Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 Tablet PC

Construction - Build, Appearance, Size (continued)

Like the other tablet PCs we have seen, the Scribbler SC500 is clearly not devoid of ports and expansion options. Although the unit is fairly small, it does manage to include a number of accessories we have come to expect from mobile computer systems.

The ports are isolated to the top and right side of the unit while in portrait mode, with the exception of the power connector located on the bottom of the unit. This is seen below:

With the left side of the unit bare, we move to the top. All the ports on the Scribbler SC500 are recessed and covered by a long rubber strip. Access to the ports is gained by lifting the rubber strip and folding it back. With items plugged into any of the ports the rubber strip is held out of the way by the the attached cables or cards. This seemed to be a reasonable way of protecting the ports on the unit although it did not make for the most visually pleasing solution with four inches of rubber protruding from the system while USB or IEEE-1394 devices are plugged in.

Lifting off the rubber cover reveals a few ports and expansion options. First up is a 4-pin un powered IEEE-1394 port. We are finding more and more notebooks ship with firewire ports which is nice as they do provide a good future upgrade path for digital cameras and optical drives. Right next to the firewire port is a single USB 1.1 port. We would have liked to see the system come with a USB 2.0 port as opposed to the aging 1.1 port, as the number of USB 2.0 peripherals on the market seems to be growing at an almost exponential rate. The presence of a firewire port does help to alleviate our concerns.

The large opening towards the right side of the notebook is a unique combination of PCMCIA and compact flash slots that we have never seen before. The upper portion of the slot is a single type II PCMCIA slot; the same as those found on the vast majority of notebooks produced today. Directly below the PCMCIA slot is a smaller opening which accepts compact flash cards. Like the PCMCIA slot, compact flash cards are ejected by pushing a release lever in which forces the card out. Electrovaya was able to include both a PCMCIA slot and a compact flash slot thanks to the width of the SC500. A closer look indicates that there may even be space to place an additional PCMCIA slot in the system if it weren't for the already tight fit of components inside the system.

Click here to enlarge.

The ports on the right side of the system are also covered by a similar rubber strip.

Peeling back the rubber cover from this side of the system shows the remainder of the ports and jacks that the Scribbler SC500 includes. The first two jacks are for ethernet and modem connections respectively. Next are two 3.5mm audio jacks: one for headphones out and one for microphone in. Continuing on we find the unit's second USB 1.1 port and finally we come upon the VGA-out port. This port connects to a dongle that provides a 15-pin VGA connection to drive an external display.

Click here to enlarge.

Like the bottom and left side of the Scribbler SC500, the bottom of the unit is bare. Disassembly, detailed later in this review, showed that the system's battery lies under here which you may notice is not user removable (note the lack of release levers on the bottom side of the system). Because the unit had a battery separating the back of the system from the hot internal components, the back of the SC500 did not get very warm. The sides and top of the unit did not get very warm either. The system maintained cool temperatures all around, making holding the unit and using it easy. Unlike some of the other systems we have seen you wont feel like you are playing hot potato while using the Scribbler SC500.

The system includes an internal stylus that is housed on the top right corner. The stylus is small but fat and proved to be fairly easy to write with but we preferred the pen-like stylus that came with our FIC Slatevision tablet.

The Scribbler SC500 measures 10.8" x 8.9" x 1.1" (275mm x 223mm x 30mm) and weighs 3.78 pounds (1.79kg). This makes the system 0.4" wider and 0.1" thicker than the FIC SlateVision and a little more than half a pound heavier. From the specifications it does not seem that the SC500 is all that much bigger than the SlateVision but, in reality, the difference is quite pronounced. The SlateVision looks and feels much smaller and much sleeker (as the picture below shows). When compared to our trusty pen and paper notebook, one notices that the Scribbler SC500 is quite a bit large.

One very nice thing that we would like to mention quickly about the shipping configuration of the Electrovaya SC500 is the fact that the box includes a small USB keyboard. We found the keyboard to be useful beyond belief. Not only did it make command prompt support possible, it also gave us a alternative to handwriting in times that required it. They keyboard is slim and easily carried during travel.