Resistive touch-screens are great when you have a stylus in-hand, capacitive screens offer more finesse when you're going at it with fingertips, and both are about useless when you're wearing gloves (
for now, anyway). That changes with the projective capacitive screen, able to offer responsiveness to a bare fingertip and also react to non-conductive objects like styli, and it's that type of screen that Axiotron's MacBook-based
Modbook tablets will be seeing in the near future thanks to a partnership with Touch International. Starting next month, Modbook buyers will be able to add a Synergy Touch screen as an option, while those going for the 15.4-inch Modbook Pro will receive one as standard. No word on what this accessory will cost, but we think it's a shame the two couldn't get these things to market before the end of glove season.
[Via
Gadgets.TMCNet.com]
posted Mar 16th 2009 8:24AM
coool! beats my graphics tablet lol
...or alternatively you could have a capacitive screen and use a metal stylus...works on my iPod Touch...well I tried it with a spoon actually...but I think the principle's sound.
Prepare for an incredibly scratched screen
And you wouldn't get the variable levels of pressure provided by a special resistive stylus.
I've used those styluses meant for the iPhone/iPod touch, and they don't scratch the screen. Very few things do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzbxpSwDetk
So how much will this cost? These Modbooks are already ridiculously overpriced and I find it hard to believe that there's even a market for them. If you want a tablet just get a Tablet PC.
Do we really need to start this ridiculous argument again? Please save us the bother of another Mac vs PC debate and read the results of the last idiotic flamewar. I'll even save you the bother of finding it and give you a link:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/14/apple-nehalem-based-mac-pro-unboxing-and-hands-on/
Happy reading...
@ Kelmon,
Wow! The Trolls from both sides (Apple/and Anti-Apple) came out of the wood works. Some of the comments were entertaining.
@Randy
I'm just pretty much fed up of them all wasting my time. If you take away the flamewar crap then you usually have some comments worth reading. Instead you've got to wade through pages of copy/paste from NewEgg or Dell, accusations of being a "fanboi" (which, I will note, isn't a word), and fairly consistent use of the hilarious M$ or crApple. Side-splitting stuff...
Anyway, I won't say anything further on the subject since I'm not discussing the article at hand and therefore don't want to be any more guilty of hypocrisy.
@kelmon
Normally, I'd agree with you 100% - the trolling/flaming thing was deadly dull a LONG time ago.
But in this one specific case, the price/value argument is actually far more valid than you seem to think.
This takes a good $1300 laptop and turns it into a $2650 slate style tablet PC (non-capacitive). Slates were first gen tablet PCs and we've all learned our lesson there - you need a keyboard, which is why almost ALL Windows based tablet PCs are convertables. You can get an equivalent Windows Tablet PCs for far, far less than this - in fact, the HP tx2z is a capacitive/pen system with multitouch screen for $1200.
I've often thought about writing software for Windows that would turn a tablet PC into a "Cintiq" like screen for the Mac - it would be cheaper and you'd end up with two computers.
At first I thought some idiot had used a permanent marker on that demo's screen.
FINALLY someone brought the best in capacitive and resistive screens together...
So is this supposed to fix the screen lag? They keep marketing this to artists, but I can't imagine why an artist would want to buy something that expensive given there's noticeable delay when drawing on the screen.
"No word on what this accessory will cost…"
If you take the cost of the touch screen model ("Synergy") and subtract the price of the standard model you get $550, so that would be a estimate of how much the upgrade would be.
How long have these things been around? I hadn't heard of them till now.... And are they sanctioned by Apple? This is SO COOL! Even though I just bought a Unibody Macbook for school, I might have to buy one of these later on.... Being in graphic design/art and having a tablet is gonna be nice, but having them together in one piece for when I have that "genius of inspiration" moment and can't take the time to set everything up would be incredible.... *sigh* Time to build up and then empty the account again...
That is one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.