Anyone use one of these things daily for data collection? No physical keyboard would make it tough for doing topo I think, but maybe Trimble has solved this some how? The Measure Codes ability might solve the issues I'm worried about if there are enough buttons.
Any thoughts on it? Too heavy?
I need another collector and was thinking about a Yuma with full windows over a TSC3 wit mobile 6.5.
We have five of them that are used on a daily basis; for the most part the crews love them. The screens are fantastic, we connect peripherals to them (like scanners for scanning in field notes), and the crews that have them have Outlook installed so they have access to their e-mail at all times.
The weight and balance are a little bit of an issue; we do mainly oil & gas work with 3 man crews, I'm pretty sure that the tablets are often in different hands than the rod. The one real complaint I've had on them is the on-screen keyboard that's embedded in Access, but that's mainly due to the fact that we have to input a lot of alphanumeric attribute values. Also the battery life could be better, but you can get through a day. You also have to reboot them fairly frequently, mainly because Bluetooth is a little squirrely in Win 7.
I think that for GPS they're great; not sure if I'd want to use it with a robot but we don't have any of those. We were a little scared of the TSC3; Windows Mobile Embedded is going away and no one knows what direction Trimble is going to take. Also - at least as of now - some of the new Trimble hardware such as the V10 is only supported by the tablet, and that won't change (for the TSC3) if they replace the TSC3 with something else.
I think that the second generation tablet is vastly superior to the first one, but I wouldn't buy one unless the dealer will let you use it for a day; it's too big of a purchase to make a mistake on. Before we got our first one I thoroughly evaluated it, as did one of our experienced PCs. We started with one, then added four in December. So far there have been zero repair/maintenance issues.
Hope this helps!
Lee: sounds like you have had a good experience with the tablets.
They do offer some versatility that you pointed out very well.
I just think they are a little clunky....
Trimble now lets you put Access on any Windows device....that might give you an idea of the direction things might be going.
Who knows what the future will hold?
My TCU is way past retirement age but I'm putting it off until I decide on a TSC3/Yuma/Yuma2. Choosing to put Access on any tablet I want to make life a lot easier, and it would be good to see the good people release their strangle hold on equipment...
I was told that they were going to sell standalone Access that could be installed on any tablet for $3,500 in the US; not sure if it's available yet. My only concern there would be that they might have something in the program that for whatever reason only works right with the Yuma2.
Yuma2 with in-built radio for the Trimble Robotic range is a great combo. I also use the Yuma1 with Carlson SurvPC with a non-genuine radio for the Leica, and that combo works well.
