Slashdot Mirror
Toshiba Demos Dual-Touchscreen Netbook
Lanxon writes "Toshiba has announced a trio of new devices that it's hoping will shake up the somewhat stagnant notebook PC market. The most interesting is the Libretto W100 — a clamshell device that comes with two screens in place of a screen and a keyboard. Both screens are identical, measuring 7-inches diagonally, and are touch-sensitive. An onboard accelerometer allows you to use it in landscape or portrait configuration, and Toshiba's pre-loaded a boatload of specialist software that'll let you get the most from the device — including a range of virtual keyboards. It runs Windows 7, is powered by an Intel U5400 processor, and comes with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 62GB SSD, and the usual array of connectivity options, including 3G."
Don't worry. You can just pin a virtual keyboard permanently to the lower touchscreen. It'll be just like a real laptop, only worse and more expensive!
On the other hand, this could really be the computer that takes the underground Nintendo DS emulator scene by storm....
Windows 7 is touch-enabled out of the box, and the interface is far more suited to touch than the older one, with the large task buttons etc. Leave it to Slashdot to be out of touch (har har).
Look you can't compete with the iPad at the same price points. You have to undercut the iPad. The iPad is a reasonable tablet device with a lot slickness and though put into it. Unless you are truly better than the iPad you cannot charge the same price.
You have to be 1 order of magnitude cheaper (base 2 is fine). You need to be half the cost of the an iPad. This means that a competitive tablet has to be $350 USD or less.
If you're not even close to an iPad, your upper bound is $200 USD.
I have an EKEN M001, it is a $100 tablet and with the latest firmware it isn't bad but thing can't play videos very well and is a little non-responsive. But the point was that the $100 price point was enough to make me buy a tablet when I had little interest in the iPad (it is so closed). On the 2nd day of ownership I programmed an app for the M001 and put it on there :)
It just seems like a niche product, and the niche is quite tiny.
For a netbook/laptop, a virtual keyboard won't cut it for a long typing session.
For a tablet PC, it is a bit unwieldy, and there are a lot of good alternatives on the market. The iPad comes to mind for a general function device. The Kindle or Nook come to mind for an e-reader that is easy on the eyes and doesn't burn batteries. And for general computing there are laptops which have the screen fold back so they can double both as a touch screen, and a regular laptop with a keyboard.
I am sure that there are some uses for it that come to mind for dedicated applications (control surface for music production, various embedded tasks), but for a general purpose device, there are a lot of form factors that are a lot more ergonomic.
Admittedly, I haven't used Windows 7 on a touch-based device,
In that case, how do you go about rightously making such wide statements about it?
I've used 7 a bit on a HP TouchSmart machine and I really don't know what you're getting at about it being a non-touch OS. I found nothing lacking.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Admittedly, I haven't used Windows 7 on a touch-based device
And yet you feel compelled to comment that it's not up to the job. Interesting.
Not that I'm saying that it is - far from it, not having used it I am specifically refraining from expressing an opinion on that either way.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I know you're being deliberately obtuse, but here's what it means: you need to design the whole damn UI to work with fingers. Some bandaid software on a mouse-centric UI will not work nearly so well, and this has clearly been borne out by the market. If you want to make a touch UI, you need to do it properly.
I will make a bet with you right now. This little laptop thing will go nowhere. It will be eaten alive by the iPad and Android tablet devices. Toshiba will stop selling it within a year-18 months.
nyctopterus meant they are using an OS GUI that was not made for, or geared toward, 'touch' user interaction. Windows 7 may have some features that work with a 'touch' device but it certainly isn't "made for touch". The Windows Phone 7 OS would probably have been a better choice.
An onboard accelerometer allows you to use it in landscape or portrait configuration
What about Battleship(R) configuration? It would be interesting if it can be used by two people simultaneously. And there had better be an off-switch for that accelerometer. The thing I have hated most about my iPhone is that I can't read anything when laying down on my side.
Guess you are looking for an openpandora then? http://openpandora.org/
How far back in the past are you willing to reach?
- Palm
- PenPoint
- NewtonOS
- Momenta
- GRiD's PenDOS
All sadly gone (I especially miss PenPoint)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Anyone else read that as a buttload?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
7" touch sensitive screens and the best thing they can think to put on it is a flat, non-feedback QWERTY keyboard that was originally designed to avoid keys sticking on typewriters and has caused millions of cases of RSI. The new input device has to be:
It's notable that Wii has done remarkably well with an obvious yet new input device, in spite of going backwards a generation in graphics capability.
Swype and SlideIT look pretty cool, especially if they allowed optimised keyboard layouts. What else is possible?
What's that I hear? Two screens aren't enough for you.
