Always Innovating's Touch Book now shipping
By Laura June 
posted August 2nd 2009 2:11PM
posted August 2nd 2009 2:11PM
If you're anything like us, you're always waiting anxiously for the next netbook to drop. The Always Innovating Touch Book -- a hybrid netbook / tablet -- which we knew was very nearly on its way, is now, apparently, on its way! That's correct -- if you were smart enough to pre-order, you've probably already received an email confirming that your Touch Book has shipped. We'll be anxious to see one of these dudes in a photoshoot, that's for sure. If you've forgotten, these dudes pack an 8.9-inch, 1,024 x 600 touchscreen, a USB 802.11 b/g/n adapter, Bluetooth, a TI OMAP3530 CPU, and 512MB of memory (split 50 / 50 between RAM and NAND), plus a further 8GB of storage on an SD card. The company's website says it may take "several weeks" to fulfill all the pre-orders, so we'll let you know if we get any updates. What about you? Did you order a Touch Book -- or know anyone who did?
Isn't a "Always Innovating" netbook an oxymoron?
You certainly didn't win any grammar awards did you?
^^ co-signed....
this is a smartbook not a netbook
Dudes? Shoot, even if I had thought about ordering one before, I dang sure ain't gonna order one now!
Ten points for most egregious use of the word "dudes" in a story.
+1
FINALLY. The sooner they ship out the first wave of touch books, the sooner they'll sell them in colors other than that atrocious red.
Like your hat?
LOWNED!
maybe they should prototype a Zii and tegra based one and see how they fare against the OMAP processor.
While they're at it, they should make ridiculous claims about it. Like the way it's going to revolutionize computing. BUT..
they already used 'stem cell' in computing, so maybe they should move on to "human clone" computing... just as unrelated, but just a sure to garner press due to its weird ass name scheme.
I'll go patent "synthetic computing".
I think that's enough of the bashing on Creative. The name was misleading, yes. But it was a marketing tool, and it got into consumer's minds and stuck (as clearly demonstrated in these posts) so in business terms, they did their job. They got the name out and remembered. Unnecessary name? Surely. But genius marketing in my book.
Question is : why, hell, why only 512mo of ram ... ??!!! And sorry for my leak of intel but ... did I read this news correctly and the wifi thing is a usb key or something ???
Ps : not a english native speaker, forgive me :)
512 is plenty
Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!
No, 256MB of RAM. The 512MB is split between NAND and RAM.
256 on the RAM, and that's because that's the most the memory controller can handle. It's basically a BeagleBoard with a touch screen, a fancy case, a big battery, and a real warranty and support.
Not true. The 3530 SDRAM controller can address up to 1GB. It just happens that the POP (package-on-package) device that they use has 256MB of SDRAM. Additional external SDRAM would have been possible.
Ah, my bad. In that case, yeah, that's the most Micron makes, and Micron, IIRC, is the only company that makes POP modules for the OMAP3530.
And, they couldn't use external RAM because they were using a tweaked Beagleboard design, which doesn't support it.
I guarantee you the OMAP 3530 beats the Tegra every time.
Can you explain yourself? I was under the impression that Tegra would smoke the omap3530, but I have no real information there.
Why does it look so like a MacBook?
That looks nothing like a macbook, (and thank god for that) you waste of flesh.
No, it kinda looks like a macbook, with the silver case and block around the screen. And the keyboard.
Why are you so grumpy?
yeah , it has a screen and buttons for typing and it looks like it folds, its totally a macbook rip off.
@NoAndThen
I forgot that Apple invented the silver case, block around the screen, and the keyboard.
Will you pissbags get the balls out of your mouth? I'm just saying the case shape and color looks like a MacBook. Only NoAndThen got it.
Hmm... Wierd, i've never seen a macbook with a red exterior that comes standard, then again, I'm not a mac kind of guy. I'm a linux.
These guys dont know what the fuck their talking about, Fred Bould, you know the guy that they employed to design the case.....is none other than the guy that Apple goes to. so anyone who wants to bitch about someone saying it looks like a macbook, should shove it square in their ignorant ass.
damn, thats the weirdest thing ever, it doesn't mention anywhere on his website that fred bould designed the macbook. hell, the last thing i can find that he designed for apple was a printer in 1997... hmmmm... and that printer doesnt look anything like a macbook, hmmmmm...
