Below is a very simple demonstration of the native support for digital ink in Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint as well as the amazing handwriting recognition capabilities of Windows 7.

In reality, it’s much easier to ink when you have your tablet undocked and in your hand or flat on the tablet. I’m thinking that Tablet in the video might be set in the dock to show the fact that it has a docking option.

And that reminds me, the Australian version of the Samsung Slate Series 7 Tablet PC that is set to arrive next week includes the dock and keyboard as shown in this video.

The dock is very small and portable but it gives you the ability to use your Tablet like a PC when you want to. Inputs and outputs on the dock include:

• Power – Just dock the tablet to charge

• Full size HDMI – Connect to a Projector, Monitor or TV with ease
• Ethernet – Essential for corporate networks and maximum network speed
• USB 2.0 – Connect a Keyboard, Mouse, USB Memory, Camera, Phone – anything
• Audio – Headphones, Speaker, Microphone.

Of course it also props the display up at a nice angle. The keyboard is a nice compact Bluetooth model.

As a person who spends most of my time on the road, this dock is a very attractive option. During the day, I use my Motion F5v tablet as a slate, taking handwritten notes, writing emails, preparing quotes and showing people information on screen.

At night though, I could be at a hotel room, and I often need to type up some more lengthy information that I’d be more confortable typing. Whilst I can write on screen faster than typing on a touch keyboard (30-35wpm vs 20-25wpm), as a computer geek for most of my life I can still type faster when seated at a tablet with a physical keyboard (60wpm).

With the Samsung Slate PC Series 7 you could carry the dock in your bag and bring it out when needed to make an instant PC!

Anyway, it’s great to see Samsung rediscovering the Windows Tablet PC and finally seeing the benefits of the Wacom Active Digitizer Pen!

The series 7 features hardware that will allow you to have the best Windows Tablet PC experience possible.

• Intel Core i5 “Sandy Bridge” processor – for awesome performance and battery life – I expect between 4 – 6 hours use time although Samsung claim up to 7

• Wacom Pen and Multi-Touch Screen – The absolute standard for pressure and proximity sensitive Active Digitizer Pen and touch input
• Active Docking with HDMI, USB, Ethernet, Power and Audio – essential for a Tablet that can replace your laptop!

Amazingly, the Samsung Slate PC Series 7 weighs only 860 grams! I am staggered by how fast we have arrived at a Slate PC with Intel Core i5 laptop replacement power in form factor that is competitive with consumer tablets.

The only drawback for this tablet is the lack of a removable battery, 3G or 4G mobile broadband options. We may not see the kinds of accessories needed to make this Tablet a viable alternative for the big users of tablets – field workers, but it will be a hit with Executives, Corridor warriors, Digital Artists, Designers, Students, Teachers, Lecturers and IT Geeks.

We will be taking pre-orders as soon as we can secure stock!

More soon…

The Intel Core i7 versions of the J3500 and F5v went from the i7-640UM 1.2Ghz processor up to the i7-680UM processor at 1.46Ghz. The core i5 version also got a bump.

Whilst the low power Intel Core i7 processor in the F5v and J3500 is still the last generation “Arrandale” chip, it is still between four to ten times more powerful than the Intel Atom based processors found in many rugged Tablet PCs depending on the test performed.

Of course you can’t beat an Intel Atom based tablet for battery life, but there are several reasons that sales of F5v and J3500 with Intel Core i7 have increased at pace with the introduction of the Motion Computing CL900:

• 4-10 Times more powerful than Intel Atom
• Up to 8Gb of RAM
• Desktop replacement power

Whilst the CL900 is fantastic for basic computing tasks like field data collection into web forms, PDF files or Microsoft Excel, it cannot match the performance of the F5v or J3500 for people who need a go-anywhere mobile office.

Judging by the number F5v and J3500s going out with 8Gb RAM on board, a surprising number of people do need brute computing power in the field.

The Motion J3500 also gets a bump up to the faster Gobi 3000 mobile broadband chip with GPS.

Earlier this year Hugh presented for Intel at CES2011 with his J3500:

Why would you use the J3500 for drawing as a digital artist?

