLY on this bad boy. And no Apple filter, ie. no Flash, Silverlight or ANY other browser exstension for you!

Overall a good article but Chris but you got a lota learnin’ yet before you really understand a device like the EP121 and just how good it is at a lot you’ve proabaly not even tried. Go ahead, fire up Angry Birds on that puppy and touch away.

Not saying that HTC won’t release a tablet with a pen, but I think you got that wrong.

Of course there aren’t any android apps out to take advantage but the pen should provide extra precision in existing apps. All it really needs at minimum is a note taking app which shouldn’t be too hard if it doesn’t already exist.

joedawulfnoir @ soundcloud

Iirc back when Gates presented the umpc and tablet concepts, whoever was running the MS Office department was strongly against the pen input concept and so stonewalled any such features in Office. And now Apple have hijacked the show with their finger focused interfaces.

Give me a tablet with a stylus and a note-taking/drawing application so I can use it as a notepad during my lectures and I’ll give it some serious consideration – I think I read about an ereader/notepad with a stylus some time ago, think it was from Asus.

Sent from my Thinkpad tablet. :P