Age of the "Slate"

Not even we, are immune the trends. About a month ago, the first tablet came to live at our house. I've alluded to it before, but never fully explained how I got what might be one of greatest "deals" in my Frugal Propellerhead career. So let me back up to the middle of the summer when this all started.

 At that point, my iPad toting brother-in-law who spent the summer here had been around for a month, and my techno-lust had been well-and-truly ignited. Of course, me being me, I didn't really want an iPad that seemingly every pretentious house-wife and fashionista twenty-something was toting around. Even my father-in-law had given in to the the disease and gotten one for his wife. So obviously that was pretty much off of my radar.....even if I could rationalize or afford it. 

What I really wanted was the ThinkPad "Slate" Tablet, by Lenovo. I didn't want it because it was a ThinkPad. I wanted it because of what made it a ThinkPad Tablet. It was everything that the iPad wasn't; it was function first and really pretty utilitarian in design. Not to say it's ugly, it's a bit of a "government agency GMC Yukon" of tablets. Of course you can read about it on one of the many review sites, but let me at least say that I'm more than pleased with the performance. It's equipped with a 10" IPS screen covered with Gorilla glass and packs a dual core processor supported by 64Gb of storage, not to mention the full SD card slot!

However, it's really the "back-story" of how I came to have it that's more interesting....so here goes. When I started looking at tablets. I was originally intent on starting out by purchasing a cheap android clone just to play around with, before I invested in something nicer. In fact, I had found a guy on Craig's List who was trying to sell a little 7" Viewsonic for $30. However, that seller was kind of flaky and never would meet me, so the sale never came to fruition. As many of you are aware, when I get interested in something, I spend a lot of time researching and hours on eBay watching them. Of course I was aware of the ThinkPad Tablet, but couldn't even afford the $250-300 that I sometimes saw them sell for, much less the $550 to $650 that they sold at new. Therefore, they were pretty much a "pipe-dream". Then, one day while scanning the eBay ads, I came across a guy selling a "new-looking", but "non-working" ThinkPad Tablet for $200. Knowing that they hadn't been out for very long, I was curious why the guy didn't just send it in for warranty repairs. We messaged back and forth on eBay; enough so that I was comfortable with him being what he claimed to be......which was someone who goes out to auctions and buys up pallets of goods. He said that it was in a "mixed lot" pallet and the rest of what he had for sale pretty much bore this out. What it means, is that his business is to go to various auctions, bid on pallets of goods that can come from almost anywhere, but commonly, from places that have gone out of business. So they end up with all manner of stuff that they don't have time to test thoroughly. They make money, by "flipping" this stuff as quickly as possible and do it all over again. 

Anyway, the most interesting part was that although he tried.....and ultimately failed to figure out how to work Lenovo's support site to find out the warranty status. Lenovo, like all the other bigger corporate suppliers typically have 1 to 3 year warranty periods which are pretty liberal. So, after a little digging, I figured out that the tablet in question, which by the way was the highest spec 64Gb model was covered till November 23rd of this year! And, before I offered him $150 (which he accepted), I even told him about it! Then began my odyssey with Lenovo warranty service:

1. The day I received it from the seller, I called Lenovo support- 
2. they sent out a box which I received the next day- 
3. that same day I got it back on UPS to the Memphis repair depot (which used to the EZ-Serv division of IBM)- 
4. the following day they acknowledged that the tablet had been received and said it would take a week- 
5. after a week, I saw online that it was "on hold for parts" so I called them to find out what happened- 
6. got escalated to a manager- who called me the next day to say that they weren't going to have that part for some time and they'd talk to Lenovo to see what they could do- 
7. a day later, he called me to say that Lenovo had agreed to replace it with a new unit......shipped directly from the factory in China!!! 
8.  Two weeks after that, I receive delivery of a brand new ThinkPad "Slate" Tablet directly to my house.......after one month of my time and $150 invested!

Do I love it more because it was ridiculously cheaper than what the normal price should have been? Yup, I sure do....but that's not the end of the story. Apparently I don't love it as much as my 9 year old son and 6 year old daughter, so we all know what that means, right!?! You got it......

Daddy-Claus has been busily looking for something for Christmas. After examing a crazy number of different tablets, it came down to what I was willing to spend on two elementary aged kids while making the salary of a teacher. That turns out to be around $100 give or take. Decision parameters?

• Their kids! If we were a part of a different demographic, maybe it'd be a no-brainer and we'd just buy iPads........hmmmmm...........naaaaaawwww.
• It needed to be small for kid hands and so they could carry it around in backpacks etc.
• It needed to have a dual-core processor so it could run something better than Android Gingerbread.
• It needed to be better-built than the usual "no-name" clones that may run great, or may break after a week. 

Actually the device that got me going was the Arnova 7, specifically the 7F G3 that Micro Center had on their sales flier for $100. For those who aren't familiar with them, Arnova, is a low-end branding used by Archos, a French electronics manufacturer. Although, not exactly an iPad killer, it does have a dual-core and comes loaded with Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Therefore, now that I had a legitimate price for a 7" tablet running something other than warmed-over phone Android, from an honest-to-gosh manufacturer, I now had a standard. 

