
10.1 inch Notion Ink Tablet - $375 - tomeast
http://notionink.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/fiat-lux/
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shrikant
One of the commenters there raises valid points.

 _Are you people seriously going to buy this thing with:

    
    
      1) No video of the device
      2) No video of the UI
      3) No estimate on shipping
      4) Mystery Devices
      5) No details on Support*

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blntechie
Even though Notion Ink is not anywhere close to Apple, I would like to point
out that the points 1-4 applies to every Apple product until it's announced
officially. But people trust Apple. And some people trust Notion Ink too.

Edit: Missed the pre-order part. I thought they are announcing the price only.
I agree with the parent.

~~~
pohl
Can you think of one Apple device, though, where those points applied at the
time you could pre-order it?

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blntechie
I completely agree. I missed the pre-order part of the blog post. I assumed
they are only announcing the price now. Classic tl;dr case.

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jmcqk6
I'll be getting the Pixel Qi version, if the reviews hold up. I'm slightly
skeptical that the device will meet expectations, but I've already put money
back to buy the device as soon as it's available. The Pixel Qi screen alone
places it above an iPad.

~~~
jessriedel
So I hadn't hear about the Pixel Qi screen. Wikipedia just says

>The company [Pixel Qi] designs liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that can be
manufactured using the same fabrication machinery as conventional LCDs.
However the Pixel Qi displays are also able to turn off the backlight to save
energy, and switch to a low-power black and white reflective mode which can
function in ambient light.

Is it correct to describe these as LCD's with a Kindle-style e-ink screen
sandwiched on top? Am I wrong in assuming that it has two distinct modes:
back-lit color (which is hard to read in bright light) and e-ink B&W (which
only works in good light)?

Sounds pretty great.

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jmcqk6
Actually, it can just turn the backlight off. The B&W mode isn't e-ink at all,
it's still basically an LCD screen that can be illuminated by external light.
So the effect should be the same, but this is the reason I want to wait for
reviews to come out before I purchase it. It seems like a perfect compromise
to me between e-ink and LCD screens. Sometimes, I want a backlight. If I'm
reading, though, I probably don't want it activated.

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jessriedel
>Actually, it can just turn the backlight off.

There has to be more to it than that, right? It would be trivial to allow LCD
screens to turn off the back light.

Their blog (pixelqi.com) suggests that it has to do with some sort of
reflective properties of their special LCD. I still don't get it.

~~~
gvb
The screen is described on the OLPC site: <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display>

As I understand it, it is a standard(?) trans-reflective (like half silvered
mirror - it reflects front lighting, but also can be back-lit) black & white
LCD.

In color (backlight) mode, the backlight shines strips of color, so the pixels
gate the colored light rather than having a white backlight and color filters
on the pixels.

In B/W mode, the backlight is turned off (saving quite a bit of power) and the
LCD uses the reflective qualities of the LCD to reflect the front light for
the lighting source.

The interesting thing is that front lighting will overwhelm and wash out the
color from the backlighting as the front lighting gets stronger.

I have an OLPC, which is the predecessor display, and it works quite well. My
opinion of the display is that the compromise was visible but not bad: the
color definitely isn't as vibrant as a traditional color LCD or OLED, but the
daylight view-ability was very good vs. a traditional backlit LCD that becomes
poor or unreadable in bright sunlight.

There are some pictures on the Groklaw article, although I was focusing on
size rather than the display when I took the pictures. In retrospect, I should
have focused on the display more than the size. :-/
<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080128171935946>

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subbu
Not to discourage Notion Ink guys. They have done a fabulous job. But its not
a well written post. None of what he wants to say is clearly stated. He is
revealing his rates. Compare that with the simple rates table Steve Jobs
showed in his iPad announcement.

I am guessing IST means Indian Standard Time. How will a normal consumer know
this? Why not state this clearly?

I think this post would have been much better if a sales/marketing guy had
written it.

~~~
ininin
re:IST -- .

.

