Published originally on February 10, 2010 in Digital Home Thoughts

Product Category: Netbook/Tablet PC

Manufacturer: Intel

Where to Buy: Amazon Affiliate Store

Price: $449-$507 USD

Specifications: Intel Atom 1.6Ghz processor, 1GB memory, 60GB disk, 8.9" touch screen. Details below.

Pros:

• • Good price for a touch-screen convertible tablet;

  • Sturdy and well built to take some rough handling by children or adults;

  • Easy to use;

  • Runs Windows 7, though not an option from all resellers as of this writing.

Cons:

• • Limited support from resellers, none from Intel;

  • Keyboard may be too small for touch-typists;

  • Processor too slow for built-in web cam to be useful;

  • Toy-like appearance may be unacceptable to adults.

Summary: The Classmate Convertible PC is a small touch-screen tablet PC built by Intel (see their cool promo video) and re-branded and sold by a number of different retailers under various names (Schoolmate Convertible, M&A Companion Touch, CTL 2Go Convertible Classmate). Its toy-like appearance is designed to be attractive to children, but its ruggedized construction could make it useful for adults as well. The fairly low powered Atom processor is typical for this size of netbook and adequate for most functions. The touch screen works well for applications a child might use and the pen input with Windows 7 is very usable. Touch typists may find the small keyboard difficult to get used to.

Not a Toy

Figure 1: The touch screen works well for selecting items with a finger or for writing with a stylus.

We bought this tablet from Mirus Innovations for use by my son when working with his therapists. He is a 13-year old non-verbal autistic boy, and his ABA (Applied Behavioural Analysis) program includes drills in which he has to point to pictures on a computer screen. We needed to replace a Fujitsu Lifebook P1510 which we had bought used on eBay for about $300 (new these ran around $1700); that worked for a few months but suddenly the screen went blank. A rotating screen is particularly useful for his sessions; the therapists will setup the display using both the touch screen and keyboard, then rotate the screen towards him, keeping the keyboard facing their side of the table where various keyboard shortcuts can be used.

We had been thinking about an Asus Eee PC T91, but at the time all sellers of that seem to be out of stock. The specs are about identical, but the Classmate PC is ruggedized, an important feature for our use. Not too many detailed reviews were out at the time, but for under $500 we thought it was worth trying.

Out of the Box

The computer came well packed in a small box with a handle. A minimal manual, re-install CD, stylus, battery and power supply are all included. Hardware specifications:

• • Processor: Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz

  • Memory: 1GB DDR2

  • Disk: 60GB

  • OS: XP Home / FreeDOS / Windows 7 Starter

  • LCD: 8.9" 1024 x 600 Touch Screen / VGA Out

  • Network: 10 / 100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WLAN

  • Keyboard: Water Resistant Keyboard

  • Touch Pad: Water Resistant - 2 Button

  • Power: 6-cell (5.5 hours) / AC Adapter

  • Audio: 2 channel audio

  • Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.7 x 1.7 in

  • Weight 2.8 lbs.

  • Camera: 1.3 megapixels (rotates)

  • Ports: USB (x2); SD

are fairly typical for this size of netbook, except for the rotating touch screen and the water resistant keyboard and touch pad.

Figure 2: The left side has VGA, USB and SD ports and the on/off slide switch.

Figure 3: The right side houses a sylus holder, microphone and earphone jacks, a second USB port, and an Ethernet port.

Setup is simple, just install the battery, plug in the power supply, and turn it on. In a couple of minutes, XP was running. I connected to one of our home wireless networks and ran a Windows Update; a few reboots later all updates were on.

The XP build includes several applications tailored for the touch screen, plus an on-screen menu with some very large animated icons. Since we were going to try Windows 7 right away, I didn’t try many of these. I launched ArcSoft WebCam, though, and verified the webcam worked. The image was pretty poor, and motion was very blurry.

Figure 4: Large icons for easy use by children are part of the default XP build.

Note that this is not the XP Tablet version, but XP Home with some 3rd party software. There is a “VisionObjects Pen Input” application that is an attempt at an equivalent to the Microsoft Tablet Input tool, but it barely works at all, missing stylus strokes and not interpreting handwriting well.

Windows 7

Most of the netbooks in the class, at the time we purchased this (September 2009), came with XP; Vista needs too much memory and processor speed. But the text-to-speech voice in Vista and Windows 7 is much better than those in XP, and we needed that quality. The vendor said Windows 7 (the Release Candidate was out at that time) worked, although they weren’t shipping it yet. So soon after arrival I shrank the XP partition and installed Windows 7, keeping a dual-boot setup in case the Windows 7 didn’t work. I had an Ultimate 32-bit DVD handy, or else I would have tried one of the home versions. Pretty much everything worked right off. Drivers for Windows 7 were non-existent and those for Vista were hard to find. I did find one for the touchpad that installed easily and enabled the scrolling area of the touch pad. I also found Windows 7 drivers for the 945GSE chipset on the Intel site, but still had trouble making the computer go to sleep (or stay asleep) when closing the lid. After installing Vista "TouchKit" drivers for the screen, and turning off "Device can wakeup computer" for the PS/2 "mouse" that really is the touch screen pointing device, the computer would finally stay in sleep mode when the lid is closed. But it won't wake up just by opening the lid; the power-on button must be used.

After some fussing, I was able to get the webcam to work. The quality was no better, or worse, than under XP. It might be ok for something like Skype.

There were still some unknown USB devices listed in the Device Manager, but the computer was doing everything we needed so I ignored these. It would be interesting to see a version with Windows 7 Starter Edition installed by the reseller to see if these mysterious USB devices are working.

Pen input is amazingly good with the Windows 7 Pen Input Panel. The processor keeps up with the handwriting recognition and there is very little delay in the ink appearing as the stylus is moved. A couple months later one of the resellers assembled drivers for Windows 7. I will install these and see if some of the unknown USB devices are identified.

The 1GB of memory is adequate for our use (one application at a time). It would be interesting to see if another GB would make bootup a little faster, but so far I've been unable to figure out how to open it to see if there is a free DIMM slot. There are no visible screws or snap-out panels on the bottom. Here's where a lack of online technical information may be frustrating for some users. (Recenlty a person from Mirus answered the question and I'll be taking a peek to see if I have a DIMM that will fit.)

Conclusions

We are very happy with this little Tablet PC. After nearly daily use for 5 months, it still looks as good as new. The pivot hinge, often a weak link in convertible tablets, is still tight and stable. The speakers are not quite loud enough for our application, but at this point in our son’s program it is more important that he learn to point at the right pictures rather than hear the computer generated speech. I would not recommend this computer with the patched-up version of XP it was shipped with when we bought it. As of this writing, one reseller, Mirus Innovations, does offer the option of Windows 7 Starter Edition instead of XP for an additional $27.61. That is well worth the cost.