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If Dell's Latitude XT Tablet PC is any indication, expect a few growing pains as multi-touch technology moves into the mainstream. More than a few users have voiced displeasure with the Latitude's N-Trig digitizer. Tablet PC and mobile PC news site GottaBeMobile.com has been particularly vocal about the as-yet unresolved quirks.
"More times than not, whenever I reboot, I’ll get N-Trig digitizer not found errors or applet loading errors," writes Rob Bushway, Editor-in-Chief for GottaBeMobile, "which render the auto and dual mode useless. The digitizer will only start working again after consecutive reboots. In addition, I still have problems coming out of standby with the digitizer accidentally clicking items while the pen is just hovering. In addition to the digitizer issues, I still have a recurring problem with my wireless card - it’ll just stop working and the only thing that will turn it back on is a reboot."
Bushway goes on to claim that he's worked with Dell engineering support to come up with solutions to no avail, with Dell reassuring him the company is working on a resolution. But Bushway's most frustrated by the lack of public acknowledgment from both Dell and N-Trig that problems exist.
Any Latitude XT Tablet PC users out there suffering similar woes? Hit the jump and sound off.
Image Credit: Dell
Comments are closed on this article
gww
October 21, 2008 at 11:21am
I have rolled out over 100 of the Convertable Tablets (Latitude XT) and had serious issues with N-Trig drivers and the ATI Video Drivers (resulting in BSOD) - the updated N-Trig Drivers (Version 1.44, 3.2 of the N-Trig Software bundle) has resolved a large number of the problems, but its still not as stable as we would like. (Erratic Pen behavior, ATI Host Errors, etc)
The N-Trig Driver update took was a nightmare. We had to completely uninstall the old version, (manually removing from the device manager) then reinstalling the 2nd to latest driver, then the newest driver. The driver naming conventions are odd as well, in downloading the drivers from the site its very confusing as to what order the installs should go in.
In general the XT Tablets are 90% great, and the ability to use both touch and pen modes are well recieved, but the N-Trig and ATI drivers issues have been a mess and left a our users with low confidence in the product.
I would be very interested to hear other peoples experience.
gww
