Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 Tablet PC

Conclusion

The tablet PC is evolving and becoming more and more accepted each day. With an increasing variety of solutions available consumers are now able to chose between functionality and size; between speed and battery life. The Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 continues the evolution of the tablet PC.

The system with its ultra low volt Pentium III-M chip is able to perform among the best tablets out there currently. Its speed is only slightly behind the performance of a desktop Pentium III system. Although its speed may be good and certainly faster than a comparably clocked Crusoe processor, the Scribbler SC500's real selling point is its battery life.

The Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 is able to work away from the wall for over 8 hours, something we did not think was possible in a fully featured system. The battery performance was impressive, to say the least. And that is only the performance of the 96Wh battery standard in the SC500. Imagine what the 120Wh SC800 is able to do. What Electrovaya has done to batteries is breath taking. Frankly, it is a shame that other manufactures do not use Electrovaya's patented battery technology (see page 5 of this review)in their systems either because of large premiums that the company is charging for use of the technology or some other reason unknown to us.

Battery life aside, the Scribbler SC500 is a fairly good tablet PC solution. Electrovaya made good decisions on the hardware side but the size of the unit and its styling leave quite a bit to be desired. Revamp the system with a more stylish exterior and shave some thickness off the unit and you have yourself one nice tablet. Add the stellar battery life and you have yourself one amazing tablet.

We will be seeing Centrino and Pentium M tablet solutions hitting the market soon and these could pose a serious threat to the Scribbler SC500. Although we doubt that other manufacturers can achieve the battery life of the Scribbler series tablets without utilizing Electrovaya's battery technology, the performance of these Centrino systems should give the tablets a healthy speed boost. Ideally Electrovaya will respond to this threat by producing a Centrino based tablet solution of their own, complete with a new form factor, improved styling, and the same battery technology. Let's hope this comes sooner rather than later. Until then, the Scribbler SC500 makes a good tablet solution for those who need a tablet system as soon as possible, work a lot on the go, and are not concerned with looks and/or form factor.