Always Innovating's Touch Book in production, finally pictured in non-render form

Always Innovating has stopped innovating for a moment and started production. Its transformer of a netbook/tablet called the Touch Book is now rolling off manufacturing lines on track for shipments starting next month. Anyone who has pre-ordered already will be happy to know that the prices we spied in April are still in effect, meaning $299 for the tablet itself, while the clip-on keyboard comes in at $99 extra. For that price you get an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 touchscreen, a USB 802.11 b/g/n adapter, Bluetooth, a TI OMAP3430 OMAP3530 processor, and 512MB of memory split evenly between RAM and NAND, plus a further 8GB of storage on an SD card. Not exactly a screamer, but performance running Linux (the only OS available) should be reasonably snappy, and we're curious to see what enterprising coders will do with its internal accelerometer. It does look a little like a knob-free Etch A Sketch...

Update: As Kaa pointed out in the comments, we were off by 100 on the CPU revision. It's an OMAP3530, not 3430.

[Thanks, Jeff]

Gallery: Always Innovating Touch Book

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[Windzilla @ Jun 25th 2009 8:28AM]

Interesting, Thats the same processor as the Pre.

maybe someone somewhere will get webOS running on it. Just for fun if anything.

[Bob @ Jun 25th 2009 9:04AM]

I know that laptop. I'm good with faces. I'm telling you, I know that laptop.

Anyway, I'm not an Apple fanboy, but that design looks strangely similar to the new Macbook Pro line...

Touchbook:
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/gallery.htm

Macbook Pro:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/design.html

[Bokal @ Jun 25th 2009 9:15AM]

Sorry Bob, but no.

[dennis @ Jun 25th 2009 9:49AM]

@Bob: Stupid, obnoxious comment.
First, it has nothing to do with the comment you replied to.
Second, you're completely wrong. For example, the screen can be separated from the keyboard.

[CollateralDmg @ Jun 25th 2009 12:17PM]

Apple invented bezels!

[Bob @ Jun 26th 2009 8:50AM]

@Dennis - Huh? First, what does the fact the screen can be separated have to do with how it LOOKS? That's functionality. Second, if you want to call something stupid and obnoxious, talk about Engadget's comment system. I never replied to that comment, but for some reason their comment system decided to put my comment there.

[Andrew Merskin @ Jun 25th 2009 8:33AM]

Dang that bezel's huge...

[spam_from_engadget @ Jun 25th 2009 8:33AM]

And they've finally noticed that there is a world outside the USA and they're accepting (pre-)orders from a few hundred million more potential customers. Congratulations - the previous attitude made them look more than a bit insular. Guess what, some of those non-USA people might be more interested in a non-Intel non-Microsoft product than your typical American. Sadly no non-US keyboard layouts yet though.

[msalivar @ Jun 25th 2009 6:07PM]

Yeah, because it doesn't drastically increase costs to expand beyond a company's home country. Nope, not at all.

It's a startup, give em a chance to do things properly, instead of rushing in too fast.

[ratchetnclank @ Jun 25th 2009 8:36AM]

How delightful.

[Bokal @ Jun 25th 2009 8:38AM]

If it's able to run moblin (which I doubt, moblin is mainly an intel project) I totally want one.

[Dalcébolus @ Jun 25th 2009 10:14AM]

Since Moblin is free/open source software, there is every chance you will see Moblin ARM, whether Intel likes it or not.

[zedster @ Jun 25th 2009 10:16AM]

http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/05/ubuntu-mid-to-switch-from-moblin-to-mer

mer is what you want

[Bokal @ Jun 25th 2009 10:39AM]

There will probably be a Moblin ARM someday, but it will be far far less supported than the x86 one. Which means it won't be so interesting. Let's hope anyway!

Ubuntu MID with Mer could be a solution probably. But, Mer is nothing but ready yet, and we've not heard news from ubuntu-mid for a long time now. While Moblin has a "usable" beta already.
And I like Moblin better than Mer anyway ;-)

[Mr. Picklesworth @ Jun 25th 2009 11:38AM]

What you're hoping for, I bet, is Moblin 2. That one doesn't have a stable release yet ;)

[Albert @ Jun 25th 2009 8:41AM]

I'm very interested to see how this performs.
For standard web, email, wordprocessing, spreadsheet stuff I would seriously consider this over an Atom based netbook if it matches the speed.

