The Tablet comes installed with Internet Explorer, making it possible to browse around websites simply by clicking directly on hyperlinks with the pen. Our Tablet was able to connect to our wireless network, so the children could wander around the school and play on the GridClub games easily! They also tried walking around outside with the machine and found they could sit under the trees just outside the building and surf the Internet!

However, they complained that it was extremely difficult to see the screen when outside. Even on a relatively cloudy day, they had to try really hard to focus on the detail, and much preferred using the Tablet inside. This factor really reduces the portability of the machine, as it would be ideally suited for recording information during fieldwork… if only you could read what is on the screen! It is also possible to rotate the screen, so that the machine can be used in portrait or landscape orientations - very handy for a variety of different situations. Although the button which rotates the screen is reasonably well tucked away, sometimes the children pressed it, with disconcerting results if they were in the middle of some work! The children also tried to use the machine as an electronic book reader. However, they didn't like the voice which read to them, and found it a little scary!

Olivia and Ben particularly enjoyed the unique games which could be controlled directly with the pen. Microsoft have made a number of free games available on their website, including a nifty game of Pool which Ben enjoyed. Olivia liked playing the Handwriting recognition game, in which you have to write the letters which appear on the screen before they drop to the bottom of the screen - a fun way of improving the handwriting recognition of the Tablet!

If you are a musician, there is also the useful Tablet PC Composition Tool. This allows you to draw musical notes on a stave (using simple 'gestures' which are easily learnt). The Tablet will then play the music back to you!

These extra gadgets and gizmos (including the Word add-in which lets you draw onto the page) are all downloadable from the Microsoft Tablet PC site - many of them are in the Tablet Powertoys section, along with lots of great games!

So, should I buy one?
The Tablet is certainly an impressive machine, and all those who used it really enjoyed testing the features. It is certainly more portable than a laptop . Children really liked being able to choose an alternative method of text entry (especially if their typing skills weren't particularly good). As Ben commented, controlling the Tablet with the pen is much easier than using a fiddly mouse on a "normal" computer. It is also particularly suitable for artwork. However, our machine had a tendency to crash at random intervals. This happened only occasionally and wasn't a major problem, but it was a nuisance, and meant restarting the Tablet.

I asked Ben and Olivia to give ratings to our Tablet PC and to a laptop. Both children gave the Tablet nine out of ten, with the laptop receiving scores of eight and seven. I also asked them what they would buy if they were given £20,000, and they were able to buy Tablets and / or laptops for £1,000 each. Both children chose to buy a mixture of machines. Ben chose to buy 10 of each, explaining that he liked the Tablet because of the different ways of entering information, but laptops had the keyboard right in front of you, and also the floppy and CD drives built in. Olivia chose to buy 15 Tablet PCs and only 5 laptops, as laptops are heavier and larger. She was unsure of buying all Tablet PCs because our machine crashing now and again put her off. Having said that, Olivia has asked her parents for a Tablet PC to use at home!

Tablet PCs are still relatively new, and as with all technology, they will evolve in the future and probably be replaced with something completely different in a few years time! However, despite a few problems, we have found that the Tablet is (as Microsoft claims) definitely a more mobile and more versatile tool, very easy to use, and once picked up, hard to put down!