

The Touch Book - smokinn
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/index.htm#

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varenc
I bought the beta version of this and let me just say...DO NOT BUY IT. I know
what I got was in beta, but its hard to improving to the point where its
actually something desirable. Its slow, heavy, and the touch screen is just
quite poor.

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smokinn
After watching the videos it basically looks like a great idea poorly
executed. The device itself is so thick and bulky.

If Apple had decided to make basically the same device but with the typical
Apple finish, now _that_ would've been a product worth buying.

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wallflower
> The device itself is so thick and bulky.

Lenovo's IdeaPad S10-3t, introduced at CES 2010. Capacitive multitouch too.

[http://gizmodo.com/5440207/netbook-tablets-get-capacitive-
mu...](http://gizmodo.com/5440207/netbook-tablets-get-capacitive-multitouch-
with-the-ideapad-s10+3t)

~~~
Zak
They really ought to get rid of the microscopic trackpad on that thing and
replace it with a trackpoint, or do a Thinkpad-branded version so-configured.

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AndrewO
[http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/wiki/index.php/Faqs#Does_the...](http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/wiki/index.php/Faqs#Does_the_Touch_Book_support_multitouch.3F)

> Does the Touch Book support multitouch?

> No. And we don't think that it's an issue. Multitouch is interesting when
> you want to zoom in / zoom out. At 1024×600, the Touch Book screen is big
> enough so that you don't need to zoom all the time as you have to do it on
> the iPhone.

Hmm, that seems to be missing the point a little bit... It's like saying,
"Does this laptop have a trackpad?" "No. The mouse is great and all when you
want to highlight text, but we find that using shift and an arrow key works
just fine. And now you won't have to worry about accidentally moving the
pointer like on some _other_ computers."

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rbanffy
Multi-touch support is a necessity if you want a screen keyboard.

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diN0bot
the best part of my macbook is scrolling on the mousepad with two fingers.
both vertical and horizontal scrolling works. i find other computers (and git
gui, which is the only app on my mac that doesn't handle mouse pad scroll
touches) virtually unusable because i have to do something special to scroll.
scrolling is key to internet browsing and coding.

so....can it rock scrolling without multitouch? i doubt it (since it would be
confused with moving the mouse somewhere)

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sorbus
X11 supports that type of scrolling on my Eee running Arch (I don't remember
if it was there by default or if I had to turn it on, though), albeit only
vertically. Note that the Eee's trackpad doesn't have multitouch; thus, I see
no reason that this couldn't manage it. Of course, I don't use it much,
because the trackpad is a bit too small for it to be useful, but still.

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rriepe
"Opened at 180 degres"

Millions of dollars go into designing and manufacturing a product, then some
jackass misspells something on the front page.

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Zak
I don't think millions of dollars went in to the design of this thing. It's a
Beagleboard and an off-the-shelf touchscreen.

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maxharris
It's slow (watch the video) and ugly. The guy demonstrating it even had to use
a stylus, which is a sure sign of failure.

~~~
daok
I do not think it's a sign of failure. I have watched 3 of his video and the
product need a stylus just to be more accurate on small menu not all the time.

The idea is great and it has a battery on the back of the screen to be able to
use it as a tablet this is why it's not very slim. I really love the idea and
this product is real. Keep in mind that most of what we see on the web are
just speculation or prototype. This is a step beyond dreaming... Of course it
has not the style of the iPad but at least it can multi-task, have a real
keyboard, etc etc... Might not be perfect but it seems very cool for the
price!

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hexley
Multitask? It can't even run one program fluidly!

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joubert
3 pounds. Eek. Netbook elbow.

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smokinn
I wonder where the weight comes from. I imagine it's mostly from the batteries
since there are 2, one in the keyboard base and the other in the tablet
screen.

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NathanKP
I have read numerous extremely poor reviews of the Touch Book. The OS is
apparently quite buggy and slow. I wouldn't buy it.

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i-blis
Linux Journal (2010-02) did an overall positive review of the device, well, a
least for the technical-savy geeks who like to tinker with their machine. The
software part, still in beta, seems a little bugy.

