I just got a nice-but-aging M205-S810 Toshiba Tablet/Laptop from a friend who got a shiny new laptop. It is a Pentium M 1.5 GHz/512 MB/60 GB/Nvidia FX 5200 GO. The first problem is that I did not get the USB Optical Drive or Restore disk with the system (Lost) and I’m having trouble getting the system to boot from another external DVD drive (ODD connected to my external HDD enclosure). To complicate things, the XP Tablet OS is pretty messed up and the system is running slow.
I managed to create a new partition using Paragon Partition Manager Express 9.0 (free)
and then I decided to throw on my extra copy of Vista Ultimate in a dual boot configuration. To my surprise, Vista actually runs ok on the system—it could really use some more ram, but its not too bad. I still hesitate to delete XP because once I do its gone forever unless I decide to order a restore disk from Toshiba—$20 for software I don’t plan to use.
Anyways, after playing around with the tablet for a few days I’m starting to really like it and am considering adding the ram and making this a primary machine in my household. So, I am soliciting any creative ideas of what I can do with a Tablet in the house. I’ve already tested playing both SD and HD material through WMP and, again to my surprise; everything played smoothly, even a 1080i football game recording.
My first thought was to use the tablet in the kitchen where I can connect it to the shelf system I already have in there. This will give me access to streamed MP3s and Recorded TV provided the wireless G is good enough. I don’t have a cableTV outlet in the kitchen and don’t want to run cables around the house, so probably no local tuner, but I may test how well the HDHR works over wireless–maybe I can get some usable SD digital. I also plan to audition some recipe software and would love any recommendations if anybody has any.
Any other creative ideas out there? The system is portable enough to bring it into any room in the house and also has pretty good battery life. What would you do?
BTW, I’m already running VMC on 2 machines in the house.
.
