Despite its name, the ThinkPad X220 Tablet is not a true tablet.  It’s a laptop with a screen that swivels 180° (unfortunately, only in one direction) and folds down to mimic a tablet.  (Technically, it’s called an ultra-portable, convertible laptop.)  So, you get the best of both worlds: a fully functioning laptop with all the necessary inputs and the touch-screen usability of a tablet.

The X220’s overall design is muy macho.  It does, in fact, meet milspec (military specifications) in several categories and overall feels like a solid piece of machinery.  There is nothing about the design that says flimsy and cheap.  I feel like this laptop could probably stop a bullet for me (not that I get shot at that often).

Okay, let’s talk about the cool stuff.  First off, there’s a fingerprint scanner, which you can set up to login without using a password.  How cool is that!  It’s a nice touch, adding biometric security to protect your data, and it fits with the overall “touch” theme to the X220.

There’s the multitude of input options available. Of course, there’s the standard ThinkPad keyboard, a full-sized, solid keyboard, and the TrackPoint mouse (or as I like to call it, “the red eraser” that I hate) which have been standard across all the ThinkPads.  However, the X220 adds a few new and improved additional inputs. 

First off is the TouchPad, which now acts as a button in addition to being a touch pad.  Using only the TouchPad, you now have all the functionally of a two-button mouse.  It sounds like it shouldn’t work easily, but it does.  Touching and clicking were never confused by the TouchPad and clicking has solid tactile feedback, so you’re never confused as to whether or not you clicked on it.

Next is the Wacom stylus included with the X220, which fits into a slot on the right side of the laptop.  This comes in handy when you’re using the X220 in tablet mode and you need more precision than your sausage-sized fingertips can provide.  It comes with two buttons on the stylus itself, which makes it look like a mechanical pencil.  The only downside to the stylus is that I can honestly see myself losing or misplacing it fairly often.  Of course, that’s more my issue than an issue with the X220.

Finally, we come to the touchscreen.  It uses the same screen as the iPad, meaning that it’s a high quality screen that works at a variety of angles, unlike most laptop screens.  The touchscreen works whether you’re using it as a laptop or a tablet, which I would sometimes forget when using it as a laptop. 

When you’re using it as a tablet, you can bring up an onscreen keyboard for text entry by swiping a finger to the right (from the left side of the screen).  You can even re-size the width of the on-screen keyboard by dragging the right side of the keyboard, which is a nice touch for those of us without dainty fingers.  The onscreen keyboard also offers a stylus input option for text, allowing you to physically write in text.  Of course, while handwriting recognition has improved greatly over the years, it still isn’t perfect, but I got a kick out of what the laptop thought I was writing.

Since the X220 isn’t a true tablet, there are a few minor differences.  On tablets, I’m used to applications opening with one tap.  Since this is a laptop, it takes a double-click(tap) to open an application like Word.  While it did have the pinch and zoom functionality of a tablet, the touchscreen was extraordinarily sensitive and did have a bit of a lag when I first used it, so it takes some getting used to.  Also, when in tablet mode, the screen does not automatically re-orientate itself when you turn the screen 90°. Instead, you have to push a physical button on the screen to re-orient.  There’s also no AppStore, so I can’t download a whoopee cushion app.  (On second thought, maybe that isn’t a bad thing.)

Other reviews have called the ThinkPad X220 Tablet the premiere convertible laptop, and I agree.  There’s an undeniable “cool” factor to the X220 that you normally don’t find in other laptops.  Given the fact that the X220 is essentially a PC with a tablet/stylus interface available takes some experimentation, but the process of experimenting is FUN.  I opened up the Paint Program and had a ball drawing lines with my finger and then using the paint bucket to fill in the lines with a tap.  Of course a touch interface lends itself to some programs more than others, but I’m looking forward to figuring it all out.

Founded in 1983, Wacom is a worldwide company that produces graphics tablets and related products, headquartered in Otone, Saitama, Japan. It is one of the largest graphics tablet producers, and is very popular with artists, graphic designers, architects, and cartoonists, who commonly cite it as an industry standard. Wacom tablets are notable for their use of a patented cordless, battery-free, and pressure-sensitive stylus or digital pen.

 
Zetta Pros LLC is a leading provider of technology management solutions to its clients. Zetta Pros LLC delivers a broad portfolio of information technology and other business process to clients in the manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, communications, energy, transportation, consumer and retail industries and to local, state and federal government institutes around the United States. 

With the advent of the internet, cell phones, the global economy, and near constant, almost instantaneous communication, we’re moving closer and closer to that reality.  It’s a basic question that society will have to answer sooner than later.  Technology was meant to make our lives easier and more productive, but if in doing so it eliminates entire areas of jobs, how does the economy handle the adjustment?

These days, readily available internet access and technological advancements make relocating jobs relatively easy.  As a result, jobs are being continually shifted to cheaper locations.  Today, low level programming is routinely outsourced to other countries, where even educated labor is cheaper.  (Of course, high level programming is still done internally, given intellectual property issues.) 

No industry is immune.  Even the legal industry, which is normally slow to feel the effects of technology, is rapidly succumbing as low level legal work is starting to be outsourced internationally to cheaper English speaking countries.  If low level work across even specialized white collar professions continues in this fashion, how do we maintain a competitive workforce here?  Where will tomorrow’s management come from if they’re not nurtured and groomed here?  Do I have to move overseas to ensure a career?

