Always Innovating sure made good on the promise of removable tablet embedded in a netbook form factor and price -- we've gone from
hardly believable renders in March to a
now-shipping $400 ($300 without the base) product as of now. The impressions are already trickling in, but our favorite observation so far is this fridge magnet implementation. The main complaint so far is that the machine altogether is rather heavy for a netbook. It makes sense given that all the computer internals are in the MID-style touchscreen, while the keyboard base adds on 7 hours of purported battery life. So far it doesn't sound like this is the sexy-slim way to get into the netbook game if you're not in it for the removable MID capabilities, but for the MID affectionate the Touch Book could provide a nice alternative to the same old same old.
[Via
Engadget Spanish]
Read - Touch Book first impressions
Read - Touch Book unboxing
posted August 20th 2009 12:55PM
If I can run the Google Chrome OS on this sucker, that would be frickin fantastic. I may have to order one of they guys.
Though it would be absolutely amazing if someone could get Pa'm's webOS running seeing how this is the same CPU.
Hmm. I don't really see how anyone could say that it would be fantastic to have Chrome on this, mostly because we don't know what Chrome looks like yet. There isn't really any information on it aside from the whole "get you on the internet quick" and "streamlined for web use" statements. I'm sure when Google finally releases some actual information that isn't simply talking about Chrome being a cloud driven OS, there will be something to get excited about.
But it would be nice to see webOS, in some flavor, loaded on something like this.
I'd be all for it with more netbook-like specs (1GB+ RAM, multi-GB internal storage.) As it stands I think I'll wait for a Cortex A9 model and hope they up the RAM and storage to something usable.
Well, with the RAM, you're going to have to wait for a Cortex A9. I believe 256MB is the maximum limit that the A8 can handle. I have a friend getting one of these and he is totally planning on putting a 1.8" drive inside.
Damn you for having the same name as me!
That would be cool for reading recipes off the intarwebs while you cook.
It's Funny, that's what Steve Wozniak thought the purpose of the computer would be: storing recipes.
Have to admit, this thing wasn't really on my radar at all till I read the linked article. Some interesting design choices. I like the internal USB ports. Makes it kind of a fun electronic tinker toy. I'll be keeping my eye on this one.
for 300 bucks you can get an eeepc with 1.6ghz cpu,1gb ram,160gb hard drive and 8 hour battery life. And it can actually run windows.
yes, but this is a tablet. That justifies the price, right?
you can also get a Best Buy Special Toshiba with a 17" screen, 2GHz prosc, a gig of Ram and 250 Gb hard drive running Vista for 300 bucks, the point is not the specs and the price, it's the form factor.
When will people realize that some people want a certain computer over another, and that's OK. Maybe I want a $300 tablet to stick to the fridge that will show me weather and traffic while I'm cooking breakfast, and stream a little Hulu at night while I'm cooking dinner.... I don't need a whole netbook for that.
Running windows is pretty much a flaw to me...
I've been waiting for a review/unboxing forever and now... I'm kinda disappointed. It looked quite promising at first.
I've been looking at the SmartQ 7 MID lately, and I'm leaning a little more towards it now with this article.
The price is a little much for an ARM processor. The other ARM MID's put it in perspective. Most are around $200 with very good battery life and a little sleeker.
The Smart Q7 blows. Unless you want to deal with re-installing a completely different OS, I'd say forget the Q7. Hardware-wise, its sort of interesting, but the onboard OS is really, really atrocious.
(I have both - you'll enjoy the experience of the Touchbook a lot, lot more than the Q7.. AI actually put some thought into how they configured Linux for the TB, whereas Q7's OS seems like it was set up by a 13-year old kid ..)
Oooh ... this device must hurt engadget a lot since they left the term 'linux' out of their article -- and the fact that Always Innovating says emphatically that "they don't do windows".
We already knew MS's unmistakable influence on engadget.com but not its confirmed beyond doubt ;-)
The last sentence in my previous post should read:
We already suspected MS's unmistakable influence on engadget.com but *now* its confirmed beyond doubt ;-)
I would love to get a next-gen version of this. In 2010, or 11, this computer form, plus updated OMAP processor, plus USB 3.0, plus SDXC. I think that would do it for me.
However, if I could find some more reviews, I would still love to get this current Touch Book.
I preordered one. I already have two desktops a laptop and a netbook. This is going in my car...