Hands On With Notion Ink's Pixel-Qi Equipped Adam Tablet

Jax7 writes with this snippet from Technoholik, which dispatched a team with a video camera to get some early footage of the upcoming Android Tablet from Notion Ink, with Android and a Pixel-Qi transflective screen. Also interesting is the back-mounted touchpad. "We flew down to Hyderabad and caught up with the Notion Ink team just before they left for Barcelona to showcase the Android-based tablet tomorrow at the Mobile World Congress. Note that this product was 'one engineering day short' but we aren't complaining since we literally badgered them into giving us this sneak peak. The top panel over the screen was still a bit loose, so they took it off before booting the system."

Comments

Nice, but Android?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I like Java as much as the next guy, but why would you want to force all your developers into that language?

Since it's clearly able to run Linux, just provide a standard Ubuntu installation. That'd be much better.

Re:Nice, but Android?

[LukeWebber]

Java has the advantage of running in sandbox, and security is serious issue for something as connected and pervasive as a smartphone. I also means that Google only need to provide a single API, hence fast turnaround of new releases.

And it must be said that coding in Java beats the hell out of writing Objective C on a Mac, which is the only supported environment for the iPhone.

Re:Nice, but Android?

[cduffy]

Android has a NDK (Native Development Kit); it's possible to write Android apps for the Market in languages other than Java.

Re:Nice, but Android?

[cduffy]

Well -- not so much, really.

Android doesn't rely on Dalvik doing sandboxing as much as it relies on the OS to handle security constraints; each application gets their own UNIX user and group created, and these are automatically managed to give applications access only to what the user approved for them on install.

This is why availability of the Android NDK doesn't compromise security.

Re:Nice, but Android?

[Daengbo]

The swivel camera is an amazingly obvious (in hindsight) fix to complaints about front or rear-facing cameras, and (as pointed out in the video) you could position the camera in the middle to record while taking notes.

I also like the trackpad on the back. I think it would take some getting used to, but once you figured it out, there would be no need to move your hands from front to back all the time.

I might switch

[iMac Were]

Love the touchpad. Like any Apple fanboy, I'm a big fan of reach-arounds.

Not really

[SuperKendall]

And it must be said that coding in Java beats the hell out of writing Objective C on a Mac

Having done both for a great deal of time on each platform, I disagree.

It's not that much different, and most memory problems you have are the same ones between Java and Objective-C - over-retention. That's not something GC fixes for you.

Re:Not really

[renoX]

>[cut] most memory problems you have are the same ones between Java and Objective-C - over-retention. That's not something GC fixes for you.

A GC *could* help: there has been some research with GC which cooperates with the kernel's virtual memory manager, the main advantage is that memory referenced but unused can be swapped instead of being kept in memory by the garbage collector, see http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2391

Unfortunately this require modification of the kernel's virtual memory manager, so AFAIK the research has never been used :-(

Like the LCD

[SuperKendall]

The LCD does look pretty impressive, it seems like it would totally address all of the concerns of those who claim you can't read books on an LCD. They forget that no LCD is emissive, they are all reflective at heart... it's just a matter of what the light source is.

I think the form factor seems decent, I like the faux notebook look and I think the bulge up top is to let you get to the trackpad easily when the device is on your lap - though the trackpad on the back seems a little wierd when you already have a touch-screen, it will be interesting to play with that and see how it works in practice.

The only thing that I saw as a potential downside is the tracking looked kind of slow - when he scribbled rapidly across the screen it lost almost all the input, it was only when they drew much slower that it worked and even then there was a little lag. But hey, they are still working on the software. I wonder what the SDK is like for this device, since it's Android what have they added I wonder?

Re:Like the LCD

[hitmark]

the one problem i have had with browsing when using a touch screen, is the need for "mouse over" various elements.

Re:Like the LCD

[TeknoHog]

The LCD does look pretty impressive, it seems like it would totally address all of the concerns of those who claim you can't read books on an LCD. They forget that no LCD is emissive, they are all reflective at heart... it's just a matter of what the light source is.

Actually, LCDs are transmissive by nature. Put a mirror behind it, and it becomes reflective. This is how digital watches and calculators have worked for ages, though the "mirror" is not a smooth, shiny reflector for practical reasons. Today you can have a transreflective display with both a backlight and a mirror, thanks to improved light transmission through the LCD.

"literally badgered"

[jellyfrog]

What, with real badgers?

Re:"literally badgered"

[Anonymous Coward]

real badgers, mushrooms and an occasional snake.

Re:Amazing

[0ld_d0g]

Why in the hell do I need 3 fucking USB ports on an underpowered toy?

So that you can connect an external keyboard/mouse? You can step into any generic computer store and buy a cheapo disposable keyboard and work on the device as opposed to being forced to carry apple accessories.

"Hey Apple! Instead of allowing me to connect my existing keyboards, let me pay you extra money so I can only connect apple keyboards!"

What well-adjusted person would connect a fucking tablet to a TV?

To watch movies, photos, online TV (Oh right forgot to mention.. this thing supports flash ;) )? You can step into any generic electronic store and get a HDMI cable for your TV.

"Hey Apple! Instead of allowing me to use my existing HDMI cables, let me pay you extra money so I can only use apple approved TV out connectors!"

What is the benefit of running 1080i video on this tiny ass screen?

"Oh no. This device supports high quality video, let me get that other device that doesn't"

A real genius you are. Got the consumer mindset all figured out...

Re:Amazing

[slim]

Why in the hell do I need 3 fucking USB ports on an underpowered toy?

Keyboard, mouse, flash drive, and they're all used up.

What well-adjusted person would connect a fucking tablet to a TV?

Just as an example, you could show one person your holiday photos on the tablet, or plug into a big TV to show a larger group of people.

What is the benefit of running 1080i video on this tiny ass screen?

They important thing is that this "underpowered toy" can *decode* 1080p video: no need to transcode to a smaller format just to play it on your tablet. Plus, as you noted, plug it into a TV to see the full resolution.

Pixel Qi displays

[naz404]

I've had the pleasure of getting my hands on a One Laptop Per Child XO-1 laptop (which uses a Pixel Qi display).

I'm relatively sure they were shooting it in color backlit mode in that footage. When you put a Pixel Qi display in sunlight/under bright lights, it'll look like classic black and white LCD even when the backlight is on. When you move it back into the shade/low-light, you'll see the backlit pixels in color again. The nice thing about it is that even if you don't turn off the backlight, it'll still be sunlight readable.

Even nicer is that if you turn off the backlight, the display will look like those old black & white Nintendo Game & Watch or Gameboy LCDs and it consumes so little power, extending battery life tons.