<p>Hey everyone! I’m a high school senior and I’m looking for a good laptop that converts to a tablet PC so I can write my notes on it. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? I’m quite impressed with this one:</p>
<p>[Gateway</a> C-143XL Convertible Notebook PC - Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 2.4GHz, 802.11abg Wireless, 4GB DDR2, 200GB HDD, Dual Layer DVDRW, 14" WXGA, Fingerprint Reader, Windows Vista Ultimate 2906083R at TigerDirect.com](<a href=“TigerDirect Sunset”>TigerDirect Sunset)</p>
<p>except for the fact that it only has 128MB of VRAM, I like to watch movies on my PC and I’m afraid that would make it buffer like crazy.</p>
<p>128MB of VRAM? That’s plenty for watching movies. I watch movies just fine on my integrated Intel chipset with no VRAM. VRAM isn’t like RAM where you need a ton just to keep the operating system (read: vista) happy and the machine running smoothly.</p>
<p>Really? Not that it’s necessarily the same, but my old video card for my desktop PC had 128MB and it always felt a bit slow when I played video games on it. I doubt I’ll be doing any gaming on my laptop, I’m bringing my XBox 360 to college.</p>
<p>But I get what you’re saying about the OS though, that’s why I’m glad that machine has an excessive (4GB) of RAM, considering Vista is probably going to take like 1 or 2 of those GB.</p>
<p>Video games and movies are not the same thing. If you wanted to play some new games then 128MB is probably on the low side. But for movies, it’s plenty. </p>
<p>Also, your desktop being a bit slow at video games could have a variety of reasons such as slow processor, not enough RAM, too many programs running in the background, older GPU, etc etc. It might not necessarily be the lack of VRAM.</p>
<p>Alright, how stable is Vista? I’ve heard some terrible things about it, but I’ve also read that “Vista Ultimate” is better. Also I would consider just formatting the hard drive and installing XP, but I imagine XP isn’t very Tablet-friendly.</p>
<p>Tablet PCs running XP are running a superset of Tablet PC functionality on top of XP. This version of XP is provided to Tablet PC manufacturers and the development community. Consumer versions of XP will not have any of the Tablet PC functions. Do not reformat your hard drive. Windows 7 is now in beta which promises even better Tablet functionality.</p>
<p>gotta second what michuncle said. not only is a bad idea if you’re investing in a tablet to downgrade to XP Tablet Edition (vista has the tablet features built in), but by downgrading XP may not recognize some of the hardware and depending on the manufacturer, there may not be drivers for XP Tablet Edition. btw that’s an awesome deal you’re getting for that tablet. be sure to get warranty on it.</p>
<p>as for the reputation that has followed vista, most of the issues have been solved due to time and SP1. a lot of them stemmed from two areas: 1) OEM were not selling computers with hardware that would adequately run Vista and 2) drivers issues plagued the OS as manufacturers did not work on drivers for Vista right away. if you don’t like Vista, that’s a whole different story. I’ll spare you the details as to which is better because you’ll find a lot of people on both sides. give a it a try especially since you are paying for it.</p>
<p>btw i have a gateway tablet and up to now i’ve only had one issue with it and that was a battery problem. otherwise it’s been pretty solid.</p>
<p>I love my tablet to death. It’s a Toshiba Portege, and I’ve had very few issues with it so far. Vista is definitely, err, quirky, but its workable and I haven’t had any major crashes or anything. Only complaint is that the screen of my Toshiba got a strange spot in the center of it a few months into use, but I think thats my own fault for putting too much pressure on the screen when it was in my carrying case.</p>