One of the things I love the most about my job is that I get to play with a lot of fun technology. As a Dell-certified technician here at Longwood we get some of the latest laptops from Dell for evaluation. Last week my VP brought in a device that I had been eagerly anticipating, the Dell Latitude XT, also known as the Dell Tablet. This laptop is Dell’s first foray into Tablet computing and marks a huge step for that industry. I’ve been playing with the tablet for a week now and wanted to get a few thoughts down on it as well as my overall impression.

I should start by saying there’s nothing new about Tablet computing. Gateway, Motion Computing, Toshiba, and others have been making them for a few years now and the release of Vista integrated many of the functions found in the Tablet edition of XP so the software support has come a long way. Yet many have anticipated Dell’s move because of their weight in the computer industry and their choice to create a Tablet PC signifies their commitment to that platform. The technology in this device is also much more sophisticated allowing for capacitative touch which means you can use your finger instead of a pen to act as a mouse on screen, much like the praised iPhone.

The laptop is a small form factor with a 12-inch screen and light feel to it. Very portable. The screen uses a swivel motion to allow you to twist it around and lay it flat over the keyboard. Other notable hardware is the optional DLV display, biometric thumbprint scanner, SD card reader, 3G WWAN adapter, and the option of SSD drives. Though no optical drive is built in you have the choice of combo drive or DVDRW on your dock. The model we received has 1GB of ram (the laptop only has one slot available) and it’s running an Intel Core 2 DUO 1.2Ghz processor.

With regards to performance there is a noticeable bit of lag with many functions, likely due to running Vista with only 1GB or ram. I would highly recommend purchasing a 2GB stick to put in there. The touch response is very good, even with large fingers such as mine. Though many tasks are better suited with a pen (which also comes with the laptop), I found some tasks were actually easier to do with a finger (Resizing windows, taking screenshots with the Snipping Tool, moving between windows). The Ntrig driver for the touch display also includes the ability to use “Flicks” that you can customize to do any action based on how you move your finger across the screen. It’s hard to explain in writing but if you can imagine moving back and forward in a browser with the flick of a finger or copying and pasting documents in the same way. It will greatly improve your workflow (and probably impress your friends at the same time). Dell is also claiming because of the capacitative touch screen that “multitouch” is possible, but the software drivers do not yet support it and Dell is mute on when that will be available.

Because a pen is included you also benefit from all the handwriting recognition technologies that are now built directly into Vista. OneNote 2007 is also a worthy purchase with its ability to index all handwritten notes as well as audio and video among other features. Vista also has an extensive handwriting “learning” tool that walks you through over 100 sentences (don’t worry, you can leave and pick up where you left off at any time) if you’ve got a funky writing style that’s not being recognized very well.

So I said I would be humble but I have to be honest and tell you that after using the Latitude XT for one week I haven’t been so excited about a technological device since the release of the iPhone. This thing rocks and if you can afford it (the price tag starts at $2,500 making this clearly a business-level expense and less a personal one). Despite a few limited hardware functions I keep going back and playing with it and overall the experience is excellent.