HP Tablet PC TC 1100 

Dimensions and weight are important, it is 27.5x22x3cm and it weights a tad over 1.4kilos. It is truly two in one as it operates as a Tablet PC using stylus and handwriting on the 10.4inch screen. Then rotate the screen 180 degrees and now you have a conventional notebook with the added bonus that you can still click on the screen using the battery less stylus.

Even though it is only 3cm thick there are two distinct parts of the unit sandwiched together. The top two centimetres being the excellent screen and the bottom one centimetre having the keyboard that is stated to be 95% of normal size. It is an 84 key offering with pencil erasure type mouse control between GH and B keys, there are two conventional left/right buttons near the edge of the unit. In notebook mode only 11cm of the depth is available as when then top rotates the screen tilts over the back 11cm of the base. I managed to type quite successfully on the unit during a number of trips. This part can be detached and adds .4 kilo to the overall weight making the unit around 1.8 kilos.

As a pure Tablet PC using the stylus on the screen works well, I was a little worried by having no chance to turn the glass screen inside but it is made of specially toughened glass to avoid scratches and it is also coated to avoid reflections. However some protection such as slip case could help when carried in a bag.

The unit has pen features built in to allow liquid ink and other extensions that are built in to the Tablet PC version of Windows XP. The TC 1100 also takes advantage of Wacom technology to give a lot of functionality only normally found on the drawing tablet.

Battery life is excellent easily giving a normal working day of normal usage and that with the screen appearing to have little different in brightness or contrast to mains usage, it is actually one setting down but hardly noticeable. The 1GB ultra low power mobile Pentium processor helps with battery life and I found it responsive in use. The 40GB hard disc will be large enough for most as will the 512MB RAM.

Looking at the unit in landscape mode as it would be when in notebook use the rear has only the Kensington Lock socket. The right side has A/C adapter input a covered set of ports for modem, 10/100 network, external monitor and two USB2 ports, also on this side are the PCMCIA port, SD Card port and chunky pen stylus dock.

The front has on/off slider as well as ‘Q’ menu button, Tab and Esc keys with an ingenious Ctrl-Alt-Del recessed button that is operated by the pen stylus and finally a fast internet button. The left side has external audio sockets as well as speakers. So you are probably thinking what is the ‘Q’ menu, it is a sub menu to give quick and easy access to 11 items, extremely useful when in Tablet mode.

If you last switched off (or went to standby) in one mode and then started use in the other then there will probably be a couple of seconds delay while portrait turns to landscape of visa versa. There is one large drawback to this very tasty unit – the price – you are unlikely to get more than a few pounds back from £2000 and things like carrying case CD/DVD drive and docking stations are all extras and while it is of little real use these days there is no floppy drive. www.dabs.com have it for £1996.

Link : http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/gb/en/sm/WF06b/21675-283229-283229-283229-283239-1726471-7912893.html