Tablet Pc's

[Airlea]

Does anyone know anything about these? My best friend wants to get one so she can use it at school. She's a teaching assistant with developmental disabled youth in one of the high schools.

I hadn't heard of these until a month ago. Does anyone have any experience with them?

[Dorkorama]

I've had mine since last December. (About two months.) It's a "convertible" style which has a digitizer screen (works only with special stylii) and a keyboard, like a typical laptop. The screen can be turned backwards and latched face-up, though, to use the digitizer input and few on-monitor buttons.

The other style is refered to as slate, which is just the screen built directly into the base computer. No keyboard, no twisting, and generally more rugged.
Also, other models can come with touch sensitive screens that you can use with your fingers, not just a stylus.

Performance ranges everywhere from battery-sipping sub-gigahertz to desktop replacing powerhouses. So does weight, which can be anywhere from about 3 pounds (mainly slates) to over 6 pounds (convertibles and ruggedized tablets designed for military use.)

And now back on track : I suppose one could be found that is rugged enough and has a daylight viewable screen to be used in a school enviroment as you portrayed. I really don't know how accurate / responsive the touch screen is with resisitve input, so I can't make any sort of judgment on whether the students could easily utilize one.

Lastly, I'd recommend that the system be loaded with Windows Tablet PC 2005 edition. The earlier Tablet Edition did not work too well, and Windows CE will not run the vast majority of software as it is a completely different operating system.
Oh, there are other tablet-like computers out there that don't run Microsoft operating systems. (Tablet PC is trademarked, so other names are used.) I don't recall there being an Apple offering.