Video: Modbook modded in stop motion
By Nilay Patel 
posted February 10th 2009 5:44AM
posted February 10th 2009 5:44AM
posted February 10th 2009 5:44AM
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Awesome! Take your fully functional laptop and remove the fully functional keyboard!
How do you even use a tablet? Do you lay it flat on your desk? (viewing angle problems) Or do you hold it in one arm and poke away at it with your other hand? (tired arms)
I guess there's a market for this? I mean... if PC tablets never took off... Mac tablets should... right?
What the hell is wrong with you? Tablet computing = star trek levels of cool.
I wouldnt say its cool, but input through other methods is easier or damn near required for people in certain fields of expertise, surely you wouldnt blog from this device.
if you don't know what it is/for then you probably should steer away.
"Star Trek levels of cool". Wow, must be really cool....if you're a big facking dork!
@molecule-eye
You realise where you are, right?
what's with the nerd-hate in this thread? you guys know where you are, right?
The truth is that windows tablets are getting pretty common. Just wander around a college campus and you'll see that they've become far more prevalent. The difference between being a gimmick and something useful is actually quite small and thats where onenote steps in. For the most part i dont even use a paper notebook anymore since organizing digital pages is so much easier than dealing with notebooks.
Damn.... there seems to be a lot of tablet love around these parts.
Would YOU pay an extra $1000 to have your keyboard removed?
I don't doubt there are some applications where a tablet would be useful. Every manufacturer has made tablets forever. But the "OMG tablets!" mindset just isn't there.
Cool video though.
Actually, over in Tablet PC land, we've gone through this. The first gen of both Tablet PCs and UMPCs were keyboardless and indeed, once the coolness factor wore off, people found they were lugging keyboards around because - of course - there are things that pen or touch really are better at doing - but fast typing isn't one of them.
The second gen Tablet PCs and UMPCs are almost all 'convertables' where you can rotate the screen 180 and lay it flat to use it as a slate when that's best - or back to standard laptop config when that's best.
Which means, that technically, you're right - the ModBook is a silly solution to the problem. Especially since InkWell is nowhere near as good a handwriting recognition system as Tablet PC's (and that's not an opinion - it's been tested). Alas, when your computer company won't make what you want, and won't let anyone else - this sort of thing happens. :)
Your hate of tablet PCs is just as irrational. Besides, it has its niche, and it's still a neat gadget, so of course it will get attention on this site. Also, I imagine you'd use a tablet the same way you use a pad of drawing paper and a pen. And given how Macs are more popular with the graphic design crowd, why wouldn't there be a market for Mac tablets? And there clearly is since Axiotron seem to be selling them. But nice troll, anyway.
@ Michael Scrip:
There's 2 kinds of tablets - convertibles (where a physical keyboard is integrated into the tablet) and slates (what you see above). Most Windows PC's are convertibles for that exact reason, people need to type; and in fact, most Windows tablets nowadays are convertibles.
I think you miss the point of a tablet though: taking notes, and usage OFF of a table. Let's see you try to type something into a regular notebook while walking down the street, holding the base of the keyboard in one hand while peck-typing with the other hand. Tablets are much faster methods of entry in such cases, and much more elegant.
The point of the ModBook is an artist's tool - there are no really good note-taking applications for OS X (really comparable to OneNote), and the handwriting recognition is horrible. The ModBook's point is for artists to draw on the screen in Photoshop, a niche computer for niche requirements.
Most people can benefit from a tablet purely because taking out a pen and using it to point at a screen of a notebook in a traditional form factor is faster, more precise, and more comfortable than a trackpad IMO. The rotation of the screen gets a tablet's screen (by the way, when people talk tablets 99% of the time they're talking about convertibles) gets the screen closer to the user, making movies and general usage more enjoyable as the screen appears to be larger and clearer - these are besides the traditional benefits of ultraportable computers, being battery life, weight, footprint, etc.
Do a bit more research for yourself, and you might be surprised by what you find.
I will admit that tablet's aren't quite for everyone, but only because tablets are low-powered computers and thus cannot meet the needs of gamers, video editors, etc.
wicked!
bad-ass.
To be honest - that *is* Star Trek -level cool. Very much proven by the people who have their wedding ceremonies performed in Klingon.
Its amzing !!!
How much did they pay to get this commercial aired on Engadget?
Forget about the modbook, I want that pen that can shoot bolts of lightning!
I so want a Mac tablet
It isnt a rationale want
But none the less I want one
I wonder when they will be able to do the unibody MacBook?
buy a tablet pc, install Os86, voila!
but win7 would be more efficient on a tablet I believe...
Well I thought it was interesting to watch...
I like stop motion! really really like it. I wish Coraline come in japan... in 3D pelease!
@ Boards of Canada
Coraline 3D makes me want to be dakota fanning.
It's easy to use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse - if you need that sort of input. The modbooks come with an onscreen keyboard app.
It's also easy to just put this in a nice recipe book holder or picture frame stand and prop it up.
For those saying that tablets never took off becuase of these two reasons - you do realize that just about ALL tablets are normal laptops that one can just turn the screen backwards .... right.
People like to hate on tablets for 2 reasons: They're either expensive or underpowered, and it was a MS pushed product.
If Apple released a tablet suddenly it would be cool and Apple would be an incredible innovator. Given Apples appeal to students and artists I find it hard to believe there's no market for a real mac tablet.
The reason Apple doesn't have a tablet is because their pen input blows. MS embarrasses them in that department. Window7 upped Vista which upped XP in tablet functionality... Apple's version is just above Newton.
How about making the current screen touchscreen and keeping the keyboard? I've had many times in class when I did notes on my laptop and then had to take out a piece of paper to draw a simple diagram :\
So is Engadget going to become the next Billy Mays? If that wasn't an infomercial, then I don't know what is.
SHAMWOW!!!
lol @ SHAMWOW! That dude is Sketchtown, USA. Too much cocaine makes infomercial man make funny faces.
Don't know how to say this without sounding like I work there (I don't), but Techrestore is an awesome company.