Well we're giving you three screens. That's right three! A tertiary screen on the back of your screen so everyone can that you're only browsing the hippest websites around.
What's that? Three screens not enough? Well we've put a revolutionary new fourth screen on the bottom. So your wang can instant message your friends too!
Shit, you want screens, we'll install them in your colon! Just please buy our gadget! I need the allowance to buy my soul back.
And minus the software, which is kinda the most important thing (of the Courier and touch devices in general).
QWERTY doesn't cause RSI. Using a keyboard badly, or the wrong kind of keyboard, causes RSI - as well as carrying on when something hurts.
QWERTY was supposedly designed to slow down typists (though finding *definitive* references to that reasoning is tricky). However, it doesn't mean that it's any more difficult to type on once you've been trained. As always, a 100wpm typist could jam up any typewriter anyway, and even in the computer age QWERTY doesn't slow a professional typist down (The Dvorak stuff is dubious - check any sources for their actual data / reasoning because often it stems from Dvorak-performed research and there is other, independent, research that suggests it's no different to QWERTY once you've used both for a while).
And few other input devices are used by approximately 100's of millions of users yet, and yet dozens if not hundreds of alternate input devices have existed for decades. Sticking one into a product you want to sell as anything other than an option is a REALLY bad idea, commercially speaking. The Wii was a toy used specifically to be general purpose and work well in lots of physical-simulation activities. The keyboard is *still* the best input device in terms of ubiquity, security, speed, accuracy and time-to-learn in a modern "real-world" environment. And for your argument to work, you'd have to do about 10 years of study into the others to determine if they make RSI incidences worse when you use them every day for 8 hours a day. Alternative inputs are fine for occasional use but after a while, they will make anybody tire.
Because that's a myth. QWERTY was the fastest design that was come up with based on the limitations of the existing hardware of the time. The funny key layout? That's to spread apart the commonly-used hammers so they wouldn't jam on the typewriter.
Really? GPRS is as fast as the fastest MODEM and works in the middle of nowhere. Landlines are increasingly rare - especially without a decent Internet connection provided with it - the only people I know who still bother having a landline do because it's cheap to get a POTS line with ADSL. Meanwhile, I can walk out into the countryside, miles away from the nearest wired connection, and still get UMTS, falling back to GPRS in a few places. My mother's house, in the middle of nowhere, had 3G coverage about a year before it got ADSL enabled at the exchange, and I get about the same speed from UMTS as I do from her ADSL. Last time I used a MODEM in her house was five years ago - I gave up because using my phone via bluetooth was faster, even with only GPRS, on her noisy line.
The only places that I've tried to get a UMTS signal and failed have been on the train, going through a tunnel. There's also no RJ11 jack there, although there is usually WiFi, if you pay for it. My current laptop doesn't have a built-in MODEM, and I didn't even notice until I'd owned it for 18 months.
And, irrespective of whether there are some corner cases where a MODEM is useful, it certainly doesn't count as 'usual' anymore.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Technology changes and those who scoff at the changes are usually the older generation who doesn't want to change. And they usually end up being those engineers who are unable to adapt.
A touch screen keyboard is not better than a hardware keyboard for a "creation" device. No matter how used to the touch screen keyboard a generation of people might be.
Technology really only changes when a newer technology is developed that is actually demonstrably better than the previous technology.
Take the LP record. There were several technologies developed that were supposed to supercede it in the marketplace (8 track, cassette) but it was only the CD that actually won the day. The CD was going to be replaced with DAT, SACD, DVD-audio but it is now only going the way of the dinosaur because of mp3's and digital distribution. And the mp3 may even have seen its best days now thanks to streaming services. The point is, just because a new technology comes along that may have a few advantages doesn't mean it is The Future(TM). It has to be significantly better, meaning, functionally, aesthetically, cheaper, easily marketable, etc. I don't think I'll be turning in my mouse and keyboard anytime soon despite being a member of "the older generation who doesn't want to change."
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
T91MT
Battery: 5-6 hours
Weight: 2 pounds
Heat: None
Rotating fan: None
Windows 7 words great with a touchscreen.
-signed
Someone who uses it on a regular basis.
PS, if you have a touch screen and use the built in flicks at all, you really really should try out this app. http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=84092 It takes the default flicks and blows them away.
A touch screen input system may be better for creation tasks if it has appropriate customizations for each task. A hardware keyboard is ergonomically better and provides better feel and feedback, so a general "touch screen keyboard" that copies the limitation of a hardware keyboard (same layout for all tasks) won't be very good. But something that adapts to tasks may be very good for "creation" tasks (particularly those that aren't primarily about creation of text, for which typical hardware keyboards are fairly well optimized.)