

Man builds his own carbon-fibre, Windows based tablet PC - jlangenauer
http://carbontablet.blogspot.com/

======
stratospark
Carbon tablet? Hasn't updated to Cocoa yet? =)

------
niels_olson
Having laid up carbon fiber . . . respect. And keeping the natural epoxy
finish is good industrial design, not to mention opening a whole new au-
natural style for tablets. I want this with <favorite-OS> on board.

~~~
stcredzero
If 1.5kg and 2 hours battery life is acceptable, just buy a tc1100. It's
industrial design of a different philosophy, but on a part with Apple. The
form factor is from 2001, and is still competitive. Oh, and you'd have to use
a stylus.

------
josefresco
This is a preview of the Win 7 tablets that will eventually be coming out
after everyone gets over being scared shitless of the iPad. If 'some guy' can
hack together a tablet as impressive as this, it makes me wonder what HP has
been doing this whole time and gets me excited about how awesome Dell's
version of this (even running Android) will be.

------
vishaldpatel
What? No built-in webcam!? :P

~~~
electromagnetic
It's called, plug in a USB camera . . . oh look, you can't do that with the
iPad and its raped OS.

~~~
jodrellblank
You also can't do it with a mobile phone, DSLR, cisco desk phone, UPS, fridge,
Palmpilot, firewall...

The "IT HAS A CPU THEREFORE IT MUST DO ANYTHING ANY DESKTOP LINUX COMPUTER CAN
DO" attitude is ridiculous.

------
rodion_89
I wonder, how much do you think this cost him? (Just the materials, not time
spent and what-not)

~~~
genieyclo
As he says in the descrip of his YT demo
<[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7W_AuspKls>](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7W_AuspKls>):

This is a project I have been working on in my spare time for the last few
months. I wanted a Windows 7 touchscreen tablet with a large screen that could
handle HD video and wasn't too thick or power hungry. The build cost for this
was around _$600-700._

------
Yaggo
Impressing handcraft / engineering work, although with weight of ~1.5 kg it's
not particularly lightweight (twice iPad's weight). What about battery life?
I'm surprised if more than 2 hours.

Personally I don't understand what's the big deal to have exactly 1280x720
pixels in handheld device.

Yes, in theory you will get wider field of view compared to e.g. iPad's
1024x768 resolution, assuming you adjust your watching distance accordingly
(to keep visible pixel size same), but it's not that big difference, given
that tablet watching (close-distance) is always big compromise compared to big
screen watching, due to fact that eye is relaxed when focused to infinity.

~~~
Niten
> All I have left to do is complete the new battery pack, which should boost
> the battery life to around 8 - 10 hours. I'm hoping to have that done in the
> next couple of weeks.

~~~
raganwald
If this is an external battery pack, don't forget to add its weight when
comparing the iPad to his device. I think it's an amazing hobby project, but
it's quite clear that getting ten hours of battery life out of a tablet is a
tricky proposition involving tradeoffs from top to bottom of the hardware and
software stack.

e.g. Flash, pre-emptive multi-tasking :-)

------
kennu
Cool project, but way too heavy to be used as a tablet. Even iPad is a bit too
heavy at 680g (1.5lbs) and has to be rested on something after a few minutes
of use.

I used to own a HP TC4400 (2kg) and an older Progear tablet (1.5kg) and that
range is just not usable in the same way as iPads or Kindles are. Kindle at
290g is about the optimum, weighing the same as a typical book and easy to
hold for extended periods of time.

~~~
keefe
I'm 6'3/190 so the weight doesn't trouble me, the only thing I don't
understand is why windows.........

~~~
buster
Probably because it's a full blown OS ;p

~~~
keefe
lol src on features windows has but not linux? inb4 directx

------
sjs
Damn, that's pretty nice. I would use it around the house for sure. Very nice
specs for the size and weight.

------
doc-film
man that's a man after my own heart.

what you need now is a howto and a components kit sold in radioshack for the
consumer boffins and we will soon see another sinclar / apple / Microsoft in
the making.

~~~
stcredzero
Hmm, one thing Apple could do is to seed a company that does this, but only
for Intel x86 chips. This would be a great way to attack the margins of their
competitors while ensuring their own iPad is immune.

------
jbrennan
;World asks "Why?"

~~~
pavs
Because he can.

~~~
raintrees
To me, because he wanted to is even higher on the list.

