Slates and tablets have both been around for a while. I actually owned a slate first before I got one of my many tablets. I currently have a TX2500 tablet pc and a Fujitsu slate tablet. Both have their virtues and drawbacks
I like my tx2500 for its relative computing power and its similarity to the more expensive TX2 series.
The difference between the two is that the TX2500 lacks the multitouch that the TX2 has. Not a big deal for me.
Another consideration is that most slates are thin and will lack an internal CD/DVD/Burner like the TX/TX2 have.
I do like my slate though because it is very thin and light and with the extended battery, I can get close to 6 hours of use running windows XP tablet pc edition. Its a great platform for taking notes on and I'm sure it would be good for graphic design.
The problem most people face when trying to decide about a tablet purchase is that not many retailers sell/display them, and if they display a tablet, its setup more like a laptop and you can't rotate the screen.

Heres two things that I consider important. My tablet is thick and I sometimes find it a bit uncomfortable writing on it for long periods due to the angle I have to keep my hand at. Mu slate is very thin...about as thich as 1 1/2 legal pads and about the same size and is very comfortable to take notes on. Its also much lighter. I have also found that placing something under either my tablet or my slate to put the screen at a slight angle makes it a bit more comforatable to write on.

Hope that gives you some insight.

David

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/xz550rj/HPMagicGiveaway.jpg

Woohoo! I won my Touchsmart!

The slate I own is a bit older its a Fujitsu ST5010D with a 1.5 GhZ CPU and 2 gigs og RAM. By todays standards, its a bit slow. Fujitsu still makes a slate series tablet PC and they are up to dual core, etc now but still basically the same thin and handy form factor. Very good and reliable IMHO.
The TX2500 is a very good tablet. It was discontinued shortly after I bought it earlier this year. Its big brother the TX is the same tablet except it has the multitouch n-trig digitizer. My feelings are that HP discontinued the TX2500 because it was half the price of the TX2 and was cutting into its sales. It was by no means any less capable, in fact with the aggravation that a lot of people are having with the screen and digitizer, the TX2500 IMO, is much better.
I'll be starting grad school next fall and both my TX2500 and my fujitsu tablet will be right there along with me. The TX2500 is more than capable of running th eprograms I need, in fact, I have been beta testing (yes, oficially) office 2010 on it and it runs quite well.
One thing I do to make my tablet experience a little better is to turn off the "touch" feature of the digitizer if I'm going to be doing a lot of penning. If the pen is at least 1" from the screen, your fingers and hands won't effect the touch but if you lift the pen up any highte, your palm or fingers will act as input mechanisms. So if I'm doing a lot of penning I turn that off. If I'm going to surf or just browse around, I turn touch back on and use my finger to scroll through web pages or documnets.
As far as the touchsmart and penning, its not designed for it. I have and 816 which is in the same gfamily as the 847 and it is designed for finger input. The digitizer works by menas of sensors around the screen, so its accurate for fingers but not so accurate a s a real tablet when it comes to stylus/pen input. It will work, but not nearly as good as a tablet will.
My (and some may disagree) screams. Comapred to what I used to have - Athlon 3500 (1.5 Ghz) with 2 gigs of RAM and an Nvidia 256mb graphics card - my touchsmart with its core duo and 4 gigs of RAM and the 512 MB Nvidia card absolutely runs circles arounf my older PC. I play Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Medal of honor with all the settings on max and it doesn't even hiccup. (warning...the bigger screen tends to give me motion sickness playing MOH...LOL)
All my programs run smoothly on it and I' have tuned it to perfection running the RC of Windows 7 but I still dual boot between it and Vista. Vista, IMO runs well on it. SOme people have had issues with slowness but I thing that may be related to some of the bloatware that comes a long with any OEM PC, particularly the Norton garbage. Clean that up and thigs will/should run well.

Take Care,

David

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/xz550rj/HPMagicGiveaway.jpg

Woohoo! I won my Touchsmart!

DaveTN I also have the TX2500 and use it on a daily basis. Its a wonderful laptop. I also bought it about 2 weeks before it was discontinued and was going to trade it in on the new model until I saw that it was not a Wacom based screen. I am not an artist or anything but I just trusted and liked the Wacom screens better. I do wish it was about a pound lighter and about an hour better on battery life. My ultimate wish is that HP would go back to the TC1100 form factor so that when I needed the keyboard I could take it, and when I just wanted the slate I could detach it.

tyorkca said: DaveTN I also have the TX2500 and use it on a daily basis. Its a wonderful laptop. I also bought it about 2 weeks before it was discontinued and was going to trade it in on the new model until I saw that it was not a Wacom based screen. I am not an artist or anything but I just trusted and liked the Wacom screens better. I do wish it was about a pound lighter and about an hour better on battery life. My ultimate wish is that HP would go back to the TC1100 form factor so that when I needed the keyboard I could take it, and when I just wanted the slate I could detach it.

Oh how I miss the TC1000/1100!!  My very first tablet was a TC1000.  I sold it and bought a TC1100 which I loved.  I should have never gotten rid of it.  In my eyes, it was the "perfect" tablet pc.  Why HP dropped that formfactor is beyond my comprehension but goes down in my books as one of the biggest corporate blunders...well, maybe not that big, but they should have continued to develop and improve it.

David

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/xz550rj/HPMagicGiveaway.jpg

Woohoo! I won my Touchsmart!

About the only tablet that I have nto had is a Dell. (I'm not a big fan of Dell because of their poor service reputation). I have had a Toshiba Portege 3505 tablet and a Toshiba M200 (Wacom Digitizers) and both were good. The M200 was a solid built workhorse, IMO, besided the TC1100, one of the best tablets I have owned. I also use one at work in a medical environment and it has lasted over 4 years of very heavy abusive use and still works well. But, both of those toshibas ar not made any more. I also have a Gateway CX2620 that uses the Finepoint Digitizer wich is similar to the one that was in the HP TC1000. The TC1100 used the better Wacom digitizer. The Gateway tablet is well built and has not given me any problems but it is more like a desktop replacement than a tablet - it weighs A LOT. It was always much too heavy to use as a portable tablet.
There are two websites that I frequent that are very tablet oriented aand have lots of discussions about the various tablets on the market. I by no means want to steer you away from here and would like to help you, so check out www.tabletpcbuzz.com and www.gottabemobile.com . Both sites have lots of good tablet discussions going and have been around for many years. Check them out and you should learn a lot.

Take Care,

David

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l299/xz550rj/HPMagicGiveaway.jpg

Woohoo! I won my Touchsmart!