• J3500 allows you to work anywhere! – Indoors, outdoor, on the bus, train or plane –draw wherever creativity strikes you
• Wacom Active Digitizer Pen – There is simply no equivalent PC drawing experience on a mobile device
• Intel Core i7 Processor in an ultra-portable slate – It is the fastest slate Tablet PC on the market.

You can see the Motion Computing F5v tablet PC in action with SP Ausnet here in the case study video that Microsoft prepared.

Click on the picture below to see the video.

Tablet PC have helped thousands of companies – from Australia’s largest such as Rio Tinto, Newcrest Mining and SP Ausnet down to small innovative regional businesses like Renee Kelly Occupational Therapy in Mildura, Victoria – to find the best tablet PC solution for their business and then to back it up with essential training and exceptional support.

Contact us to find out how we can help your business to eliminate rework and speed up your field data collection.

The Slate Mate includes an integrated Intermec ED40 Barcode reader scan engine which is the same advanced barcode reader that is built into the Motion F5v and C5v. It is compatible with a huge array of barcode types (including EAN128) and it even supports 2D (square) barcodes.

As noted in our previous article, “Barcode Scanners for Tablet PCs,” there is nothing better for barcode scanning than a dedicated barcode scanning engine. Even better if its integrated and attached to the device so that you don’t have an extra device to charge, maintain or lose!

The added Mag Stripe reader in conjunction with you POS software will allow you to take credit card payments directly from your device.

Best of all, the slate mate version of the CL900 retains its rugged MIL-810G drop specification and IP52 rating. Perfect for the POS environment.

Motion Computing CL900 Slate Mate – Barcode Scanner and Mag Stripe Reader Tablet PC

The “Slate Mate” range will be expanded in future releases to include options such as Chip and Pin / Keypad and NFC support.

POS Vendors looking to take the hassle out of dealing with hardware and wanting to partner with a full service hardware reseller with exceptional knowledge, training, support and service should contact us for more information.

POS users looking to deploy their own POS hardware should contact us directly.

Since HP dropped the Tm2, Fujitsu are now the only company to offer a Tablet PC with dedicated graphics.

The NVidia Optimus solution is particularly clever because when it’s not needed, the tablet will automatically switch over to the Intel HD 3000 on board graphics chip. That means that NVidia 3D graphics power is there when you need it (gaming, AutoCAD, Solidworks, 3D graphics work), but not wasting battery life when you don’t (spread sheets, email, web etc).

The current model available is the Intel Core i5 NVidia Optimus model. Specs and purchasing details can be found here:

Fujitsu T901 with NVidia Dedicated Graphics

Out tests so far show that it is as expected… Awesome!

Quicknav is a sidebar shortcut application that allows quick and convenient access to things like the integrated camera, video and voice recording functions via a touch friendly interface.

On the CL900 it can comfortably replace the ExTouch software that ships with the device for a couple of reasons:

• Easier access to camera functions
• Full access to the camera’s full 3Mp resolution
• Easy selection of front or back camera
• Geo-tagging via the CL900’s inbuilt satellite based GPS
• Camera based barcode scanning function.

Dialkeys has actually been around for many years now. I first encountered it on the Samsung Q1 UMPC device about 5 years ago. It has come along way, but some features like the alternative onscreen keyboard still work great with a touch screen device like the CL900.

Barcode Reader

Quicknav offers users the ability to capture barcodes using the devices inbuilt front and back cameras. This feature should not to be confused with the CL900s upcoming inbuilt barcode scanner option.

Capturing Barcodes with an inbuilt camera is only for very occasional use and cannot be compared to inbuilt dedicated barcode scanning hardware. If you need to scan more than about 5 barcodes a day you will want to go with a dedicated barcode scanner as the camera method is too slow and fiddly to use.

Number Pad

On the input front, the on screen Number Pad function is fantastic for entering data in places like Excel spread sheets. You’ll find that the number keys are big and easier to use with touch. The keypad seems to be fixed to the right hand side – sorry Leftys!

