Guy Kewney

On Toshiba’s 130th anniversary, the company rolled out a tiny computer, literally half the size of the normal small notebook: the Libretto.

I hate it. It has been a successful form factor in Japan, and this isn’t the first time Toshiba has had a successful Libretto there, where clearly, the small keyboard is acceptable. I can’t tell you why it might be acceptable to Japanese users, but it’s certainly not acceptable to me. As far as I’m concerned, a keyboard should be keyboard sized, or thumb-board sized like the original Psion Series 3.

The following day, I played with the new Motion sub-tablet. In many ways, you might say the Motion was a lower spec machine. For example, the new Libretto has a high-definition display, 1,280 x 768 pixels, suitable for watching widescreen DVD movies. And it has a suitable add-on: a DVD drive that clips under it. By contrast the Motion has 600 x 800 pixels – almost a joke in a world that regards XGA-resolution as the absolute basic.

Putting the two mini-PCs side by side, there’s no question which one I’d want to use. Same form factor, but totally different usability.

I don’t like writing with a pen. I’m a keyboard junkie. Seriously, I can barely write: I am far too impatient a person to crawl along at handwriting speed when a Qwerty keyboard is my servant. I can type at 100 words a minute, or even faster if I don’t mind some errors.

Worse still, when I try handwriting, I can’t read it. Neither can the computer; my experiments with pen input are easily the worst failures of anybody I know. Here’s a sample: It’s as it I had never Iosrodooada... ah, forget it.

Nonetheless, I’d rather have the Motion tablet. For a start, I wouldn’t expect to be Qwertyless. I’d get a collapsible Bluetooth keyboard, which is small and light. Motion designers are expert in finding ways to make a Tablet stand up without a keyboard base, and so if I were able to find a chair and a table, I’d be OK. By contrast, if I were standing up trying to use the Libretto keyboard, I’d be sunk; and if I were sitting down, I’d not be very much better off.

We’re on the verge of a big change in PCs: the time has come to take the tablet seriously. That means asking ourselves several hard questions. The hardest one is whether we really are avoiding situations where we might use a computer standing up.

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