Okay... so I was looking for a tablet, and an iPad was out of the question because mostly what I'll do is email (Outlook, preferably, so I can sync with the home computer), surf the net (including videos and much flash content), and eRead. I needed WLAN but not 3-4GS (I have an iPhone if I'm that desperate). So I looked at the Galaxy Tab (and laughed); was waiting for the Motorola Xoom; checked out other as-yet unavailable options (Asus, etc); and then saw an ad on TV last night for the Inspiron Duo. Within an hour I was at Future Shop to see it live, and an hour after that I had all 10" of it at my house.

I didn't have a lot of time to play, but so far I love it and am considering it a full laptop replacement - where if I bought a dedicated TABLET, I would still have to have my laptop around for document/video editing, email, working from home via Citrix, etc. I already own Office Premium 2010 through HUP and I understand the Duo is fully capable of running it... and I can install whatever else I want.

In my limited time last night I discovered that the keyboard ROCKS and the touchscreen is incredibly responsive. I'm in love.

What I want to know is... what have I missed? The weight and short (3-hour) battery life are the obvious downsides, but not deal breakers for me. But for the price ($599), I just can't see how it's going to do what I want all that well. I have 14 days to run it through its paces, but I know someone here already knows what I've missed and will point out its fatal flaw for me in plenty of time for me to change my mind if necessary. So... GO FOR IT! Diss my new laptop! :D

ask MACDAMON to get you a new one:P

Patty, what kind of editing do you expect to get out of an atom processor?

Play with it for a few days and you will see what i mean.

also i dont want that to sound snide, i honestly am curious.

What kind of editing do you mean?

sounds rather.. kinky:P

It takes 10inches for Patience to fall in love.

Damn I'm too late. Was gonna say, I love it when Patty talks dirty.

I had all 10" of it at my house

ya i stopped readin after that part. 8 more and ill be ready...

Hahaha... I have high expectations, boys...

Galandy, are you talking video editing? All I ever do is take choreography/choir videos and chop them up by song to post online. And I have my former all-powerful desktop upstairs for anything labor-intensive. Sometimes I work from home with my current laptop, but I'm usually just remoting in through Citrix to check email or work in SAP. And I'll likely use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint most often.

I hear the XOOM is coming out at the end of the month, and I'll be in Houston for a couple of days. I might pick one up if I can manage it... I can always resell one or the other once I decide. But the XOOM is a dedicated tablet, as I understand it - there'll be no installing Office Premium on it.

Honestly then, just so long as you realize this is a Tablet/Netbook then this is a great unit.

If you go in with the mentality that this is a desktop or a laptop your in trouble. The reviews ive seen have been good on it so far so i think ya have a good little toy there

No office premium but Quick Office Pro is cheap and has full functionality for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Also lets you edit PDF's if I remember correctly.

No Outlook but there are a dozen email clients for Android, on top of the built in client.

Depends on what exactly you are doing I suppose but Citrix does have dedicated Android apps as well.

Your running SAP on the tablet? We use Hyperion and the consultants were saying the new wave was to push ERP/reporting applications onto tablets. very good.

Patty bought pure crap. :P

I got Office 2010 Premium Plus through work for $10... so I'm golden... and this is not Android, it's Win7. ;)

It's tough to get used to the new OS, and the type is hella small (I'm sure there's a way to increase that and I just haven't stumbled across it yet), but all in all it seems pretty good. Installed Office 2010 earlier and it runs great. I'm afraid to sync my email until I'm sure I'm gonna keep it - but I'm impressed so far. Definitely not expecting it to be a desktop (which is why I have one of those upstairs with a ton of RAM and processor power)... watched some online TV on it earlier and it was awesome, Netflix stuff looks good... now I just need to find some kind of eReader application. Hmmm.

love my Duo. it's like they finally learned how to make a computer that's good for something besides wasting electricity. i haven't fully tested the battery life, but i only need like 1-2 hours per trip on battery and it does that, though i might've tweaked it. i've watched video on the bus for around 50 mins and the battery level didn't go below 50%. it ain't too fat for bed and it ain't too skinny for work.

Yeah, I'm lovin' mine. I might still pick up a XOOM in Houston at the end of the month (if I can find one), but at this point I think it'd only be to resell it up here. I don't think I could give up the Duo at this point.

dunno, think the XOOM is useless to me because i can touch-type albiet in dvorak, but a keyboard on the screen is entirely worthless to me. puts me back down to chicken-pecking out a sentence, suppose it might have like awesome speech to text skills.

Aww crap, Dibs... help! lol I was playing around with settings, and now every time I go to tablet mode I get this stupid ghost-mouse on the screen. It's driving me nuts. Any idea how to get rid of it?

I totally touch type, and typing on a soft keyboard is slow torture. I have nails, so even the full- (or larger-) sized ones don't work for me and I have to play hunt'n'peck. I got almost 4 hours out of the battery yesterday, but most of that was just surfing the net and playing with settings. I'm beginning to think the convenience factor of having a fully-functioning laptop in this tiny little well-designed package is worth the tradeoff though... I love this thing!