Tablet PC Talk Forums

rick · Guest

i have ordered the litepad to use in my health insurance business in the field with clients.

at night, i would prefer a bigger screen, can i hook up an LCD monitor to the pad?

scoble · Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2003 5:13 pm Post subject: LCD Screen

Yes, you can hook up external screens via the VGA port on the left side of the NEC Versa LitePad.
_________________
Robert Scoble
NEC Mobile Solutions
http://www.neccomp.com

Guest · Guest

I've been really impressed reading about the spec's for this tablet. however, I read the following from the FAQ on NEC's website:

"By pressing the Fn+Rotate buttons simultaneously you can switch between LCD only and simultaneous LCD and CRT. Note, the LitePad does not support CRT only mode."

am I missing something, or is there no way to turn off the LCD if I wanted to use the Versa at my desk, hooked up to my monitor and using a keyboard/mouse via the USB portbar? that would just seem like a silly waste of a/c or battery power (not to mention the distracting light from the LCD).

Guest · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:18 am Post subject:

scoble,
could you please respond to this? it's one of the key decision points for me before I order the NEC.

thanks.

scoble · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:03 pm Post subject: External screen

The problem is, I don't have a Tablet here, so we're not sure (all of them are out in the field for demos).

We believe you can hold down the function key, and hit the screen rotation key, which will switch the screen from internal to external, or back to both. So, it's our theory that you can turn off the internal screen, but we can't test it at the moment. Sorry.
_________________
Robert Scoble
NEC Mobile Solutions
http://www.neccomp.com

Guest · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2003 7:18 am Post subject:

perhaps someone lucky enough to have one of these handy wouldn't mind testing this for me? I need to confirm that you can in fact turn off the LCD when hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, simply using the tablet as a desktop replacement.

thanks.

gbronzert · Guest

I'm afraid it's bad news. I tried hooking up my NEC to an external monitor. The tablet seems to drive either the tablet or Tablet+External, but not just External.

It seems like you could fake just external because there's an option on the tablet config taskbar program to "Turn off screen". But this just causes the screen to blank out on both the tablet and external, and then they immediately come back. Seems a like a bug to me.

When the tablet is driving the external monitor, it works two ways. Either the external shows an exact duplicate of the tablet screen, or you can set it up as an extra monitor that extends the desktop of the tablet. The external monitor can only be driven at 1024x768 as well.

This sort of speaks to the only thing I dislike about laptops/tablets in general. Cheap video cards. They don't even come close to the basic set of features you find in a normal PC.

Greg

Guest · Posted: Thu May 01, 2003 6:17 am Post subject:

gbronzert, thanks a lot for confirming this. at least it's consistent with NEC's posted FAQ. it's a real shame, because I was hoping to use this both as a tablet and as a desktop replacement with my external monitor. leaving the LCD on is a deal-breaker. I wonder if other tablets have the same behavior. I saw the Fujitsu in a store (J&R) yesterday and it was really nice...

Guest · Posted: Thu May 01, 2003 3:17 pm Post subject: LCD Monitor Hookup

[quote="Anonymous"]gbronzert, thanks a lot for confirming this. at least it's consistent with NEC's posted FAQ. it's a real shame, because I was hoping to use this both as a tablet and as a desktop replacement with my external monitor. leaving the LCD on is a deal-breaker. I wonder if other tablets have the same behavior. I saw the Fujitsu in a store (J&R) yesterday and it was really nice...[/quote]

I have a NEC litepad - when I'm in "desktop" mode I place the litepad flat on the desk and hook up the external monitor. The litepad is positioned in such a way that I can input handwriting or keyboard. I purchased the litepad specifically to take advantage of handwritten data entry. IMO, being able to see the screen on the litepad simultaneously with the external monitor takes this one step beyond a simple digitizer.

Dave