Of course, the problem isn’t restricted to outsourcing.  Even within the USA jobs are being shifted from high cost of living states (such as California) to cheaper cost of living states.  Do I have to move to North Carolina to even get a job?

It’s not all doom and gloom, and I by no means want to start screaming that the sky is falling.  The United States successfully moved from a manufacturing economy ensuring that China would never attack their best customer) to a service-based economy. Some jobs will never be eliminated by technology (hopefully), as they require a personal touch (healthcare and education being the prime examples).

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True story.  I’m in Las Vegas with a group of friends.  Miraculously, we managed to convince some girls to hang out with us for the afternoon.  In the course of the afternoon, one of the girls starts panicking about the fact that her phone is dying.  Now as feeble a group of guys as we are, we still realized that if one of the girls had to leave to charge her phone, somehow they’d all leave with her.

Of course, being geeks, one of us had a TRULink Portable USB Rechargeable Battery in our room, so he rushed up to his room, grabbed it, and handed it off to her.  She plugged the battery into her phone and put both the battery and phone in her purse to charge up and we continued on with our day.  Whew!

The TRULink Portable USB Rechargeable Battery allows you to charge certain mobile devices when you’re nowhere need a wall outlet.  The actual battery is small (approximately 4”x2.75”x0.6”) and lightweight (5.5 ounces).  It could fit in your pocket, but I wouldn’t recommend carrying a fully charged power source in your pants.  It also comes with a Micro B and a Mini B Adapter which allows it to charge a variety of cell phones and other portable devices.  The downside is that if you needed to charge a device that does not support Micro B or Mini B (like an iPhone), you would need to purchase another adapter.

The battery comes with an AC to USB power adapter allowing you to plug it into a wall socket for the initial charge.  The power cord is only two feet long, which meant that the battery was lying on the floor next to the wall socket.  Also, the instructions (such as they were) informed me that I could not charge the battery and another device simultaneously on the same socket.

However, the actual battery performed well.  The battery charged up fairly quickly reaching full charge in about an hour. I also left the battery unplugged for four days, and it didn’t lose any significant charge that I could tell.

I would recommend this product for anyone who uses their cell phones or portable devices constantly.  Whether you’re in Vegas wandering around the Strip or in the Starbucks around the corner, it makes a very convenient back-up power supply when you don’t have easy access to a wall socket or if you forgot to pack your charger.  While I wouldn’t recommend carrying it around in your pocket, it could easily fit into a purse or the glove compartment of your car.

Pros:

• Battery works well, charging quickly and holding a charge.
• Watch anything on a big HD display!
• Small, lightweight form factor

Cons:

• Power cord is very short.
• Only comes with a Micro B and Mini B adaptors.
• Can’t charge the battery and something else simultaneously

Does that mean your business should jump in (or if you’re already in, stay in)?  The advantages of cloud computing have been expounded ad nauseum by the industry itself:  instant scalability, cost savings, security, and the ability to access your data from anywhere.  Instead, I’m going to play devil’s advocate and talk about some the limitations and dangers of cloud computing.  That way, you can make an informed decision before you jump in (or stay in).

The Data Center is Off-Site/Out of State:  While this can be viewed as an advantage (e.g. a fire at your office doesn’t destroy all your data), it can also be a liability as well.  For one thing, you may not have any idea where your data is actually physically stored.  A local disaster (fire, blackout, flood, earthquake, etc.) could completely wipe out access to your data, or even the actual data itself.  Granted, there’s no way to completely protect yourself from Acts of God, but it’s worth considering.

 Furthermore, from a legal perspective, if your data resides in another state than your actual business and that state enacts new laws around the use of corporate data, you may be caught unawares.  After all, if your business is located in Texas, would you even be keeping up with business legislation in California?

Security:  For small businesses that can’t afford to build their own secure systems, a cloud service can provide basic security at no additional cost.  However, you also have no idea who has access to your data. While hackers are an ever present threat to everyone, a disgruntled employee of your cloud service could access your confidential data and sell it to the highest bidder.  Confidential data, client information, intellectual property, and trade secrets could all be ransacked (although there is the argument that it shouldn’t be there in the first place).

Internet Access is Required:  Having used web-based business programs, I can tell you personally that your productivity is limited by your internet access and speed.  If you have a large number of users on a given program at the same time or if you’re using a program at peak internet usage times (or both), productivity can slow to a crawl as you wait for the next screen to appear.  Of course, if you lose your internet access, your ability to use any web-based programs disappears altogether.

Legal Self-Preservation:  When ISPs are subpoenaed for their records regarding an individual user or a group of users, ISPs will generally turn over the requested information, since it is in their best corporate interests to protect themselves first.  The same principle applies here.  If your business is subpoenaed for records, and all your information is on-site, you can mount legal arguments as to why you should not turn over the data.  That way, until all legal arguments are resolved, no data is handed over.

Zetta Pros LLC, a leading provider of Technology Solutions, has become an approved reseller of Microsoft Office 365, a familiar Microsoft Office collaboration and productivity tools delivered through the cloud. Everyone can work together easily with anywhere access to email, web conferencing, documents, and calendars. It includes business-class security and is backed by Microsoft. Whether you are a small business or multinational enterprise, Office 365 offers plans designed to fit your organization’s unique needs.

 
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