-Hugh Spaz
a proprietary OS and no multitouch on a "touch book" completely rule out any viability for me. however, it is good to finally see the this market getting cracked into.
little bit confused though. 3/5 of the "book" is only there to offer the keyboard & trackpad? or do you lose other stuff by disconnecting it?
The bottom half also has a huge battery in there - IIRC, battery life is only 3-5 hours without it, and 10-15 hours with it.
Who the fuck said this OS is proprietary
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/company/opensource.htm
Yaja, you just got called out.
"Q. Which OS is installed on the Touch Book?"
"A. The Touch Book will ship with the Touch Book OS by default."
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/faqs.htm
it appears their actual licensing isn't available to read (that I could find) so my "proprietary" argument is mute. however, something simply being open source doesn't eliminate it from being proprietary (there are many examples like sun/java past proprietary "open source" licensing).
the actual point I was going for however is that when your hardware runs it's own custom OS by default, it brings up serious capability questions. unless the machine has major problems with the "can install many other OSes," why would anyone not ship with one of the well known and trusted OS on it instead.
Yaja, it is a touch-friendly distro based off of Anstrom Linux. When in tablet mode, the icons become larger (finger friendly) and a virtual keyboard is easily accessible. When docked, the icons size down and a standard desktop layout appears.
Since it is essentially just like a BeagleBoard, I'm sure standard Angstrom, Android, Gentoo, and the Pandora OS would load up just fine on the unit.
"The TI OMAP 3530 Application processor includes ARM Cortex-A8 operating at max speed of 600MHz and C64x+ DSP operating at max speed of 430MHz.The Processor is designed to be used in rich multimedia featured handsets, high performance PDA, Video capturing for 2G and 3G wireless terminals, Navigation device, Mobile TV, Mobile Gaming, and Video Conferencing applications"
Am I reading that right? ARM Cortex A8 2 600mhz?
I dont think this'll be a snappy computer.. But with a linux os, I may be wrong..
link: http://www.design-reuse.com/news/21048/t-omap3530-reference-board.html
-----------------------------
"While we admire Microsoft’s staying power in the industry, they lost their innovative edge many years ago. In the mean time, Linux and the open source community have made tremendous progress to offer an innovative and user-friendly desktop experience. The Touch Book is picking up this trend and comes with our own Linux-optimized system. Over time in 2009, we plan to support other Linux-based alternatives such as Google Android or interesting projects such as Moblin. As for Windows, XP cannot work on our platform by design — don't expect a native Photoshop on the Touch Book. Only Windows CE can make the cut, and Windows 7 is uncertain for the moment."
Not sure how much they are charging, but anything over $250.00 is not really worth it... Like seriously, this seems WAY under powered...
link: http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/info.htm
With a stripped down distro and being careful to offload stuff to the DSP, it shouldn't be a problem.
*Ehem*... Android would run great on that.
As far as the price goes, it says " $299 (USD) for tablet, $399 (USD) with keyboard" (if you look a bit further down the page of the read link)
I ordered one, and I can't wait for it to come. I'd like to point out that they specifically said this was meant to be used as a secondary computer, which is why it's got an underpowered processor and 10-15 hours of battery life. It's kind of like an iphone, except its big enough and has a real keyboard, so you can get some actual work done with it. Anyway, it should at least be fun to play with. And I don't know bout you, but i kinda like the red.
Exactly, I've been clamoring for something like this for years... super low power usage, enough cpu to run a browser and email and media player, that's all I need.
dude...
This is a step in the right direction so an A for effort. Wonder what's in the base and as yaja said, what do you lose without it? Wouldn't it have been easier just to have a USB keyboard. I'd really like to see that feature in perhaps the next gen Touch (tablet?).
You _can_ use a USB keyboard with it.
And without it's own keyboard you lose about 10 hours of battery life. The huge battery is in the keyboard part, the screen part only has a small battery.
I think the Asus T91 has more potential...
even with the Asus T91 - the reviews I read made me pause and want to see one in person before I purchase. The one by Gigabyte sounds more promising right now.
wtf is up with that ugly-ass giant bezel
they were trying to copy asus