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New Tablet PCs With A Linux Option

Posted by timothy on from the chocolate-meet-peanut-butter dept.

Oliver Wendell Jones writes "InfoWorld is running an article about a new kind of inexpensive (starting under $800) tablet PC that runs your choice of Windows 2000, Windows XP or the Lindows distro of Linux. The PC is called the DocuNote and features an 8.4" touch screen with digital camera and microphone. The PCs are being created by a company called StepUp, which is formed of a lot of people from the old eMachines organization. DocuNotes are scheduled to start shipping in mid-December."

3 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Lindows good for Linux? by EggplantMan · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Personally I think Lindows is a terrible representative for Linux. Emulating Windows seems more like an admission that Linux is inferior. To get my gist, when you are selling a computer with Lindows on it, how are you supposed to explain to customer what Lindows is? You have to say:

    'It's basically a cheap imitation of Windows.' at which point the customer says:

    'No thanks, I'll go with the genuine thing.' As I said, Lindows does nothing for Linux and in fact probably strengthens Microsoft's ability to sell its OS.

    --

    ?-|||-----x<*))))><
  2. Amongst the cries of "YAY it runs LINUX!!"... by cscx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A few things of note:

    1. You CAN run Linux on a MS Tablet PC. No one's stopping you. Woo hoo.

    2. These have TOUCH SCREENS. MS Tablets have electomagnetic pens, kinda like a Wacom tablet. NOT pressure sensitive like a touch screen.

    3. MS Tablets have XP Tablet Edition, with the handwriting recognition/Ink software. Linux doesn't, and seeing the state Linux fonts are currently in ("Linux fonts are fine!! Just copy the TrueType fonts from Windblo... um, nevermind"), I don't think handwriting recognition software is on its way anytime soon (and before anyone brings it up, SourceForge projects below stage 3 or 4 DON'T COUNT).

    So what we have here is a glorified Palm running linux or WinXP. Glue a touchscreen LCD onto a brick PC and you're done. Wahoo. I can go back to sleep now, because this in no way offers competition to the MS-based tablets. HAND.

  3. A passive touchscreen is GOOD... by clacour · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I saw at least one post that lamented the lack of an active pen, and several that asked "What are you going to about command line?".

    The typing issue is trivial. I'm nearly certain you can plug in a standard keyboard (it's basically still a laptop, after all), and for those occasions when you can't, a simple app could put a keyboard on the screen and you can type on that.

    Also, there's a neat gadget ( http://www.time.com/time/2002/inventions/rob_keybo ard.html ) that could be incorporated pretty easily, although I'm sure it's not in the machine under discussion. (Sorry if the URL is broken in half -- I couldn't figure out how to fix it.)

    That's just one reason I consider a passive touchscreen (anything which can depress it can activate it) to an active one (has a special pen that is the only thing that will activate it.)

    Here's a few others:

    * Losing your stylus doesn't require a $15-$20 (at least) replacement, and render your machine completely dysfunctional until you get it.

    * It allows software to become much more intuitive. The original concept of a mouse was to simulate being able to touch the objects on the "desktop" and move them around. The objects will still be a simulation, but the touching will be reality.

    This has one medium serious drawback, of course. It means Apple was right to stick with a one-button mouse all this time...

    * It opens up a whole bunch of new interface interaction possibilities. For example, to address the one-button,two-button,three-button issue, you could tap with one, two, or three fingers. (Some of the stuff that's been done with right-clicking I actually like. I'd rather not give it up.)

    Even more, it makes possible interactions that could not possibly be done with a mouse, such as moving a window around with one hand and resizing it with the other at the same time (or resizing with two fingers on the same hand); or moving two windows (maybe even three or four if you've got big hands and coordination) at once.

    How'd you like to design a web page layout by literal "hands-on" design? Eye-hand coordination is built into the species. Remote control devices like mice, trackballs, graphics tablets, etc all make it more difficult to use your mind for the creative, aesthetic side of the work. (Geeks, who usually don't have any aesthetic sense worth speaking of, and who use mice and keyboards more often than any other object, will not get as big a boost in productivity. Sorry.)

    Add to that any other activities that involve multiple fingers (musical keyboards, 10-key pads, phone number pads and so on), and I consider a passive touchscreen a much better option than One Pen to Rul... Sorry, started to get carried away.