Dell Latitude XT tablet unboxing
By Evan Blass 
posted Jan 18th 2008 10:07AM
posted Jan 18th 2008 10:07AM
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Everybody needs to shut it about the "low resolution."
First of all, it's not THAT LOW. And second, what do you want, super tiny buttons and small text when you're trying to touch them with a pen - or you finger?! When you're using a tablet it's not for ultra fine Blu-ray viewing. It's for getting s&*# done. A higher resolution wouldn't help that, it would impede it. I (sadly) have to use tablets at work all the time. If the crap on the screen was any smaller I'd frustrate myself into a coma.
A higher resolution screen isn't used to make things smaller, it's to make them look better. With a higher resolution screen, you can, of course, fit more on the screen if you don't mind things being smaller, but if that's not what you want then you can simply adjust the size of your icons/text/whatever to suit your preference. Besides price, there are no drawbacks to using a higher resolution screen.
If you have ever really used "large fonts" or changed the DPI in Windows, you'll notice immediately that it looks messy and crappy.
Seriously, this resolution is just right for the screen size and for the purpose of the hardware. Higher resolutions might look better in some cases, but I just don't think that it would necessarily be more useful here. I mean, the screen really isn't that big. And it's not going to look BAD by any means at all.
Who said it was low resolution? For a 12.1" screen, 1280x800 is standard. I don't think they make 12.1" screens in higher resolution.
The article casually bitches about it.
"...the relatively low resolution and high price may be too much for some to bear..."
There's commenters on here asking for a 1600+ resolution on this screen, too... WTF? WHY?!
Vista has largely fixed misproportioning when you change DPI. That's why the start button is round and the min/max/close buttons are so rectangular compared to the XP's squares. Tablet-usage is great, even when the DPI is low.
Yeah, but tablet's suck if you're not designing or drafting.
"If you have ever really used "large fonts" or changed the DPI in Windows, you'll notice immediately that it looks messy and crappy."
Explorer is horrible. Get a better DE.
Oh wait, you don't /have any/.
Seconded...Infact I support all your legit reasons... instead I'd rather go for the Lenovo X Series (tablet) and pay even less...to be exact about ~900$.
so what would be the best tablet to get for a non power user.( small presentations / email / internet ) and also lightweight for mobility with wireless ?
That is an idiotic thing to say, a higher resolution does not mean things have to be smaller. Changing the DPI setting to a custom level can easily resolve that issue.
A higher resolution screen would be welcomed by many, especially at the price they are asking for these things.
Eeeeh, that DPI stuff... it rarely looks good. Text and icons spill into one another and things just start to look sloppy. Very sloppy. And if you're just going to make everything bigger anyway with the DPI settings, would a higher resolution really benefit you THAT much?
Truth be told, though, I haven't had a chance to see how well that works on Vista yet (only XP). Maybe they've taken some strides in the right direction and I'd be impressed.
I have the DPI turned up in Vista on my TV at home and (with the exception of a few websites that can't handle it) I have no problems at all. Almost every application I have scales perfectly with the exception of Firefox. Icons and labels scale perfectly.
@smartkid....i'd recommend eee pc or may be wait till touchscreen eeepc launches....
OR just forcefully become a power user and shed some benjamins on the Lenovo X series or one of the thin Fujitsu lifebooks... (only do this when you have paid the power user fee and your application 2 be a power user has been accepted .. :-)
Did anyone notice that Dell unit has a two-prong power cable? I am beginning to wonder...
That's just an ungrounded Australian power connector.
and for the guy above 1280 x 800 on a 12" does not suit all people imo i would love to see a 1440x900 or better yet 1680 x 1050 on that laptop
Yeah! Give me back my 1680x1050 bee-otch!
Yeah, that's pretty much unheard of. No one has regular 12.1" screens at that resolution; what makes you think Dell (especially Dell) would have anything higher on a 12.1" capacitive touch screen?
I've had a chance to check this thing out first hand. It is a really nice looking tablet PC, but it looks like I wont be trading in my X61T anytime soon. The hinges on the tablet screen feel flimsy making me wonder if physical integrity of the unit can be maintained. I can just picture them coming loose and ordering new hinges and LCD lids down the road.
smartkid: The Fujitsu T2010 is exactly the same machine as the Dell XT except it doesn't have the Touch capabilities. The pen is much better than touch anyways. It can be had for as low as $1400 at a few popular online resellers.
god this thing is ugly.
I've had the XT for about a week and a half and all I can say is I love it. It's my first tablet and I may love it because a have a 17 pound desktop replacement laptop (Sager 9890 P4 3.8G 2Gig 2-100Gb 7200RPM RAID 0 7800 GTX 17" WUXGA Glossy TV Tuner Bluetooth 2-8x DVD+- combo drive with DVD+R DL) that I was lugging around. But I'm hoping to post up a video on youtube this weekend (most likely Sunday) so here is what I have, 1.2GHz Core2Dou,Vista Ultimate, 120GB 5400RPM, the LED screen, 802.11n, Bluetooth, built in AT&T HSDPA WWAN card, 6 Cell Battery, also the 45w/hr battery slice that I'm still waiting on receiving order it after initial order). Purchased a slow a$$ 32GB SSD Express card from Transend for extra storage and a 16GB SDHC SD card from A-Data for storage and ready boost, and a 250GB Western Digital Passport to create image backups.
Have any questions or things you want to see in the video let me know.
Also total of 3GB of RAM
I do like this tablet. It's a very nice start for DELL in this market
a higher resolution gives a sharper picture. in the obivious future of resolution independance (especially with tablets) its good to have nicer graphics and future proofing. higher resolution is always better, i run my 1680x1050 dell monitor at 1280x768 resolution on windows and is very good and bigger to the eye and i can switch to 1680 and get a much sharper picture and a smaller gui. by future i mean we should see a switch to touch interface on mobile tablets like a Vista Media Center gui
Dell’s XT notebook has been a huge disappointment for me with Vista. Very sluggish with maximum power and even on battery saving mode the battery really only last about 2 hours at best. I also have the ATG and even running on full mode I easily get 3 and half hours out of it. I am a huge Dell user with over 700 units in our facility but this has been one of the most disappointing units we have used.
Executive toy at best.
Wait, so you get a new machine running Vista, notice that it's 'sluggish', and blame the /machine/?
...how does it perform under a /real/ OS? Anybody got hackint0SX, Ubuntu, Nexenta, or FreeBSD running on this thing?
note: I do not condone the use of Apple products (Apple is evil), but OSX is a pretty polished BSD, as they go.
Okay so now I have nuked Vista and installed XP Tablet, wow the same results. Disapointment. Its cute and all but its an executives toy really.