TransNote helps writers more than typists

By Zatni Arbi

Jakarta (JP): Notebook computers have generally become thinner and lighter. Their screens, on the other hand, have become larger, sharper and more colorful. However, their basic design has remained the same. We take them out of their carrying cases, press on one or two latches, open them up, switch them on and start working.

However, in February this year, Big Blue launched a ThinkPad TransNote. This notebook combo features quite a radical design for mobile computers. In fact, I first learned about this very interesting design back in 1998 when I attended IBM's ThinkPad Advisory Council's meeting in Port Douglas, Australia. At that time, participants of the meeting, which comprised IT journalists from the Asia Pacific region, were shown a wooden mock-up of this notebook, and we all said we liked it very much. It took IBM almost two years to bring the product to the market, and of course the specs are now much better than in the original concept.

Last week, I was extremely lucky to get almost an exclusive opportunity to play around with a TransNote, which is still in limited supply in ASEAN. I was told the unit I had would be returned to Singapore when I finished reviewing it.

Type or Write

The basic idea behind IBM ThinkPad TransNote is that a lot of people, especially the bosses, scribble notes much faster than they can ever type. Besides, there are times they need to draw sketches and diagrams in the middle of working with their computers. Using a drawing program such as Microsoft's Visio takes so much time that they may miss putting down their brilliant ideas.

In other words, TransNote is for people who need both a notebook and clipboard. Therefore both are packaged in a single black leather portfolio binder. The very thin notebook is placed on the left side while the digital notepad, called ThinkScribe, is on the right. IBM also makes TransNote for left-handed people.

First, let us take a look at the notebook part. The 10.4-inch screen is rather small, but it is bright and sharp, and has a resolution of 800 x 600. When not in use, the screen is placed right on top of the keyboard. When we want to use it, we need to lift it up. It can be flipped to face us as we type, or it can be flipped back to face the person sitting across the desk from us. A button on the screen will pivot the display, so that he would not have to read the text upside down. I was amazed by the thinness of the screen, because it is also a sensitive touch screen.

The model that I tested came with an Intel Mobile Pentium III 600 MHz processor. The standard memory size is 64 MB, but you could expand it up to 320 MB. The hard disk capacity is rather small, only 10 GB. Fortunately, it also comes with a CompactFlash slot, so we can use IBM Microdrive tiny hard disks to get more storage space. There are also a built-in 56Kbps modem and an Ethernet card.

TransNote also comes with a VGA port, so you can use it with an external display monitor or a video projector for presentations. It also has two USB ports, an infrared port, all the three regular audio ports, a PC Card slot that can accommodate Type I and II and a typical three-button IBM TrackPoint pointing device. Windows 98 was already installed, but IBM also offers TransNotes with Windows 2000. As expected, Lotus SmartSuite Millenium Edition is also included.

We scribble our notes on a standard A4 or letter-sized paper notepad placed on the ThinkScribe. The pen has a special refill, and IBM provides four spare refills. A pack of eight refills will cost around US$10. When pressed, the pen starts transmitting signals that are captured by the receiver underneath the pad. The digital signals, which enable the base to track every movement of the pen, are then sent to the notebook, where they are displayed on the screen by an application called Ink Manager Pro. The file can be saved as "digital ink" in IBM's proprietary NBK format, the standard TIF bitmap format or even the popular PDF format, and be sent out via e-mail.

The digital pen, which IBM has developed in cooperation with the famous penmaker Cross, is quite comfortable to use. It uses one AAAA alkaline battery, which may be rather difficult to find in Jakarta. In fact, the collaboration between IBM and Cross goes back to a digital notepad called CrossPad, which was marketed by the two companies a couple of years ago. The TransNote, in a sense, is the addition of a ThinkPad to the original CrossPad.

Both the ThinkScribe and the ThinkPad is powered by a li-ion battery. I did not have the chance to test how long the battery lasted, but reviews by CNet editors reported about two and half hours of use per recharge. The ThinkPad and ThinkScribe have their own power button. ThinkScribe can temporarily store 50 pages of notes on its flash memory, so you can use it with the notebook powered down to save battery.

The downside

First of all, most of us still use floppy diskettes for transferring files and installing software. This notebook does not come with a built-in floppy diskette drive. The external, USB-based floppy drive is an option, while I think it should be included with a USB-based external CD-ROM drive.

More seriously is the still missing handwriting recognition tool to convert the scribbles into editable characters. Definitely IBM will still have to work on this to make TransNote truly appealing. Incidentally, the Ink Manager Pro application allows us to manage and organize, among other things, our notes, memos and to-do lists by using key words.

Like most high-end ThinkPads, TransNote will turn heads when used in a conference room. However, it is not for everyone. Those who work with documents that have to be revised over and over again will not find this too exciting. On the other hand, people who are still not good at touch-typing, for example, will love it. Here, IBM is targeting people in the finance, insurance, medical, government, real estate, higher education and legal areas.

There are other functions where TransNote will shine, undoubtedly. Compared to the current generation of PDAs, which can also be used as small writing tablets, TransNote has some advantages and disadvantages. It may be a better handwriting tablet than the PDA because of the larger scribbling space. Also, when we write or draw on paper, we can see what we have done. Most of us still find it more natural to scribble on real paper than on a screen. On the other hand, TransNote, which weighs between 11.6 kilograms and 13.4 kg, with the external power supply, is definitely more bulky than the PDA. (zatni@cbn.net.id)