electronics Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 - Write on, Microsoft !! opinions and reviews

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 - Write on, Microsoft !!

Microsoft has stepped up once again to raise the bar for mobile operating software with this free upgrade of their Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005.

The digital ink-to-text experience offered by this edition is far superior to what people are used to. The stylus pen virtually replaces the mouse and keyboard as one will be able to use ink across any Windows application.

With a stylus, one will be able to navigate through Windows, draw images, scribble notes, write URLs, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, text inserts and fill in digital forms using the stylus.

Those who are already familiar with the beta version of the Lonestar, will notice small yet significant improvements, such as the handwriting software on this edition is noticeably superior. Which means: even if your handwriting is an illegible scrawl a preview window will show the converted text letter by letter (in-place correction); so you don’t need to wait until you finish writing and go over it again to select text and make the corrections.

Children with their slower and simpler scrawl would be at best advantage while using this tablet PC – OS; so it’s a good choice to support family literacy. The other improvement is the more integration with Office 2003.

Another welcome update is a feature called contextual awareness. E.g.: in the beta version you would cause confusion if you used the electronic pen to write down post codes or write alpha-numerical URLs. You also had many nonsensical words while writing text. In contrast, a spell-check function seems to be in place here and the contextual awareness converts handwriting into text more accurately, such as if it’s a post code, it would render the alpha-numerical mixture more correctly.

Other pluses include the redesigned Tablet Input Panel (TIP) which allows you to place the input box just below where you are writing. As you proceed using the onscreen input keyboard or by hand, the input area keeps making space until you reach the end of the line. It’s a great feature for document marking.

If you have a Windows XP Service Pack 2, you are entitled to a free download of the Tablet PC Edition 2005.

To sum it up, we might say that Microsoft is quite likely to make a big difference to the Tablet PC market with this operating software.