As I mentioned in my previous post, I have Vista up and running on the tablet. Curiously, the upgrade process failed again - it worked flawlessly when I did a fresh install. I had the same problem with Beta 1 on my desktop (from XP Home). Yet others have reported no problems doing an upgrade. Weird.
The tablet experience is really much improved. Colin has a great overview of the new pen functionality. I'm glad I decided to upgrade the Tablet first...
AS for the flyout TIP, it can get a little annoying if you work near the edge of the screen often (e.g., in Outlook!). I've actually disabled it. I find the new pen cursor quite usable, and I just love the spiffy new animation for right click. The pen flicks are a great feature once you master them. The only thing is, to get them working you really have to flick it... it sort of attracts attention. I feel like I'm playing Golden Tee or something.
Handwriting recognition is also improved with the personalized recognition engine. I've always thought the recognition was pretty good, being able to train it on your handwriting style and target specific errors (how many times have you written "200" and it came up as "zoo"?!). If you allow it to collect data, it supposedly improves over time as well. I wonder if it accounts for corrections made through the TIP.
Despite what Hilton says, you can also enable Glass with just a couple of registry settings. (Also, jk has this running and posted a few screenshots). While it was cool to see Glass running on my tablet (I had it previously on my desktop with Beta 1), there is a reason it's disabled by default. The "expense" that Hilton talks about it not in enabling it, but in replacing your computer after you throw it out the window. The performance was, let's say, less than stellar. It also crashed the first couple of times, although it seems to have eventually corrected itself. I've since disabled it though - after all, I do need this laptop for school, and it's bad enough I'm using all this beta software... I don't need yet more instability.
Speaking of performance, I've heard a few others complain about performance with the PDC build, especially compared to Beta 1. I guess this is to be expected - there are new features and surely not a lot of optimization has happened yet. That said, it's been on the slower side at times, especially with startup and restoring from standby. I can't really make a fair comparison though until I have it running on my desktop (I never had B1 on the tablet) - the M200 is a nice machine, but nowhere near the processing power of my primary machine.
I am planning on getting it running there this weekend though, as I'd really like to play with the synchronization. I'm using SyncToy now, which works quite nicely, but I'd prefer something a bit more automated.
The PDC build shows a lot of improvements from the Beta 1 build. Besides the Tablet and Media Center functionality being included, things in general show a greater level of polish. (You have a few more indexing options now too!). I echo Colin and Paul's comments - while it may not be perfect, it's definitely on the right track.
I'd post some screenshots, but I think Colin and Peter have already posted all of the interesting ones.