Of tablets

I think I've figured out why the tablet computers available both intrigue me and make me go, "Meh," at the same time.

Firstly, I'm a Windows fangirl. Not terribly so; it's a byproduct of wanting my various electronic gadgets to seamlessly talk to each other. I'm also an anti-fan of Apple. I know, I know... People love their stuff. But their willingness to censor, to arbitrarily exercise their corporate right to quash third-party apps for their app stores, to impose broadly restrictive DRM just irks the librarian in me.

I'm not some rabid "information wants to be free" activist. I mean, dude, I don't even rip artwork to make Facebook profile pictures; I had issues with the "change your profile picture to your favorite cartoon character for X cause" not just because doing so is more or less meaningless to actually supporting the cause (go out and actually help people, or donate to appropriate charaties), but mostly because it was flagrantly promoting copyright violation. But seeing the hassle people I know have gone through with songs they've bought on iTunes when their iPod dies, or if they want to play it on some other music device... that's just excessive. Amazon's mp3 license is awesome (even if I have similar problems with Amazon's Kindle).

So that's strike number one against most of the tablets on the market - I want something running a Windows OS. (I may also still be secretly pining for a Windows-based UMPC. *sigh*)

Secondly, I don't want a tablet for apps. I want a tablet that will do basically two things: browse the Internet, generally to access CNN, the New York Times, the local paper's web site, Wikipedia, and the bevy of web comics I read; and use Microsoft Word. Admittedly, MS Word isn't my primary choice of word processor (I love Corel's WordPerfect), but moving between devices, it's gotten easier to use the same program across them all rather than continually save multiple formats.

Yes, I basically want a netbook. But I want a netbook with maybe a 5-7" screen, that will fit in my purse. I think, really, I basically want my husband's phone, without the phone component, enlarged to the point where the screen hits that size. I don't need sound - hell, I don't even need video capability, because I rarely look at YouTube, and I don't like watching video news.

I think Fujitsu actually made what I was looking for about 10 years ago. (They still do!) I'm sure it's gotten sleeker since then. Having it be a tablet, rather than a standard clamshell type laptop/netbook would probably make its profile such that it really would fit in my purse.

Sony makes a little ebook reader that's about the size I want - it just doesn't do what I want. Give it browser capability and the ability to create/edit Word documents, and it would have pretty much what I want - the ability to write in a restaurant while my husband is in the bathroom, or while standing in line somewhere. I'm pretty good at zoning out the world and writing in public, but a laptop is too cumbersome for doing so, and I'm trying to get away from writing on paper (as much as I love it).

Ok, yes, I can actually do all of this on my phone. The screen is just small, and its inability to take a USB stick (ok, that's an additional consideration) requires synching prior to leaving the house. If I could plug a thumb drive into my phone, I wouldn't even been writing all this. Maybe that's what I really need - my next Windows phone to be able to take a USB stick.

Technology is great; it's just never quite what I want it to be.