To pdf, or not to pdf?

[Catodon]

Oh, and digitals allow for back-ups. I lost my whole Call of Cthulu collection to a mysterious fire...

[mach1.9pants]

Well this is my new eReader/game side computer:

basically a fully fledged Windows 7 netbook, but with capacitive screen and touch friendly overlay

http://www.exopc.com/en/exopc-slate.php

And best thing cos it is full Win7 it is a work computer

[Sletchman]

Well this is my new eReader/game side computer:

basically a fully fledged Windows 7 netbook, but with capacitive screen and touch friendly overlay

http://www.exopc.com/en/exopc-slate.php

And best thing cos it is full Win7 it is a work computer

Can you use a stylus with it?

[Mister Andersen]

Bit of a short battery life

[Krensky]

Eh, not really. There's a lot of silicon there, a back light, wireless and no real room for a battery.

[Mister Andersen]

The iPad is meant to last for 10.

[Krensky]

The iPad is meant to last for 10.

The iPad is a giant cell phone, without the cell phone. Let me try again. The iPad is a giant iPod Touch.

That is a general purpose computer. Completely different animal. 4 hours for a feature loaded netbook (what it is) with a small battery is good. With the HD video it's very good.

[Dhampire]

At one point I had seen netbooks with a flash drive HD of 8-16 GB.  Those had 8-10 hour life.

In my local gaming group, GM with a netbook means all campaign material is easily kept together, along with some page-referencing abilities (especially as with Acrobat Reader 9, you can open a New Window for the document, and have the same one open 3-4 times).

As a player, I prefer to have a physical copy of my sheet & real dice.

[Nezeray]

I have a Dell mini 9 and use the pdf from my thumbdrive, this way I can use it on my desktop too.  I also keep adventures and characters in the same directory, very handy.

I have the hard copy to show off at demos and let people borrow. 

James /  Nezeray
Crafty demo  dood.

[Gentry]

Does your netbook have full Windows 7, or just the starter? I've heard bad bad things about Win7 Starter.

[Nezeray]

I just have XP, But it works just fine. 

James / Nezeray

[Gentry]

Heh. It didn't even occur to me that XP was probably just fine. And probably more stable on a little netbook.

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah the guys at EXO are really honest about their battery life figures, and the forum is like here. They get on and are honest with their assessment. 4 hours is with everything going, and before they have the new BIOS/SSD/screen set up that is in the final model. Also note it has (like the iPad) a sleep mode that that is activated in about 2 secs (wake or go to sleep) and in sleep mode you can stretch it out to 72 hours.

The thing about XP is it is really not touch friendly, Win 7 is better (but still not perfect) and with the EXO layer on top when required I think this will be good. Obviously the iPad is better battery life but that is just a big toy (my boss has one) and this is a tool AND a toy... and you have to use iTunes yech!

You can buy capacitive stylus', I already have mine- works good on my Galaxy S phone.

However this is the first of many Win 7 pads, so unless you have a desperate need for it you are best to wait til ealry next year. For me (I am in IT and I reckon I'll be selling Win7 tablets like hot cakes) with an old laptop and slow iRex eReader, I am happy to go for an early adopter model.. knowing that there will be teething troubles and performance won't be the best... i.e. already dual core atoms are out!

[Mister Andersen]

I'm actually waiting for google to bring out an Android pad before I seriously think of buying one, but as I already have a nifty lap top I'm primarily looking for just an e-reader

[mach1.9pants]

There are some good android tablets out now/soon, but until Google open up the market to tablets (Android 3 end of year) it is premature to get one... unless you are a tech head hacker (like me hacked and modded Galaxy S). But Android is NOT upto tablets yet, but like Win 7, is almost there. Next Windows and Android will have tablet usage at the core.