Smaller Tablets

Mary Jo Foley is talking about the emergence of a new Tablet form factor:

First it was the slate. Then it was the PC-Tablet convertible. Now it’s a mini-Tablet that can do everything that a traditional Tablet PC can do, plus store electronic books, that could end up as the new gadget on which Microsoft is betting to further Tablet PC momentum.

Highlighting an ABC News Article which states

I am meeting with our tablet people about the idea of carrying text books around. They’ll have just a tablet device that they can call up the material on. That’s been a dream for a long time, we’re making progress there.

Personally I love the feel of an A5 notebook. There is something that it ‘just right’ about the size. The key thing though, would be weight and depth. If it’s too heavy it’s a problem and if it’s too think it’s a problem. I regularly carry such a thing around and I think I would be as happy with that as I was with the 12.1” screen on the HP I had for a while. But if I had that it wouldn’t fulfill my requirements in many of the areas where I found the tablet really useful, but then again the 12.1” screen wasn’t big enough either for those situation.

For personal note taking though, the A5 form factor would definitely be better than the A4 factor and it is big enough for viewing presentation and other such activities.

Would I use it as a primary device, I doubt it. It  would have to be truly powerful and come with an incredible docking option for that to happen. And by docking I’m not talking about cool hardware. I’m talking about software. Where the device immediately recognises that now I am connected to a larger monitor I can automatically rearrange the windows and the behaviour would change to utilise that kind of working. And as I am unlikely to use it as a primary device then the synchronisation technologies would have to go a lot further than they do today.