A mere two posts ago, I wrote about how tablet PCs sound really neat but are overly expensive, and that sub-notebooks with touch-sensitive screens are The Wave Of The Future.

So what I end up doing a week later?

Exactly. I go around and buy myself a tablet PC, with a bit of much-appreciated help from hiryu. Meet Hamlet, a HP Pavilion tx2000. Not the most current model (that would be the tx2z series) and second-hand off of an auction site, but a model that got some okay reviews and that for certain used Wacom technology for its digitizer.

And I love it. Granted, it's my very first notebook, so I don't have much comparison material. And what happens on the screen does lag behind what you're doing with the pen, which takes some getting used to.

But it's just plain fun to sit and doodle while you've got zoom and unlimited undo and all other things software can do for you!

I got rid of the HP-branded Vista it got shipped with and installed Windows 7 Release Candidate instead, which Microsoft will let you try out for free for a year. So far, I've got remarkably few complaints about it.

Then I installed Wacom drivers (digitizer's a Graphire) and I'm currently trying out various art applications to see what works best with a tablet. I'm really liking Art Rage 2.5. Competent, dirt cheap, and if that's too much, they even have a free Starter Edition. When work calms down a little and I get the hang of it, you might start seeing tablet doodles instead of phone doodles.