Cheap Tablet PC | Tablet Laptops | Tablet Computers

The prestigious Apple have just launched a Tablet PC on the 3rd of April in the United States of America, called the iPad.
The iPad is probably the most sought after Tablet PC in the whole world, and it costs as low as 499$, which indeed was a great surprise, as a lot of people were expecting it to be priced much higher. This $499 version comes with a 16GB and only wi-fi only, no 3G. For the 32GB model, it goes for $599, the 64GB for $699, and for a 3G version, it goes for $130 extra.
Below a video introduction of the powerful iPad!

We have started receiving messages from our users asking what is cheap tablet PC.
A Tablet PC is a personal computer with a form factor similar to a laptop, and the major difference between them is that a tablet has a touch-screen interface, meaning that you don’t need to user a mouse to operate the computer, instead you can use your fingers or a pen!
Tablet PC’s are not a new concept, they have been around the market for a few years, however they used to be very expensive, and the other problem is that usually the interface was not really specially design to be used in touch-screen devices. Nowadays we can find Tablet PC’s for 500$ or cheaper.

An eBook Reader is a device used to display ebooks. An eBook is a book in electronic format, usually in PDF). Since last year when Amazon introduced Kindle, it made Amazon a very big profit for the year, just this fact, makes it very obvious for the success of these devices.

Ebook readers seem to be the craze of 2009, nevertheless a tablet PC can do exactly the same job as an ebook reader, and more. As such it makes a tablet PC cheap compared to the norm price of an eBook Reader at 300-400$.

So don’t worry if you just bought a tablet PC during the last year or so, you can still put it to good use with some simple software.

There are generally three different types of media that you can read on your Table PC: books, newspapers and magazines. Books can be bought (downloaded) from online stores, newspapers and magazines can be subscribed online. For online subscriptions, they can be automatically scheduled to be downloaded to your machine. Each of these have different requirement thus different software (readers) required.

The three main readers on the market are:

• Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader
• Microsoft Reader
• Palm Reader

For Newspapers and magazines:

• Newsstand.com Newspaper Reader
• Zinio Magazine Reader

A tablet PC is a laptop in which the display is a touchscreen, or a graphics tablet hybrid. The main difference of a tablet PC to a normal laptop is that the user can directly interact with the computer simply using a fingertip, instead of using a mouse or keyboard.

Nevertheless a keyboard is in most cases present, as it is still much more convenient to type on a keyboard then on a screen, due to the lack of feedback.

Size

The standard size for a tablet PC is around 12”, although larger tablet PC’s exist, 12” is the standard that most tablet PC’s manufacturers have adopted to. The main reason is due to less power consumption, smaller in size, and lighter in weight. They usually run on 1200×800 resolution.

Software

The most commonly used nowadays is the Windows XP Tablet PC edition by Microsoft, which is a superset of Windows XP Professional. There has been no Tablet PC edition for Windows Vista, as probably if a new version would come out, would be on Windows 7.

For running the Apple’s Mac OS X, Axiotron have launched a modified version of the Macbook, called Modbook.

For Linux, there is ProGear by FrontPath and also TabletKiosk, which runs on SUSE Linux.

Prices

Since this tablet technology is pretty recent, it’s obvious that it isn’t easy to find a very cheap tablet PC, nevertheless they can be bought from $1,000, up to $4,000 for more high-end models.

Advantages

• Light weight – Portable
• Easy ability to use in unconventional environments, such as lying in bed or standing
• Can use it as a conventional notebook to save non-character based information, such as diagrams

Disadvantages

• High cost
• Handwriting is considerably slower than typing on a keyboard
• The screen has a higher risk of damage
• Their size can also be a disadvantage, as not only the screen is smaller, the keyboard also