Comments on: Hybrid Touch Book from Always Innovating adds/ removes the keyboard

By: tsog

tsog — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:09:19 +0000

this is d@mn near my “perfect” computer
10+ hrs battery life, small and light, keyboard, touch screen….
heck i wouldn’t mind that it doesn’t have an x86 cpu
i will wait for the reviews before pulling the trigger, however

By: Juan

Juan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:41:18 +0000

btw excuse my sometimes imperfect English. A large day of work here in Spain

By: Juan

Juan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:39:46 +0000

take it or leave it, guys, but inking is dead at all effects. I’m a tablet, e-ink, etc, fan and professional user since 2004 (toshiba portege m200 and now a lenovo x61, sluggish with that monster called vista ultimate ed.), and until some months I still believe that inking had some opportunities, but no more.

Blame microsoft. They had the vision (the same for origami), and they pay all the development cost. And then what? tablets were and are outrageus expensive, and if that what bad 3 years ago, go imagine what is going to happen in the beginning of the Crisis, when netbooks are changing all the game rules just because of their prices.

Besides, they offered an astounding functionality, e-ink. Good. They even developed smart e-ink functionalities for onenote and, guess what, onenote and tablet received one of the worst, less productive communication campaigns in all the existence of IT market.

I guess that there are a lot of what ifs about alternative futures in which inking don’t die. But in this world, and in this precise moment, inking is firmly in the way of the dodo. I’ll continue to use it because is VERY useful when I do deep interviews or focus group, but that is all. I don’t use e-ink for anything else, although this is nothing but my personal preferences.

Anyways, if inking is more or less dead in the main market (I’m not sure anymore if even there is going to be a tablet pc niche in 2012 or something, when touch interfaces matures), it is not reallistic to ask for inking functionalities on small, economic and certainly anemic devices like this little beauty we are talking about.

Do you need a note-taking app? If you use this device online most of the time, just go with any web solution, from evernote to simpler wikis. If you are going to use the thing more offline, then you can download a copy of tiddlywiki and start to write. Plain simple.

Dreaming is not going to rescue inking from the claws of oblivion, people.

By: Kevin N

Kevin N — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:48:40 +0000

Then there’s the question of a good note-taking app for linux…

By: Kevin N

Kevin N — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:47:00 +0000

Yeah, if they had something like Fujitsu’s palm rejection…

By the way, it seems to be 1024×600, not 1024×768.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:14:51 +0000

An equal (or bigger) challenge is the software I think. Although not optimal, you can ink with a low-cost resistive touchscreen, which this unit has. You can’t ink without the proper software support and the custom Linux build seems “finger friendly”. That says “not stylus or ink friendly” to me, although I’m sure we’ll see additional details unfold.

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:06:07 +0000

It’s a resistive screen so probably not. An inkable screen would almost certainly cost much more.

By: CTSLICK

CTSLICK — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:59:45 +0000

I suppose it will be too much to ask to have an “ink-able” screen at that price point

By: Juan

Juan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:36:37 +0000

Until I will see an actual offer, I’ll continue to smell a tenuous scent of vaporware.

I mean, the concept is just too good. A “big” battery in the keyboard, which also make the whole thing more stable over the lap, and almost perfect dimensions for its intended use. The CPU is quite anemic, but that is quite easy to change.

This beauty with a tegra inside and a GOOD price would be a killer device! Well, it would be difficult to enter in economy of scale, but there is nothing comparable in the market for sure. And… with the next interation of Android, more or less ironed out.

Frankly, I’m a li’l bit tired of dreaming about well-conceived devices