You realy need to check out the Dell XPS 13z Ultrabook. I am blown away by the build quality compared to any PC I have ever owned. Nothing wrong with the Air if she's a MAC person but seriously the Dell is way way way different than any of their previous offerings (and I have owned a half dozen of them).

I should add that it's a 13" screen but the frame is so small I keep it in a Neoprene Macbook Air 11 case (yes 11).

New is $850 and up or so, refurb prob much less.

I suppose this is out of the question?

http://www.sandandsociety.com/wp-con...l-moleskin.jpg

House is littered with those things.

I just noticed that Microsoft's "Surface" tablet is now available for pre-order. Attachable keyboard, runs Windows RT, which means it runs a version of Office, $500-700. Later there is supposed to be a version that runs full Windows 8, but it may not be within the budget or time parameters. Whaddya think?

I know, it is not a PC or Mac, but I thought I should learn about these things.

30% off any Dell Outlet Inspiron R series laptop - Slickdeals.net

30% off Dell outlet Inspiron outlet.

Pre-orders were just launched this week for compact convertibles from Sony, Lenova, etc. running Win 8, i7 or i5, 8gb ram, 750g - 1Tb hd, prices $750 to $950. I would think the i3 to be released with small capacity SSD will be $500-$600 machines common.

Shopping right now too to replace an older AMD multi-core powered 12 inch screen HP magnesium case tablet / PC that was running Win 7 Ultimate. One of the favorite and most used machine in the house but after going though three m.boards, were done.

That RT version comes with MS Office --That looks like a great deal. ...perfect for a student.

Much lighter than even the Mac Air too.

http://surface.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/Content/pbpage.Surface

The PC industry is really in the tank this year, with units down something like -8% - think, PCs are now a shrinking industry - and the industry needs to come up with innovative, exciting, cool and affordable products if it wants to avoid a painful decline. It may be too late for some. Dell has failed in every single attempt to make a music player, smartphone, tablet, or other consumer device other than a conventional PC. HP is no better.

Yes, I'm interested in the Surface RT, but also in the Surface Win 8 version coming later. She has on occasion had to use specific software for classes, like a data logging application. Those are for Windows and sometimes MacOS but probably not for Win RT.

Yeah, a 1.5 lb / mm's think tablet isn't going to have an old-school serial port.

fwiw OneNote has built in OCR. (data logging/conversion from pictures possible)

Regarding OneNote (if you go that route):

If you haven't purchased any MS Office software yet, you might source a copy of MS Office Pro "Plus". I am not sure if it's available at retail/brick n' morter stores, or just available as an Enterprise license. However, you can get a legit disc/key online for (relatively) cheap these days. The "Plus" version will give you Outlook, Word, PP, Excel, OneNote, SharePoint, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, Groove, and probably a couple others I am forgetting.

Pulled trigger on Thinkpad X200 convertible tablet/notebook, $300 used. Only a core 2 duo, but with 4 GB DRAM and a SSD I suspect it will be plenty fast, anyway a step up from the Atom netbook w/ 2 GB RAM and SSD that she's been using. Flip around screen, touchscreen w/ stylus.

And it's a Thinkpad! Best damn notebooks made, IMO better from a hardware and reliability perspective than anything else including MacBook.

Will look into the Office version mentioned.

I wonder if Win 8 can run on this thing, when it is available?

Fits the budget even w/ adding SSD.

What I'm seeing w/ HS kids now is they use Google Docs and Google Mail primarily. They don't need Office anymore. I put Open Office on her netbook for the times that she needs to work on stuff without being online.

I will, however, buy One Note 2010 unless you guys think the 2007 version is better.

go with OneNote 2010

You may want to revisit
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/597257-inking-dead.html

Unless you are installing Win8. (I find Win 7 w/ Ritepen to be more productive)

Oh, and there are tricks to using Ritepen in Onenote. Let me know if you need my input on that input.

John - my cardinal rule is to never "update" the OS on a computer (just buy a new computer); it has never worked out well for me (I mean to a whole new version, not a service pac)

for others who are thinking along the same lines, the Chromebook looks very bang-laden for the buck

Ordered 120GB SSD. By next wkend, daughter is going to have a pretty nice machine. I'll probably need help on the best inking software, as you mentioned. Not sure what Ritepen is, how it layers over Onenote, but we'll find out. Edit: reading about it now - sounds cool. Also going to introduce her to voice recognition aka dictation software.

Her netbook completely died last night, keyboard non-responsive, case crunches and splinters like a crushed turtle, screen is almost falling off. She really has thrashed that poor little guy, I'll need to pull the SSD and retrieve any docs not backed up, then I think we will have a ritual burial. That's why I bought the X200 first thing this AM, no time to mull over the choices any more.

Oh, tangentially on the topic of SSD

Sandisk is forecasting 2013 NAND bit supply growth only 30-40%. Micron and others are forecasting 2013 NAND bit demand growth 60-70%. If even sort of true, NAND price will go up and all the NAND makers will make tons of money, the biggest OEMs like Apple and Samsung will be fine, the small OEMs will be hurting, and this time next year consumer SSD will still be $1 per GB. By the way, HDD makers will make a ton of money too, even with the awful PC market - the large majority of Ultrabooks sold will have hybrid SSD/HDD rather than pure SSD. Consumer loses out.

In case anyone's curious.

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QqAEfQoCKtM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ritepen layers over just about everything except Onenote.

In Onenote there is 'competition' for inking on the 'paper' portion of OneNote ...which causes problems for Ritepen. (priority goes to OneNote) The solution is to do the writing off the 'paper' area.

Here is a screen capture showing the solution.

Note the green pen input.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1350685832.jpg

The circle and Arrow are from Onenote ... the cursive is from Ritepen. (auto switches by region)

Onenote can also do pen to text directly on the 'paper.' It involves lassoing the inking and selecting to convert. (I don't like that)

I ordered a Surface RT today - we'll see how it goes. My colleague swears by OneNote, and we're collaborating on multiple projects so I may give that a go. I presently live my live in my email in box. No folders, just search. It is getting unwieldy as I get more balls in the air.

That said I just got the Evernote Moleskin and that is pretty damn slick. You get to actually write on paper, snap a photo, then you not only have the image but Evernote does OCR. Nice hybrid of analog and digital.

How good does your handwriting have to be? Can you post some examples?

If you're asking me, this is from the Moleskin notebook, picture taken with iPhone 5 within the Evernote app. It found the words blue, magic, skies, and monkey when searching.

http://nostatic.com/photos/ocr.jpg