The ability to be a tablet or a netbook I think is great.
Internal USB ports is great.
Low power is great.

All that's left to be understood is the speed.

[Trimzulu @ Jun 25th 2009 8:53AM]

There are more unknowns than speed, for instance other OS support and flash support, or the lack thereof.

[Albert @ Jun 25th 2009 9:14AM]

If as @windzilla says it's the same processor as the Pre then having Flas Support on the Pre mean there is a good chance it will come here to: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/palm-joins-adobes-open-screen-project-pre-to-support-flash/

It's Linux. I don't want Windows on it, nor OSX, or Symbian.
It's based on the Beagleboard which runs Linux and there are projects to get Ubuntu on it.
That's good enough for me.

I run Ubuntu at home, so the apps will be the same as the ones I am use to.

[CtrlBurn @ Jun 25th 2009 10:36AM]

The Always Innovating site explains that YouTube should be supported in the initial beta software that ships, and the 1.0 software to come later will have a full Flash solution. http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/info.htm

[Trimzulu @ Jun 25th 2009 12:19PM]

While it does appear that they are promising full flash support it hasn't been implemented yet. And judging by the pushing back of deadlines this company has already done I'm not so sure it will be included with the v1.0 software.

[Fanfoot @ Jun 25th 2009 1:58PM]

Yeah, flash is always an issue. I'm running FC9 at the moment, and the Flash support works on lots of sites, but not all, since its generally behind by a release or two. Hopefully this will improve in the future, but that's really up to Adobe not A/I.

[volatileacid @ Jun 25th 2009 8:45AM]

test

[Eric Warnke @ Jun 25th 2009 8:56AM]

What, no pictures with the screen on? If this was a production unit that's a bad sign.

[Jay Vaughan @ Jun 26th 2009 10:31AM]

Purchased! Can't wait! Will be a great big-brother to the Pandora ..

[woowoo @ Jun 25th 2009 9:48AM]

To be fair, they're stopped 'inventing' and started 'innovating'.

[marc crespell @ Jun 25th 2009 9:52AM]

.

[Will @ Jun 25th 2009 9:50AM]

It's about time. I've been drooling over it for the past 6 months.

[Ben @ Jun 25th 2009 10:28AM]

I believe that this is a 600mhz processor. I wonder if that will put it roughly in the same ball park of web experience as the n800's ?
I had the n810 for a while and loved it. However the web browsing became sluggish with anything graphic intensive. Granted the 810 had 400mhz buy still..similar scenario.

[Bokal @ Jun 25th 2009 10:47AM]

It's a 600Mhz processor, but it's an ARM-A8(OMAP3530), much more advanced than the OMAP 2420 330Mhz from the N810. Not only the CPU clock speed is 2 times faster, but the instructions are better handled.
It also has a 2 times faster DSP.

Check beagleboard.org for specs.

[Jeremy @ Jun 25th 2009 10:49AM]

They haven't even notified anyone that pre-ordered it yet, but it's up on Engadget already. Ack!

[Mr. Picklesworth @ Jun 25th 2009 11:39AM]

I find it really entertaining that the reason this computer doesn't have Windows XP is because Microsoft won't let them. They would rather that the awesomest netbook be running Linux or just not exist for some reason...

Anyway, that's fine with me!

[Bokal @ Jun 25th 2009 11:46AM]

This computer can't run XP because it has an ARM processor, and Windows XP doesn't run on ARM.

Who would want XP when you can have linux anyway?

[bhtooefr @ Jun 29th 2009 3:19AM]

Microsoft won't let them because it'd be a hell of a lot of work to port XP to ARM, for little benefit for Microsoft. Windows 7 would at least fit into their development plans better (not porting an outdated version of something,) although it'd really need more RAM than the Touch Book has.

And, even with Windows ported to ARM... now you've gotta run software. So, that gives a couple options. Port everything to ARM, which isn't really feasible, or emulate x86, which would be worse for ARM than not having Windows at all - it'd get a reputation as a dreadfully slow CPU that makes the AMD Geode look fast, let alone Atom.

