ViewSonic Airpanel V150 [Review]

Perhaps it was the sight of Captain James T Kirk scribbling away on his executive starship tablet. Maybe it’s the recurring dream of reducing computing to its simplest, starkest elements — a screen, an input device, perhaps some sound. It could even be the thought that with the technology now just about able to do it, a wireless PC screen is a really cool idea. Whatever the thinking behind Microsoft’s Smart Display technology — a battery-powered notebook screen without a notebook, linked to a PC by wireless networking and taking stylus input — it doesn’t seem to have included what users actually want….Tablet is the wrong medicinal analogy: suppository more adequately describes the Smart Display experience. Most of this is due to the failures of Microsoft’s basic idea, although ViewSonic must bear some of the blame for not really trying to ease the pain. Rupert Goodwins —ViewSonic Airpanel V150 [Review] (ZDNet)

Micro$oft’s business plan, which involves releasing sub-standard software to a captive audience and then charging users to upgrade every few years, simply will not work on hardware — at least, not as long as there are still alternatives.