I backtracked to your earlier blog entry & noticed there was a fellow there (Eduard) who sells tablets too. I visited his site & seems he is selling the LG for a reasonable price. You may want to check it out.

http://www.bitz-qconsulting.com.au/paypal_online_shop/LG-Notebooks/lg_notebooks.htm

(points to within a frame – click the LT20 image for specs)

Note: I have no affiliation, just interested too!

Regards

Michael.

You mentioned “The LT20 model is the Tablet PC… it looks like a Tablet, doesn’t run the Tablet PC edition OS though”.

According to the LT20 brochure, it runs the “Windows XP Tablet PC Edition”

http://au.lge.com/md/product/sidemenuBoard.do?action=list&group_code=0200060303&list_code=PRD_BROC&target=broclist&categoryId=0200000603&modelCategoryId=0200060303&categoryLevel=4&parentId=ROOT

It seems hard to locate a reseller who sells/knows this device however.

Regards

Michael.

Thank you for hosting the chat so we can all benefit from like minded people.

We sold and Sahara iTablet to Uncle Doug Mulray today – he’s prominant Radio and Television personality in Australia (for all with their heads in a Tablet).

The need for a big push on Tablets is here anddefinately worth while!!

I’ve got Tablet fever.

I think I’ve seen one of those Sahara iTablet Slates before. They look awesome!

Actually, I’ve noticed a few companies have started to advertise Tablet PCs in Australia. The two I’ve noticed recently were LG and Toshiba. LG had an advertisement on the TV, and Toshiba had the m200 in one of the tech magazines I subscribe to.

It’s great to hear that there are more Tablet PCs on the market locally.

I’ve actually already purchased the Toshiba Portege m200 about a month after the last comment. I purchased it from eXpansys Australia, and it turns out that it was imported from the UK. My main reason for going with the m200 is, as a developer, I need a keyboard to code

Would love to play with the “touch screen” model. The touch screen would be an interesting experience.

I’ve also noticed that a few of the “smaller” retail outlets advertised the m200 for sale in The Age’s Green Guide.

I noticed the real glum attitiude regarding the availability of Tablet PC’s in Australia. Even Brett went to the extent of selling them himself due to the massive enquiriy level.

I am the princiapl Owner of Tegatech Australia and pleased to announce the arrival of the Sahara iTablet Slate PC into Asutralia. We worked long and hard to make this happen; we even put it through the Australian Standards Testing procedures and came up trumps. Both Telecommunications and Australian Safety Standards all passed.

Please email me at sales@tegatech.com.au and we will send you info and put you in contact with an Authorised Reseller in your local area so you can have a play!! NSW, QLD is covered and soon to be announced VIC, WA and SA.

Please feel free to visit our site – http://www.tegatech.com.au

The Sahara Slate PC is only 10 days into Australian waters and growing in sales everyday. Just ask famous Radio personality Doug Mulray, the proud new owner of a Sahara iTablet Slate PC.

All the best,

Hugo

I’ve managed to play around with a Toshiba Portege m200 and also the HP TC1100 a little bit. Though only for a short amount of time. Was able to play around slightly with Andrew Coates‘ m200 at the recent Melbourne MS Security Summit (in the MSDN Connection Lounge).

I think perhaps you’ll need to hunt around for a Tablet PC owner or two in the Perth area if you’re interesting in having a “play” with one.

I’m probably going to end up purchasing the Toshiba Portege m200 from the expansys website. The price has been dropping a little bit over recent weeks. I suspect this is due to a newer spec’d m200 might be out soon for expansys.

I could be wrong though…

I found your blog by searching for tablet pcs. Its been frustrating as it’s difficult to find a physical store (Perth, Aus) to play around with one – let alone a recent model.

Have you ended up purchasing one? If yes, which manufacturer/model did you go with?

Just stumbled over this looking for something else and felt I should comment.

I’m an avid tablet PC fan and it “frustrates the living daylights out of me” how hard it is to get them. In the end. I’ve taken up selling them myself, even though it’s not really my business, because every time I pull the darn thing out at a meeting everybody goes, “What is that and where do I get one!”

I’ve been trying to get out of the PC hardware trade, but I got so sick of saying “I don’t know where to get one” that I started selling them. I’ve sold 20 already, and that’s in my spare time.

I find it funny that no body ever asks me about specs like Mhz. Ghz, Mb, Gb, etc… They just go how much?

The interesting thing is that nobody much balks at the price for me.

I guess we used to buy desktop PC’s for $5000+ just a few years ago, and I know for a fact that the value is there. When you sit in a meeting and pull out your Tablet PC, I think people see the value. I can’t think of once when someone hasn’t passed comment on it.

Not mainstream enough… Gees I just hope that someone out there in the retail channel finally gets it one day! The best way to sell these things is to bloody use them (and stock them)!

If you know any one that does get it and wants to do take tablet PC’s seriously, please let me know!

I guess because some people just goto the store and look around, when they don’t find anything, they don’t enquire with the store owners.

If there is enough people out there asking about it, i’m sure then, they’ll start thinking about getting them in. And also pushing manufacturers to get cheaper Tablet PCs in stock.

Also, if you do a direct conversion of prices to Australian Dollars, the difference at times is quite substantial to what the advertised retail price is over here.

Lora, if there is a better way, i’d loved to hear about it.

Also, I think that’s not the only thing that is priced highly.

Check out this post by Frank Arrigo (An Australian Microsoftee): http://blogs.msdn.com/frankarr/archive/2005/01/14/352602.aspx

He was trying to order the Penenabled Executive Pen, which the website states as being $49.95USD (which is just a little over $63AUD), but after a few emails, he found out that to get it locally here, it’d cost him $199AUD which is $157USD.

You can buy 3 of the pens from the website which only delivers within the US, or you can buy one here in Australia.

Basically, what i’m trying to say, if they want to sell Tablet PCs here, and expect the mainstream customers buy the convertable form Tablet PCs, they’ll need to start reducing the price here. Even factoring in the various taxes and the distribitors making a small profit, i’m sure the prices don’t quite equate.