Dave Wallace on Tablet PC's

Dave Wallace (Dave the Lifekludger) takes a detailed look at a Sahara Tablet PC and details how it can be configured for use by people with disabilities. Dave is an IT Coordinator, podcaster and blogger, who happens to be a C4 quadriplegic.

Dave was able to configure his tablet to put a lot of computing power in a small space, as the photos comparing his regular computer and his Tablet PC will attest.

The handwriting (Dave uses a mouthstick) recognition application seems to work well for Dave. Actually, it works better for him that it does for me. He had less success with the voice recognition application- I’ve never had any success with voice recognition software and gave up trying a year or so ago. Voice recognition sounds great in theory. But I’ve never been able to make it work reliably.

All in all, the Tablet PC worked pretty well for Dave. As with anything, there are compromises to make (size vs screen space, etc.), but the Tablet PC was much more configurable disability-wise than I would have predicted.

In a Comment to Dave’s post, mobile guru James Kendrick mentions that there is a Sahara Tablet with a touch screen. That might be an even better solution.