The right option would be to either go platform independent, which is what .NET was trying to solve, and failed at, or to decide on an architecture to move to, change the executable format to handle fat binaries, and make x86/ARM binaries. Or, possibly, add a field to the info on the x86 binary to provide the name of an ARM-specific binary, and run that instead if it's in the same directory. But, that'd take a generation of Windows to even begin to work, and they'd not be able to successfully move platforms until the version AFTER the first version to support all this, I think.

[Ben @ Jun 25th 2009 12:40PM]

Bokal- beagleboard info is pretty fascinating it does seam like a completely different animal.

[hey @ Jun 25th 2009 12:55PM]

I was wondering when they would finally get to releasing this. I just remembered a few days ago that it should have already released, and was hoping to pick one up. To my surprise, the homepage still said Pre-Order. Good thing this thing still isn't dead. Might pick up a few of these.

[Fanfoot @ Jun 25th 2009 2:08PM]

Keyboard looks a bit odd from the shots.

Haven't seen a review yet, which concerns me. The closest we come is that preview Gizmodo had up a while back using pre-production units.

The "internal" USB slots in the lid are interesting but could be problematic. I know my 3G modem, a U720, probably won't fit since the antenna can't be made to lie flat. Also it might be a bit long. Won't know until somebody gets hands on though.

How well does the touchscreen work? How heavy is it to use? How quick is the web-browsing experience? How good is the Wifi? Is it 802.11n?

Seems like this thing has a lot of potential. I'll be waiting to hear user experiences or see reviews first though.

[Stuart Jones @ Jun 26th 2009 12:01AM]

Umm... If they haven't shipped it yet how could there be any reviews out? Just saying...

As for some of your performance worries, the processor/mobo that the Touchbook uses has been out for a while. Just search youtube for "Beagleboard" and you'll find some hits. It should give you a rough estimate of what you're getting into.

[Aya @ Jun 25th 2009 2:22PM]

This this is pretty dang cute.

[msalivar @ Jun 25th 2009 6:12PM]

It looks even better than the renders, which surprises me. Yeah, the screen bezel is wide, but remember, the thing is a tablet, it has all the componentry and a battery in there. Despite that, they really seem to make the most of it, and the bezel seems to add to the good looks.

I think I'll grab one for my mom, she's been wanting a netbook.

[Vulc @ Jun 25th 2009 7:42PM]

One of the things I'm hoping for is Beagleboards to be upgraded to the 1+ Ghz dual core OMAP4 processors from TI in the future, but even further, that owners of the Touch Book will be able to "upgrade" theirs by swapping out the two boards.

[Aaargh!! @ Jun 26th 2009 12:27AM]

Why on earth is it ever--EVER--a good idea to put the touchpad off center of the keyboard?!? I had a laptop like that and I absolutely hated it. My right palm was always touching the pad and making it click or scroll or something. Is it that hard to center the touchpad under the spacebar?
Frustrations aside, I've been drooling over this netbook since I read about it months ago. Very brilliant. This will change the market, but the Touchbook 2 with all the minor problems fixed will OWN the market.

[ceferino @ Jun 26th 2009 2:33AM]

Hey, so what do you think about the CrunchPad? I think it's better...

[Rumplestilzken @ Jun 27th 2009 12:02AM]

To all the people who bashed Bob for comparing the Touch Book to the Mac pro, shut up and learn something before you bash someone. The fact is Fred Bould, you know the guy who designed the Touch Books Case, is the same designer Apple goes to....
Nice eye Bob.

[Smuggler17 @ Jun 27th 2009 11:21PM]

First, I am definitely glad they switched to a standard SD card over the micro SD.
Second, am I the only one disappointed that they will no longer ship in silver, but only red?

Anyways, now begins the long wait for my pre-order to ship...

[UbuntuIRCReader @ Jul 1st 2009 10:53AM]

Let the wait, continue....
Seriously just ship me the damn thing already.
I'll get Linux and the programs into it myself.

To those who were wondering, It is open hardware so you can easily update to the OMAP4 hardware, if the beagleboard releases it and it can fit into the case.

On the software side, your probably gonna have to do everything yourself to get the system to run with OMAP4.

6000mAh and 12000mAh. That's definitely gonna have a run-time of 10+ hours.

[Prometheus Fire @ Jul 18th 2009 7:17PM]

A full discussion forum is now available for this computer. Hopefully alot of information will be developed there once this thing ships.

http://www.innovatingtouch.com