I think some of it is the Indian-ness of the product. They're not trying to
blend in, they're trying to be themselves. If that makes it different, and if
it costs them customers, that's ok too! It's the price of a personality.
Unlike companies that try to hide their non-US image by using stock pictures
and VOIP contact numbers, NotionInk's message (to me, at least) seems quite
clear: "We're a small but ambitious company in India. This is what we're
building!"

.

And I like that.

~~~
subbu
I was surely not pointing at their pride or natural tendency to use the
timezone they live in. I was talking from the point of view of target
customers as it's pitched at a larger audience. The same reason why they used
USD for the price.

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padmanabhan01
"It’s great day, possibly deserving an entry into the history books about how
we all came together and started a revolution. Adam, as we love to call it, is
not a tablet, it’s a dream come true for many of us. We have pushed the limits
of current technology and raised the expectations from other devices as well,
especially the fact that it’s not just hardware or software, but it’s both.
Android on Adam is no longer a phone OS; it’s Eden, a new play ground for big
touch screen devices."

Wow, that's some word play..

~~~
jamesbritt
Adam?

<http://oldcomputers.net/adam.html>

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mih
This line was ominous:

"By the time they got the Adam fixed and were shipping again, people believed
that it was an unreliable system, and shyed away from it."

Hoping that NotionInk does not make the mistake Coleco did. One thing that
stands apart though is that the blog posts have been made by an engineer and
not a marketing guy. Having witnessed first hand how marketing guys can spit-
shine a product, I must say there is some hope but only time will tell.

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boredguy8
That blog post is super schitzophrenic. What's with the parenthetical comments
that are a different color weight? I thought they were links at first, but not
so much. And the "Is Oprah Gay?" ranking, a micro-rant on currency
markets...mostly I'm confused.

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middlegeek
They were just showing that their blog post was the second most popular on
WordPress and it so happened that the Oprah post was number 1.

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AndrewDucker
So it's running a customized version of Android? How's that going to work with
standard Android apps?

Because if I can't use stock Android apps then I'm not interested - I'd like
an app ecosystem that already exists, rather than relying on developers to
produce versions specifically for this device.

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ydant
Yes, but no Android market _.

I've been waiting for this for a while, but without the market place I'm not
sure if I'll jump on it. They screwed up getting me a reasonable expectation
of when it'd ship long enough. I made the plunge. I bought an iPad. And, you
know what, I like it.

I really wanted Android, Pixel Qi, etc. But Notion has been (possibly for
reasons out of their control) doing a horrible job setting expectations.

_ [http://androidandme.com/2010/11/news/notion-ink-adam-
sets-a-...](http://androidandme.com/2010/11/news/notion-ink-adam-sets-a-date-
for-december-9th-but-for-what/)

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ryandvm
After seeing the Honeycomb sneak peek from Rubin the other day, I am pretty
well convinced that Android has legs as a tablet platform. But seriously, who
is buying these things without even a decent "hands on" report from the
technorati?

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blahedo
Huh, an Adam computer---aren't they going to run into trademark issues
there?[0] Who owns the Coleco properties these days?

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Computer>

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ramanujam
The preordering is now live on the site <http://notionink.com/>

The site says the product ships in 6 to 8 weeks and there is a flat $50
shipping fee!(Irrespective of location i guess)

Also, if you are curious to know about the warranty/service/return terms hit
proceed to buy on the order form. Don't care to fill it, there is no
validation in place!

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mikecane
I don't understand the big price difference between LCD WiFi and Pixel Qi
WiFi. Pixel Qi trumpeted the fact their screens can use existing fabs without
retooling. Such a big price difference is no way to entice a mass market into
buying. I've also wondered why others haven't adopted Pixel Qi's screen in the
meantime. [typo edit]

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axiomotion
I've been holding off on a tablet because of this but can their blog post be
more confusing? How do I pre-order?

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klochner
Did anyone find the dimensions/weight?

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sorbus
Size+Weight: Thickness: ~14 mm Width: 191 mm Length: 269 mm Weight: ~1.6
pounds

<http://www.notionink.com/techspecs.php>

