Taking the tablet plunge

I’ve been idly considering buying a Tablet PC for a while. I went to Sams’ yesterday to look for toilet paper and paper towels, and I ended up with an Acer TravelMate C102 tablet. This is one of the original Tablet PCs; it has a Pentium-III 800 CPU, a 20 (or maybe 30, I forget) GB drive, and 256MB of RAM. It also had lots of scratches on the case and a little sign saying “last one– $1168”. At that price, and given Sams’ 6-month return policy, that seemed like a pretty good deal. (It turns out that the listed price of $1499 is actually more than what other Sams’ sell the same unit for $1387). Anyway, once I got it home, I was able to bring it right up, install the 27 security patches that WU recommended, and start tableting.
For now, it’s hard to tell whether I’ll keep it. Microsoft Reader is terrific (especially since MS is giving away three free full-length books each week). I love the size and form factor, realizing that this isn’t a replacement for my trusty ThinkPad. On the other hand… this unit is practically obsolete by tablet standards; for another $500 I could get a newer unit with a much faster CPU and more RAM (the C102 I have is limited to a max of 256MB). The keyboard has a terribly sticky space bar, and the rotating latch on which the screen pivots is very loose. Those should be fixable under warranty, though, so I’m going to keep this one for a month or so and see if I use it enough to justify keeping it. If so, then I’ll decide whether to keep it or buy a more powerful version.