New Netbook Offers Detachable Tablet

Engadget is reporting that a new "Touch Book" being previewed at DEMO '09 in California by the company "Always Innovating" promises a new take on mobile computing devices. Touting 10 to 15 hours of battery life, this ARM-powered netbook weighs less than two pounds, but the true magic comes with the detachable screen that can function as a completely stand-alone touchscreen tablet. The machine is currently running a Linux OS with a touchable 3D UI, the entire screen is magnetic for mounting on a metal surface, and the whole package is being projected for less than $300.

Comments

ARM Netbook

[hax0r_this]

Am I the only one more interested in the ARM part than the screen part?

Re:ARM Netbook

[earls]

I thought the LEGS were pretty cool myself.

Re:ARM Netbook

[hax0r_this]

Did you read your own link? Every one of those results is about some product that hasn't been released yet. There are no mainstream ARM netbooks available today.

Re:ARM Netbook

[fm6]

Right you are. I've been hearing about ARM netbooks so much, I just assumed that they were already in the wild. I guess this is like those blockbuster movie ads on TV that play over and over until you're sick of them, and then, just when you think you've been seeing them forever, they start saying "Opens in two weeks!"

Beagle Board in a box?

[TheRaven64]

Not shipping yet, but it looks like it's heavily based on the BeagleBoard. That would mean it had a 600MHz OMAP3530, which is quite reasonable. It's close to twice the price that's been announced for similar systems built around a 1GHz i.MX515 (both chips have an ARM Cortex A8 CPU core, a DSP and an OpenGL ES 2.0-compatible GPU core). It looks like it will ship after the Pandora, which has a similar form factor and is built around the same chip.

Not particularly newsworthy in itself, but it's nice to see that a lot of ARM-based computers are starting to hit the market.

Re:Projected for less than $300.

[Ethanol-fueled]

That's what I thought. According to this , the display with keyboard sells for $399.

Additionally, the only storage is an 8GB SD card, so adding more extras such as a hard drive will further jack up the cost.

Removable Keyboard, not Screen?

[mhall119]

From the looks of it, I think it's more accurate to say this comes with a removable keyboard, rather than a removable screen.

All the ports are on the screen half, and it's twice as thick as the keyboard half.

Re:Removable Keyboard, not Screen?

[TheRaven64]

They put a second battery in the keyboard. It claims to get around 3 times the battery life with the keyboard attached, so I'd imagine the battery in the screen part is smaller.

Re:Projected for less than $300.

[RiotingPacifist]

acording to their site
its $299 for the tablet (with 3 to 5 hours bat)
its $399 for the tablet + keyboard (with 10 to 15 houts bat)

if only i could get one this side of the pond.

Re:Wait a second...

[TheRaven64]

You are missing the fact that this is not 1995 anymore, and people don't carry floppy disks or tapes around in their pockets. The only commonly-used magnetic media are hard disks, which are sufficiently shielded not to be affected by small magnets near them, and this device uses solid state storage so has no problems with magnetic fields.

Much better summary

[bbasgen]

Gizmodo has a much better overview with a video of the device in action, detailed specs, etc. http://i.gizmodo.com/5162584/always-innovating-touch-book-is-a-part+netbook-part+tablet-open-source-frankenstein?skyline=true&s=x

Re:Uh oh...

[Psion]

Damned straight! Cause you know I'd want one!

Wait ... oh that Psion.

I'd just like to see cross-compilation worked out

[wowbagger]

I am all for anything that gets more diversity in the software landscape, and ARM based netbooks will do that. I just hope that drives the various entities - both companies like Canonical and individual Free Software package creators - to fix the damn cross-compilation issue.

I have spend the past couple of WEEKS trying to build a proper set of binutils, GCC (C and C++), and glibc to do cross-compiles to the Beagleboard: It is absolutely INSANE that I should have to build ON THE BEAGLEBOARD when I have a nice multicore machine here on my desktop, just because too many developers don't understand that HOSTCC does NOT always equal CC (that the computer compiling the code is not the same as the computer that will be running the code, to make it a bit clearer to those who have not done cross-compilation).

I've fought with OpenEmbedded, with no success - trying to build anything non-trivial just fails, and I've gotten tired of posting to the OE groups and getting the collective equivalent of an ass-scratching "Duh, I dunno, it works for me." or "Try pulling the latest (broken) code from the version control system, because we cannot be bothered to actually RELEASE anything."

And while the OMAP3 has some neat hardware (OpenGL ES 2.0 accelerator, DSP, etc.) actually GETTING THE CODE FROM TI TO COMPILE is a slog-fest itself.

Seriously: I *hope* things like this will help drive the clean-up of the code, but until Somebody Big (Canonical, Red Hat, IBM) gets on the issue of identifying the projects that don't cross-compile gracefully (I'M LOOKING AT YOU GLIBC) and helping the maintainers fix that, it is going to be difficult for the various software sources to make their apps available under That Which Is Not X86.