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?
Presumably its because that area of the computer has to make room for not merely the LCD, but rather all the computing components. (The keyboard below it is detachable.)
Give it 1 GB of actual RAM and a higher res screen, and I'll really, seriously look into it.
I've been wanting an ARM machine for my alarm clock, irc, and torrents. I feel bad using this laptop for all that as it means leaving it running pretty much all the time..
ARM...alarm...but...processor...for an alarm....
*asplode*
Alarm Clock can play any sound file at a given time, certain days of the week or month, or just certain dates, all kinds of stuff. It's insanely flexible, and the best alarm clock ever, imo.
..but using an Intel CPU for it is overkill.
What exactly would you need 1GB of RAM for on this machine?
Last time I used my old 256MB computer, it could do perfectly everything you mentioned (yes, at the same time)
BTW, I think the lack of more memory is because of a limitation in the controller, not because they didn't want to
.NET and Java.
Mono doesn't need very much RAM to do its thing, and Java can be optimized to make the most of embedded systems, which this essentially is. Java could be a pain point, but this thing is going to have a very very low footprint, so I think java will be able to be a whore and still play nice.
Let me be clear, the first thing I'd do is wipe the OS off of it and use regular Ubuntu ARM.
..and actually, I'd probably just remove OpenOffice and firefox and use native gnome office apps and Epiphany.
..but gnome-do and banshee are .NET, so there's still that.
I pre-ordered one of these about 2 months ago, and I can absolutely not wait. I am excited to see what this particular piece of technology shapes up to mean, because even if it is rather underpowered, it is a first in a lot of ways. It's based off the beagleboard, it has a removable tablet, it's got internal usb ports, and it is essentially the first ARM netbook to come to market. If it flies, that's fantastic, if it fails, we have learned a lot about what people want.
She used 8 contractions all correctly, Take that Grammar Nazi's!
You made three mistakes in your one line post!
You might want to learn a little about how to use commas, when to use upper-case letters, and what the plural of Nazi is.
I LOVE ENGADGET!
I can tell
well...... continue innovating
price is nice - but i want multitouch and hackintosh on it
I hope the Apple tablet come with a slide in keyboard similar to this design.
sweet!
Finally!
Now I have to decide between buying one, and waiting for the Apple tablet.
A few months ago, I was going to order it but was deterred by a very vague e-mail from the company in reply to my specific questions.
Today, it seems that the dudes who designed these "dudes" are the only ones who deliver a portable and affordable tablet computer which suits my requirements. I was going to buy either a TouchBook or an OpenPandora, N900, or CrunchPad, whichever is available first. Looks like I have a winner.
Ouch!! stupid computer (more likely stupid computer user). I voted negative on my own posts there cause I absolutely didn't meant to post three times!
i want.... *paws at it*
I'm looking forward to getting mine. My Nokia N810 is great, but I need a bigger screen for comfortable book reading and video. The Kindle is too limited. This looks to do what I want and a lot more without being too spendy.
Well, I should have one in the next few days. Not sure if I will keep it. I'm having my doubts. I don't mind the beta level software, but several months after having ordered it, and having also purchased a Dell Vostro A90, I have to wonder how much use I'm actually going to get out of this device.
I'll see soon enough.
Do you have your touchbook yet?
Did they send you notification that it is shipping?
THIIIIIS is more like it:
http://www.nothinggg.com/examples/touchbook_mod.png
i nearly ordered it but no onboard camera for skype / google video chat killed it for me. if the crunchpad comes in without 3g for under 400 thats what ill get
Regarding Java on this platform, the OMAP 3530 CPU has hardware acceleration for Java. That CPU has a Cortex-A8 core which contains the Jazelle hardware bytecode interpreter for Java. Google and Wikipedia have more information.
The CPU isn't fast by modern desktop standards, but it gets a great deal of help from the extra bits of hardware in the CPU such as the DSP, image signal processor and embedded GPU.
has anyone else realised that this is pretty much just a slightly bigger Archos 7 with a hell of a lot less storage and a different OS.
Cannot wait for this gadget. Same board as openpandora, but bigger screen. I have a Nokia N810 and love it, but it is a little underpowered. This gadget would be awesome for ebook reading, light websurfing, and comics. Having video playback is awesome too. Just big enough to lug around, but not a notebook big. Also being able to compile your own apps is going to be great.
Anyone knows if the screen has physical buttons to flip pages if the screen will be used as an eReader?
Hmm I got a pre-order pretty much as soon as they allowed it, I haven't gotten an email yet. Weak.
me too -their communication with their customers is very poor. It doesn't seem to bode well for the product IMO
For those complaining about the screen bezel are you forgetting that this is touch screen tablet and you are going to have to be able to hold it without touching the screen? Add to this its 3D accelerometer allowing you to rotate the screen to whichever orientation you wish and you see the value of a decent bezel. Yes they could increase the screen size but how many netbooks have you seen with higher screen res than 1024x600? I'd prefer a smaller high res screen to a larger low res one any day.
Are they really shipping?
Nobody on the Web seems to have got their hands on one yet.
I pre-ordered back in March, and have heard nothing from them.
I get nervous when someone has my credit card info for 6months and doesn't send me anything
I’ve pre-ordered my own Touch Book from Always Innovating, and “Qualified” my order, but they haven’t sent one to me yet. Waiting impatiently! :-)
There are new screenshots up on the site. They seem to be a mini-micro-nano review, that basically just tell me “yes! it works!” -- for certain values of “works” … I’m looking forward to the first reviews. Anyone out there got a Touch Book yet?
I haven't received an updated status after qualifying my order too. The screen shots look great though! It almost reminds me of Windows Vista or the Windows 7 GUI, in a way. It'll be great if Engadget reviews the Touch Book, it's fun reading their reviews. I work a city away from them too in Palo Alto, I should stop by their office and pick-up the Touch Book there...only if I could.