TPT for College

[balancing]

Nick...I've tried Quill & Writepad Stylus. Both have a stylus only option, which I believe is VERY necessary! But I prefer Writepad Stylus. Try them both & decide yourself!

[pghFL]

Issue is with Docs to Go. There are better programs out there, which I use, but DtG works adequately.

[knochentrocken]

Hi,

I use mine for college, too (med school). As for taking all my notes on it I am too concerned that I would have to ship it in when I need the notes, seeing that I haven't had my tablet for over a month now with the rapair taking so long and all the hassle I had to go through. Therefor I use paper for important notes. For problem solving, sketches, studying I use Quill. However, there is nothing like ezPDF and the professor's script on it. I can annote all his slides while he lectures about them. Furthermore, many great PDFs are handed out by the tutors and professors that you would otherwise need to print off if you want to add things to them... A very handy fact is that for medicin a lot of great apps and ebooks are available and you can image how much easier it is to carry the TPT then a 1000 page anatomy book. Also you can annote those ebooks... I would'n buy any other tablet even now after the mayor problems I had/ have.

Best regards,

knochentrocken.

[FDP]

Positives: Quill and Repligo, Dropbox & Actual version of PrinterShare (not the limited trial Lenovo pawned off on users). I have a pretty tight setup where I write out notes in Quill, annotate as needed in either Quill or Repligo, then print out wirelessly to a Wifi Printer using PrinterShare (hardcopy is a must) and send to Dropbox. The printer and those apps can be had for ~$100 if you go with a cheap B&W Wifi Brother Laser (fine for low-volume usage). 

Negatives: Support, build-quality. Lenovo just doesn't seem to want to stand behind this product, I think they are already planning on releasing something else in the near future, and hoping that we TPT users just fade away after the warrenties expire. This is NOT a Thinkpad. Thinkpad is a solid brand that traditionally has good support if you know how the game works (if you understand that as a user you can get a part number for many of the things that break on your laptop and get the part overnighted from Lenovo). I don't think the TPT has any user-replacable parts, and support is incompetant.

Recommendation: Wait for something else. Personally I hate HTC (same attitude towards products that is infuriating everyone), but they may be the only ones to bring active pen support any time soon. If ASUS, Acer or HTC comes out with an active pen Tegra 3 I think most of this forum will probably jump ship. I wish there was a great Thinkpad Tablet, but this sadly isn't it.

[dsoton]

Just a few comments on overall usage, beyond those I've made before - from a University staff perspective:

- For notes I currently prefer Writepad Stylus to Quill, although Quill has developed so  rapidly that the gap is pretty narrow now. The 'inking' experience on Quill is now superior in my opinion and the best in any app I have used to date. The notebooks feature may convert me, that was my main reason for preferring Writepad stylus - and I prefer the lined paper in it. I have taken notes in meetings then email the .png to myself and drag in MS OneNote on my 'main' computer. this works well for me and is adequte short of a OneNote compatbile app.

- exPDF is good for reading and marking up papers, etc. as well as slides. I prefer it to Repligo for the inking experience, but as with the notes apps it's a personal preference.

- someone on this forum recommended Touchdown as an email client and I think this is pretty good and use this.

- I have managed to connect to my network drive at work using Astro and this is good for file transfers now.

I have the keyboard dock/folio and the keyboard quality is good. Slightly disappointed with the combined weight, but you can't have everything!

Overall, I have not had the problems many report on here and am pretty satisfied with the quality of the hardware. the battery life and screen quality have been what I was looking for. Any problems are more the deficiencies of the software - either Android, or the apps available to use the stylus in my view:

- Documents to Go I find a bit disappointing. It does display simple word documents OK, but it cannot cope with equations, etc. and this is frustrating as an engineer. You can create/edit documents and this is fine. Excel is OK too for single 'tab' sheets, but I cannot see how to view different tabs on a spreadsheet and this is a major shortfall for me. The Powerpoint I find poor and it doesn't display slides well. For me creating .pdf on the PC and using exPDF on the TPT is much better. If there is a better Office suite for Android I would happily try it.

