The first road test of the new The TC1000, Hewlett-Packard's new Tablet PC, was at the NAR’s annual convention in New Orleans last week. Introduced to the public on November 7, Realtors were the first mobile professionals to play with the new PC, and they voted yes with their pocketbooks.

Mark Parsons, real estate program manager for HP, says the response was better than anything the company had imagined. Not only did Realtors place orders, they bought significantly more features than the base model.

”Almost all tablets were sold loaded with DVD/RW's, docking stations, extra memory and additional pens,” he reports. “Only one was sold bare bones.”

What got Realtors so excited? The Tablet PC is wireless, gives full computing capability comparable to mid- to-high-end notebooks, and can accept pen-based or keyboarded input. You can use a stylus on a PDA-like keypad, you can draw or write notes and save or e-mail them as is or convert text to a font, or you can twist the display around to reveal a three-fourth scale keyboard for regular keystroking.

And it only weighs three pounds – including the battery.

Other features include:

• transmeta crusoe 5800 – a processing chip designed for tablets that uses 70 percent less power than Intel architecture, says HP, allowing battery life of four to four and a half hours under normal use
• 1 Gig processor speed
• 10.4 inch color TFT XGA/1024X768 display of hardened glass that is built to withstand abuse. Screen use extends to the edge of the glass so you can write off the edge.
• 256 MB SDram memory installed, but can accept upgrades up to 768 MB SDram
• 30-60 Gigabyte harddrive
• Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system
• integrated WLAN – wireless lan
• extra card slots for general purpose wireless cards, digital cameras, network adapters, flash memory, or Bluetooth

Mark Baerenstecher, product manager for the Tablet PC engineering team in design and development, says, “We have chosen components that are low power consumption that deliver good performance. This is a highly mobile platform and makes it more usable throughout the day.

”This is designed for business professionals,” he adds, “and it is easy to swap batteries, there is a bridge battery that holds the charge on standby and keeps changing the battery to about 15 seconds instead of the user having to fully reboot the system. It’s really for people on the go.”

Explains Parsons, “This is machine that adapts to the away you work. The tablet PC is a system you can use in front of client while being discreet so there isn’t a shield between you like there is when you flip open a notebook. You can take notes and still keep eye contact with your client. You have access to information and can make real time decisions. Use it as a slate in front of the client, use it as a notebook for heavier productivity, and then use the docking station to enhance productivity back at the office. The design allows Realtors to transition from one environment to another - standing in a house, sitting in the car, or working at a desk back at the office.”

Parsons says that the NAR conventioneers response was an eye opener for Hewlett Packard and sales reports will help in future marketing of the product. He says that sales reported that most Realtors who purchased the TC1000 plan on replacing their notebooks and using the tablets in conjunction with their desktops or using the tablet as their primary computer.

”There are things like the speech-to-text feature as well as digital ink that simply aren’t available on notebooks,” says Parsons. “The ability to combine multiple devices is attractive, a desktop, PDA and notebook, and it’s light enough and fully featured enough. It’s great to use on a plane, and with the long battery life, you can do demonstrations for clients and upload MLS data on the fly.”

Hewlett-Packard’s TC1000 is available with special pricing for Realtors through NAR’s REALTOR VIP program.

Published: November 15, 2002

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