 What I had figured out was this: 

1. I could buy a decent tablet pretty much any time, new or used for around $100. All you have to do is to do a search on the local Craig's List.
2. Unfortunately, at that price, all you'll usually get is an old single-core machine only capable of running Android "Gingerbread"....like the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 (illustrated above).
3. I wanted one built at least as nicely as the Lenovo IdeaPad....
4. But wanted it to be able to run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) or better.....
5. And of course, I only wanted to spend around $100

So it looked like it was going to be the Arnova 7F G3 for a while.....right up until I came across the Dell Streak 7, being sold by Newegg, "refurbished" for $120. Here was everything I was looking for in one package. As part of the refurbishing, these unit are loaded with Honeycomb. It comes with Gorilla-Glass (just like my ThinkPad Slate), and a full sized SD card slot. And I'm betting that the refurbishing amounted to loading the new OS, flashing the ROM and replacing the backs with one that doesn't have T-Mobile markings! I'd lay even money that Newegg got a sweetheart deal on them when T-Mobile decided to get rid of the ones that hadn't sold yet from their original cost-supplimented deal they had cut with Dell. Anyway; I don't really care. I'm going to look good at Christmas this year is all I know!

Which leaves one thing left to do. You guessed it: A tablet for the wife of course! Let me give you one quote and see if you translate it as quickly as I did. Upon being offered to use my Slate, she said: "No, that's your tablet". The emphasis is mine of course, but you got the message, right? Now I've just got to decide whether to go with any one of the following options:

• A "rooted" HP TouchPad running Android 4.0 (ICS)- Least expensive
• A Motorola Xoom- Middle of the road (cost-wise)
• Or give in, worship at the alter of Jobs and buy her an iPad- Most expensive 

 

Of course, this is a conundrum all to itself and obviously in need of a separate post.

Lightning Strikes: The ThinkPad T61

NO, we didn't suffer a lightning strike. We had a bit of a lightning upgrade though. About a month ago, I was trolling the local Craig's List ads and can came across a poorly written ad for a ThinkPad. And of course, this peaked my curiosity, so I fired off an email to the seller to see what it was about. He turned out to be a recently graduated high school kid looking to sell all his various pieces of computing gear so he could by a Mac before heading off to college. The ThinkPad was a machine that he didn't use which had belonged to his uncle who had given it to him when he (the uncle) upgraded. In fact the kid, who was at work wasn't even sure what it was, but thought it was a T410. Therefore, at the listed $80; I jumped at it. Well....after several twists and turns (fairly common for Craig's List), I was finally able to meet him and it turns out that he was waaay wrong! It was a T61. Although, clearly NOT anywhere close to a T410, it was still a very good price for a T61 in nice condition, so I bought it. At which point, it promptly went under my workbench because I didn't have a use for it.

As most of you are aware, computers on a network need names so they can be identified. And given my geeky nature, I use military aircraft names for this. I also try to use groups which have similar names which roughly are associated to their function. They range from fighters for our daily use laptops like the very advance F22 "Raptor" for my X300 to the rather utilitarian C130 "Hercules" for the WHS file server built from old parts. The new T61 has been named the "Lightning II" for the F-35 depicted above. It replaces my wife's Z61m "Eagle". I know the logical progression would have been for this new machine to be the "Raptor" and the X300 to be the "Lightning II", but I didn't think about it then and will just have to live with this little screw-up in logic!

 

I've been VERY busy doing client work for the last month, so it mostly sat there under the bench, but when I did have a few minutes to look, it left me very impressed. It was in such nice condition that the original product "features" sticker was still on the lid. It really looked like a nice high-end corporate machine that just sat on somebody's desk for 3 years then surplused.....and I'm willing to bet, that's exactly the case. I did an image restore and it ran very well afterward, but mostly it just sat. Periodically I thought about what I wanted to do with it. I thought about replacing my Z61m "Tomcat" with it, but that seemed a waste since that machine sits in the closet most of the time given it's status as a "mobile studio" for a photographer that doesn't do much outside work. Plus, I had decided that I wanted to put an SSD in it since older machines of this type are really great candidates for the gains seen from this type of upgrade. Although SSDs have come down greatly in price, bigger ones (larger than 128Gb) are still pricey for someone like me. 

Then, one day I got my "marching orders". This came in the form of the wife walking in to the office and telling me that she needed another machine, so she could take one to school with her. Her new school district doesn't issue laptops and she wanted to have something that she could use there and not be tied down at her desktop. She wanted ot know if I had any ideas, at which point, I pointed under the bench and smiled. So I told her about the T61 which just "needed" an SSD for which I was given the approval to buy, then and there! Of course, this was what the last post was about, when I got lucky and came across the 240Gb Sandisk Extreme for $155 on Amazon's "Deal of the Day". Less than a week later, the Windows 7 running, ThinkPad T61 "Lightning II" was up and running. 

Total spent: $235 for a "Penryn" C2D processored, WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) paneled, 240Gb SSD, DVD+RW optical drive equipped laptop that I guess originally cost close to 10x what I spent! I'm going to say that I'm pretty happy with the build and believe that lightning did indeed strike on this one. But most importantly, my wife is VERY happy with her "new" and VERY fast machine!