-  For projecting to a screen I use the Asus min-HDMI - VGA and this works well. Just wish I could then disable the Android soft-buttons, or better still replace them with a full screen .pdf.

Overall, I think this could be really useful for students if they value pen input and access to USB/SD cards. If they don't, then there may be better tablets out there - including the iPad2.

Hope this helps.

[Nick78]

Thanks for all your responses!  I'm going to hold out as long as I can to see if they to ICS for the TPT (and if they continue with other software/firmware updates), but it's good to see that you all get use out of this.  I will take heed of those who have had to send theirs in too.

Any more students? I'm sure I'm not the only one getting benifit from reading this.  Post an example page of real notes if you can!

[CSchwiening]

You might want to look at the Asus EA800. It is much, much better for plain note taking and pdf annotation. However, the screen is a passive greyscale LCD so that it is hard to read in poor lighting and there aren't many apps available for it. However, it is a fraction of the cost and has considerably longer battery life. It has no palm rejection issues as it is pen only. It really is a pleasure to use. But, it is really just a paper / note taking replacement device and not a fully blown computing solution.

[obscure_detour]

I use the TPT for college. This term for Calculus and Chem. I use my ThinkPad Tablet to take notes in class all the time. Here are some example math notes. Since its inception, I've been using Quill exclusively for all my note taking. Thanks Volker! 

I do not find it heavy or cumbersome at all. As a PDF e-reader/annotator it shines! I have 3 textbooks on it and it works great. I recommend Mantano Reader or ezPDF. I do not see why it wouldn't work great as an e-reader in general. I have a Gen3 kindle, so non-PDF e-reading would be done on it as it is easier on the eyes, battery life, a lot lighter, etc.

Bundled with the right add-ons, it can also be used as a means to write a paper, etc. (Although it'll be better when LibreOffice ports their suite to Android). 

• Using a HP TouchPad Bluetooth Keyboard & Logitech Wireless M305 mouse.

I now own all Android Office apps thanks to Amazon's daily free app. I'd say each are quirky honestly, but I simply like the UI of OfficeSuite Pro & QuickOffice Pro HD rather than the bundled Docs to Go. In the end, each work. Google Docs remains unusable for me due to some unknown bug that leaves me with a white screen.

I opted against the keyboard folio, due to them not being instock at the beginning, Lenovo plauging people's lives with direct orders and people complaining about the mouse. All in all, my setup is cheaper and maybe smaller/lighter albeit not as mobile... I also love this keyboard, it's practically full-size or at least feels it.

As a replacement to a laptop, it is almost there but not quite, the browsers available via market are more than enough. But, unforunately there are always bad apple sites such as this very forum that are simply a pain in the ass to use/navigate while on the TPT.

I get a lot of use out of it. But I'll be honest, without Quill, it wouldn't be getting much use other than a PDF reader/annotator and light browsing.

An article worth reading/skimming:  ThinkPad Tablet Experience by The Gadgeteer.

[Nick78]

obscure_detour:

Those are some sharp looking notes.  Thanks for being so thorough.  Do you go over them after lecture, or is that what you have when class ends?

CSchweining:

It looks like that tablet isn't exactly for sale in the US?

[obscure_detour]

Nick78:

Those are exactly what I have after class ends. I read through them and use them for reference when doing HW and studying, but I haven't edited them if that is what you're asking.

It's my pleasure for being thorough. I waited a few years for netbooks/tablets to finally implement a digitizer/stylus and am glad this works the way it does. I was very reluctant on adopting a device without having root. Overall it could be a much better experience, but am glad it at least works for what I need it for.

This coming Spring term will be very interesting. I am taking Bio, Chem 2, and Calc 2.

Hopefully, Lenovo will give us a ICS treat before or during this time as I am sure it'll make this experience much better.