Camera

As mentioned above, the camera functionality of the Quicknav software allows you to easily access the full 3 megapixels of the inbuilt front and back webcams.

You can now also geo-tag photos taken with the inbuilt camera. Geo-tagging takes GPS coordinates from the inbuilt GPS on the CL900 and adds them to the properties of the photo. A time stamp can also be added as well as an arbitrary text stamp.

Download Quicknav here:

http://www.motioncomputing.com/drivers/CL900/CL900_Motion_QuickNav_v1118_RN.htm

It’s currently in Beta, so don’t be surprised if you find a bug here or there!

More information on the Motion Computing CL900 here.

Handheld / Standalone Mobile Barcode Scanner

For Tablet PCs with a USB port or Bluetooth Connection (i.e. all of our Tablet PCs) we have standalone micro barcode scanners like the Opticon OPN2001 and Opticon OPN2002. These features some amazing capabilities such as:

• Tiny 29gram weight in a matchbox size
• Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Polymer Batteries
• An impressive array of 1D and 2D barcode support
• Up to 25,000 Barcode Scan Storage
• Bluetooth and USB connectivity
• Easy USB charging via the ubiquitous mini USB standard port.

Opticon OPN2002 – Bluetooth and USB version for live Bluetooth, USB connecting and batch scanning.

Opticon OPN2001 – USB Only version for USB connected or batch scanning.

These two barcode scanners can be integrated directly into your software with an extensive SDK available. Our models come pre-configured for direct entry (keyboard wedge) input so that you can easily deploy these scanners with your Tablet PC without any extra configuration.

Integrated Barcode Scanner

The other option is to have the Barcode Scanner integrated into your tablet PC directly. For a number of years now the Motion Computing F5v has offered this feature as an option. An example can be seen below.

Motion Computing will also soon release a version of their CL900 tablet with an integrated Barcode Scanner option.

Other devices such as the CL900 can scan barcodes via the integrated rear facing camera, however this is very inefficient when compared to a dedicated purpose built barcode scanner. To try out this feature on the Motion Computing CL900, download the new QuickNav Beta for CL900.

Interestingly the article demonstrates that much of the push for consumer tablets comes from the simple communication needs of executives and board members. For that, consumer tablets like the iPad can do just fine – security policies permitting.

But for ADT security who wanted to deploy tablets for 80 field technicians, the iPad was never going to cut it. Mark Norton, managing director for ADT in Australia is quoted:

"iPads don’t have the power we need. We’re interfacing with disparate systems."

"Customers sign the tablet and the document is instantly loaded into our enterprise system and emailed to the customer," says Norton.

"Laptops don’t allow customers to sign, tablets do."

ADT deployed the Motion Computing J3500 – a rugged Windows 7 tablet designed specifically for field work. It also has an active digitizer pen interface the allows the technicians to input information in their handwriting and also allows customers to sign on the screen.

Mark Norton’s comments echo our experience with deploying tablets to companies like Rio Tinto, Newcrest Mining, Jemena, SP Ausnet, Goulburn Murray Water, Youi Insurance, Dennis Family Homes and many more. Field users require far more than a consumer tablet can offer.

There are many considerations that businesses take into account including:

• Lack of support for existing applications (deploying remote applications to an iPad is an unworkable compromise)

• No rugged design – Consumer tablets are not designed to be used outdoors, on building or mine sites and in rugged environments. Adding a bulky bump case does not make a consumer tablet rugged.
• Limited input options – Consumer tablets do not support usable handwriting input. Handwriting is much faster than one handed typing on a virtual keyboard.
• Lack of features in available apps – For example the Excel spread sheet readers like Apple’s “Numbers” do not support many formulas or any macros.
• Cost of developing specific company apps for the next big platform  – It’s only a matter of time before Android takes over in the consumer tablet space like it is doing in the phone space. Which platform do you throw tens, or hundreds of thousands of dollars at? Or do you just go with small tweaks (if needed) on your existing investment?

Thousands of companies in Australia have already deployed tablets to improve their workflow and eliminate double handling. It is good to see an article in the mainstream media presenting the less sexy side of the tablet world with some balance.