Saturday, August 04, 2007

On the Road but this time with an R400



This may sound like a post someone else on the team has written - not Hugo! But yes, I can confirm that I will be hitting the road on an extended vacation (to Europe!) and my primary machine is going to be the Toshiba R400! While I deliberated over my choice extensively eventually it came down to a couple of criteria:

  • Screen size,
  • Battery life,
  • Processing Power ,
  • And Screen Brightness,

I must admit that I fell in love with the look of the R400 upon its first release; having said that I fell in love with the OQO model 02 also. The OQO has been my best friend and companion for quite some time now but when it came time to deciding how I was going to be mobile while away I had to think of my eyes and my mind. My eyes could not tolerate the 5" screen as a primary device for such an extended period (two months) while on the other side of the equation is my mind! I am a highly visual person and the screen brightness and resolution of the Toshiba R400 is absolutely irresistible.



I will post a video soon of my new R4OO but in keeping with my 2GB theme several weeks back you will be happy to know that the first operation I performed on R400 is a RAM upgrade! It proudly now sports 3GBs of RAM. The other interesting thing I found out was that there is actually a SIM card slot in my device! It is hidden under the keyboard, and right under that there is an empty PCI-express card slot! I will be doing all I can to turn it into a HSDPA animal! I will keep you posted!

11 comments:

Savoury Crits said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Savoury Crits said...

For all the reasons you mentioned for choosing the r400 as your tablet of choice the x60 or x61 sounds like they would have been a better match & much more durable/ road worthy machines? How comes it wasn't a contender?

Dave said...

awesome machine hugo... you got me on the mysterious sim card slot! surely you can just pull the miniPCIe card out of the everun or a samsung, or whatever machine that was that had the cingular HSDPA card in it from a while back - let me know how you fair.


D

Anonymous said...

Hi Hugo, I too have an R400 and I love it. It is my first tablet pc and I fell in love with it when you did a show with someone else who had just gotten one(sorry can't remember his name). Anyways, my only disappointment has been that the viewing angle on the screen is not up to par to a Fujitsu Txxx that I saw at a store. The viewing angle does not inhibit my work but it is a minor annoyance, how do you feel about it?

Hugo Gaston Ortega said...

@drtigerlilly:

hi Dr. Tigerlilly,

No competition mate. Look at Dennis Rice on GBM and you will notice that te screen size and screen brightness is all in favour of the R400! Plus I hate the touchscreen on the X60/61 Lenovo Tablets. I favours the pen which is great but with a Active Digitizer also int he package what use is a Touchscreen which favours Palm ejection!

R400 hands down!

@Dave:

Good point. I get my EVERUN with HSPDA inside back on Monday and will try it then! I have ordered a new module however and will try with a dedicated card too.

Keep you/blog posted!

@Miguel:

Good point! I can't find it too annoying however as I arely share my screen with anyone and I also tend to use it in Slate mode a lot and this seems to help.

The best this I ever did I throw 4GB of RAM inside! More on that soon.

Anonymous said...

Yes Hugo keep us posted on the R400 on well it performs in the real world. I really like that Tablet but, concern of battery life. Also have fun on your vacation wish I had a two month vacation LOL.

HG

Anonymous said...

Awww, now I need to open up mine and see if I have that SIM slot too!

Is it just under the keyboard ? Sadly my screwdriver is too big. I have to go to the hardware store this week!

Savoury Crits said...

Glad you're loving your tablet, but the x60/61 tablets also have an option of the active digitizer only. (The SXGA model)
Anyway all the best w/ your tablet!!

Anonymous said...

Yes, please keep us posted on your HSDPA efforts!

I recently bought an R400 myself and am very eager to hear how this turns out!

Btw, is there anything other than wireless a/b/g etc a mini-pci express card can do??

M

Anonymous said...

Hugo!

I removed my keyboard today on my R400 and found the SIM slot just like you did.

Have you got anywhere with your HSDPA adventure? I need help getting it going myself! I tried putting in my Telstra Next-G SIM but nothing happened.

Have you got any ideas?

Please help!
M :)

Twan said...

Hi, I too agree that a R400 is an awesome Tablet PC. Just wonder why they fitted the sim card slot underneath the keyboard ? Does anyone have like a technical documentation of how to remove the keyboard ? Would help greatly, since getting help at the 3rd level help service in Belgium, is like calling your mother in law for technical guidance. They know nothing.

Thanks.