RM Slate 100 - Anyone got theirs yet?

[Dos_Box]

I shall be doing a review in the next week of it and will have it on the stand at BETT for you all to have a play with.

[tech_guy]

I think I'll just stick to my iPad....

[Dos_Box]

What have you done to you iPad to make it sticky?

[Dos_Box]

You'd best not answer that. Apple fanboys are a strange bunch. Oh, and if Macs are so easy to use, why is it that every time I visit the Apple store in Manchester there is a HUGE queue for the genius bar?

[dhicks]

I'll sell you an RM "Slate" for £100, its running XP, looks pants and err is about 6 years old.

Thanks, I have one - I replaced the harddrive with an SSD, put in a new battery, re-installed and trimmed down Windows XP a bit and now I use it as my main work PC. It manages web browsing with Firefox just fine, although it does occasionally have to have a pause to get its breath back if you've got a number of tabs open.

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David Hicks

[jpaterson]

Well, according to the site, mine has been dispatched and shall be with me tomorrow, but has anyone else got theirs yet?
For those of you who don't know, RM is releasing a 'full fat' slate. Intel Atom, 2GB RAM, 32GB SSD, multi-touch and all fro £399. Anyway the specs and a link are below:

Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium

Processor: Intel Pineview-M N450 + ICH8M, 1.66 GHz



Connections: Bluetooth 2.1, EDR, integrated 802.11b/g/n WiFi

Processor speeds: 1.6GHz, 667MHz, 512K (200MHz)

Graphics option: discrete Broadcom Crystal 1080p HD Video Accelerator

Memory: 2Gb 800MHz DDR2

Mass storage memory: SSD 32GB

Battery: embedded Lithium-ion Polymer 2-cell (35.52Whr, 7.4V, 4800m Ah, 2S1P)

Battery life: over 3 hrs

Camera: 1.3M pixel (fix focus) webcam

Screen: TFT LCD 11.6" HD GLARE with increased view angle support (1366 X 768)

Touch panel: capacity multi-touch panel (real two points), display orientation (3-axis

sensing)

Audio: 2 X built-in speakers (1.5W), 1 X microphone

Interface: 26-pin dock connector, DC-in jack, Mini-HDMI, 2 X USB 2.0, OMTP jack, SD

card slot, SIM card slot



Total size: 295 X 195 X 14 mm

Total weight: 995g

Casing: Magnesium Alloy with rubberised grip finish

RM Slate 100

I was at the point of clicking 'buy' on the RM Store, but I really wanna hold out for an HP slate 500. As yet still no news on when they'll be in the UK.

I know you'll be doing a review in a few days, but can I ping a few questions to you on the RM Slate. They'll be (I hope) easy questions....

Jay

[Dos_Box]

Sure, feel free.

[maniac]

I had several of those awful Compaq 'tablets' with the foldaway KB and VIA CPU. Utterly useless they were.

We had 200 HP/Compaq tabelt PCs when I started where I am now, they were rubbish - only had a 800mhz CPU and 256mb ram and you couldn't upgrade them. Gave the 120 or so that still worked together with a boxful of spares to charity in the end, best thing I ever did. Even now 2 years on they still turn up at the back of cupboards every now and then.

Best use I found for one however is mounting one on the wall of my kitchen to act as a media player reading music from my main PC, works very well for this purpose.

[jpaterson]

Thanks Dos_Box,

First one is, initially, does there look to be any software / drivers to run /operate the Sim Card slot for 3G?

Next, does teh unit look like it is upgradeable? For example, access hatches for RAM or battery, or perhaps screws to take the rear cover off?

What are you planning on using yours for?

Thats it mate. thanks!

[kili]

He does have an account in AD though. So when prompted, he puts in his user details and has access. There's just no machine level access.

No ones saying its long term useable, but you can get access to domain hosted installers, etc

That's interesting I never realised you could do that I thought the user and the computer both needed accounts in AD to connect to files on the server.

[dhicks]

I never realised you could do that I thought the user and the computer both needed accounts in AD to connect to files on the server.

Just to add more confusion, don't forget that any client autenticating against your AD server will need a CAL, i.e. if users bring in home computers they should be able to connect just fine but you will need to pay for a CAL (£3-ish?) for each computer.

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David Hicks

[SimpleSi]

don't forget that any client autenticating against your AD server will need a CAL,

So, if I don't setup AD on the server, can I save the £3

Simon

[AngryITGuy]

Mines been despatched since Monday and its still not here, just had an email to say the stylus has been delayed till the new year!

Really looking forward to getting my hands on it and trying it out.

We plan on using it as an interactive slate to VNC the workstation connected to the whiteboard.

[Dos_Box]

Well, it's arrived and is a cracking tablet. I'll get a preliminary review up as soon as I can, however let me just say, it's solidly built, nippy and the screen is great. However, (there is aways a 'however') W7 is not suited as an easy to use tablet OS. I think Micosoft really need to reskin W7 for tablets, and as a matter of urgency too. Also, it has a SIM card slot but no built in 3G modem (grrr!!). As for access to the device there are no visable screws and it looks like the back of the device may just be 'pop-on\off. I'm not willing to test that theory yet though, but I think Ubuntu netbook edition may be on the cards. More to follow, but let me finish by saying that I think RM have a definate winner here in that they have got the features and price point just right, but W7 really needs some tweaking to get the icons and text more visable, and IMHO, if you are going to stick with W7 then a stylus is going to be de-rigur when operating it as menues and small icons are very fiddly when just using your fingers.

[jpaterson]

Thanks for the update Dos_Box.

With regards to teh Win7 finger interface, try increasing the screen DPI. It helped heaps on my Lenovo S10-3T, You'll need to have a few goes at it to find the right balance between size and real estate.