Switched On: A tale of two tablets
posted Sep 22nd 2009 7:01PM
It was the best of ideas. It was the worst of ideas. It was the age of innovation. It was the age of stagnation. It was the epoch of developing a bold new computing platform. It was the epoch of churning out another piece of converged electronics nobody needs.
Rumors have been swirling that PC operating system heavyweights Apple and Microsoft are developing forays into the world of tablet computing. Such devices will face strong competition from netbooks featuring low prices and a large library of applications remains to be seen. Two new entrants to the hardware world, the CrunchPad and Always Innovating's Touch Book, have already begun panning for gold with their Linux-based tablets. However, the waters are now attracting larger rivals designing tablets powered by Microsoft operating systems, albeit different ones.
Entering one of the few new categories at IFA earlier this month, Toshiba announced the JournE Touch, a 7" touch-enabled tablet running Windows CE designed for addressing the usual range of converged device chores, including accessing social networks and content playback, but there are a few tricks up its slender sleeve.
The JournE Touch is first in a what Toshiba promises will be a family of such products. Engadget reports that it will also be also include VoIP and e-reader functionality as well as include a "fridge" app that allows family members to scribble notes on it, functionality seen in the far larger and pricier PC-based HP TouchSmart desktop PCs. Toshiba will also offer a dock with HDMI out so that videos can be played back on a larger display, such as a digital TV. But one key unresolved question for the category is a whole is what will be worth watching on such a device. Attacking the space from another platform is Archos with its 9" 9pctablet, which architecturally is essentially a touchscreen netbook stripped of the lower part of its clamshell.
While Toshiba has shipped tablet PCs for years and is now testing the waters of an embedded platform, the Archos 9 tablet PC crowns a new line that includes several non-PC tablets sold by the company, including a 5" tablet powered by Android and a 7" media tablet based on the company's proprietary UI build on Linux.As a PC, the Archos device should have access to all the functionality of the JournE touch and more. (It will also be able to work with Bluetooth keyboards and mice for pedestrian productivity.)
The trade off is battery life, with the tablet PC lasting less than four hours on a charge. And there are fewer places to stuff an extended battery in a sleek tablet than a large notebook. The tablet draws an interesting line in the sand between embedded processors and the full-fledged PC. It has a large enough screen where consumers will expect far more than a smartphone experience, but also has a usage model that demands all-day battery life.
As discussed in a previous Switched On, though, video will be the key content genre if this device type has any legs in the marketplace, and it's difficult to excel in that today without Hulu playback. Until smartphone-class devices become powerful enough to run Flash acceptably (or Hulu supports other video playback methods), a PC-based architecture will generally have the advantage in this burgeoning category. Wander at will from room to room, just not too far from an outlet.
Ross Rubin is director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
Entering one of the few new categories at IFA earlier this month, Toshiba announced the JournE Touch, a 7" touch-enabled tablet running Windows CE designed for addressing the usual range of converged device chores, including accessing social networks and content playback, but there are a few tricks up its slender sleeve.
Entering one of the few new categories at IFA earlier this month, Toshiba announced the JournE Touch, a 7" touch-enabled tablet running Windows CE
a 7" touch-enabled tablet running Windows CE
Windows CE
FAIL
Windows CE can't be THAT bad can it? I mean, look at the Zune HD.
The Dreamcast OS was powered by Windows CE.
Barry, do you actually know anything about Windows CE?
Millions of devices out there run CE with or without you knowing about it.
What are the choices:
- Apple don't yet have an open embedded OS
- With Linux the tool support is expensive, Embeded Linux "can" be free most dev houses buy the professional distros that cost alot of $$$ (Embedded Linux doesn' have the professional library support that Win CE offers)
- Custom OS (unless you've spent years in house developing your own custom OS and tools, this really isn't an option)
Microsoft on the other hand provide an OS that you can easily customise
- Using Platform Builder you can play around with the features you need (with source code)
- Build a new OS completely from the ground up
- Run on multiple processor types (x86 / ARM / Mips)
- Connect Visual Studio to a debug device and deploy code (.NET Compact Framework or Native, your choice)
On its 6th edition now its going strong, is very reliable (despite what you may think), doesn't cost an arm and a leg ($3 per unit) and its very easy to get in touch with the developers that made certain features to get support.
Almost all chip manufacturers supply Windows CE BSPs to solve any early driver issues. In my experience creating a CE device (and i've worked on many) is really easy and pain free. I spend time writing the software I need rather than play around getting the OS image right.
Now, what were you saying?
James is right. There are tons of everyday devices that run WinCE. Many don't even have screens! WinCE has proven to be a durable, flexible, and ultimately a customizable platform that be used in tons of everyday devices to some extent.
Thus far manufacturer's haven't gotten the weight just right, or been able to balance light weight with long term battery power, or high speed performance. I have a Lenovo X60 tablet and using it as a tablet is a joke considering how slow the screen transitions are and how heavy it gets after a little while.
If your computer starts to get too heavy, just delete some of the heavier applications.
(@ gad get: Hilarious. :-D)
If the 3.5 pound (1.6 kilo) Aspire Timeline computers can get 8 hours or more (and I know they can, 'cause I've got one), there's really not too much of an excuse for there not to be a tablet with good battery life. Seems to me that it ought not be impossible to get something reasonably powerful with a 4+ hour life at a usable size and weight and a decent price.
Why not take one of the new breed of ULV-processor-powered notebooks, remove the hinge and keyboard, flip the screen around, put a piece of glass in front of it and give it a touchscreen? I'd be happy with an 11.1" screen at 1366x768, and if it has to be a little thicker to support a decent battery, then that's fine by me. I'd fall every night asleep holding the thing.
... And to stave off the inevitable comments: no, I am not currently sharing my bed with anyone (except sometimes my cat). If you were itching to make a quip, then you've almost certainly slept with fewer women than I have.
these entries remind me of a piece of tech i have at my house that really never took off:
Sony LocationFree Setup w/LCD Panel.
Sure, its not a real pc (The lcd panel that can connect anywhere to the base station via internet wifi or private wifi network). but for when i am at home, nothing is great than waking up, grabbing the panel and bring it to the bathroom and put on the news/weather/traffic while doing my thing. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAhkbmW6t6M
I have a couple of Windows CE tablets doing double time for home automation and as remote desktops. About five years ago this was the vision: remember thin client computing and smart displays? The trouble is that the advent of the cheap netbook has made the case for portable thin clients less economically viable, and the model now appears to be self-contained devices which synchronize their contents to the internet, not to a local server.
Someone please explain to me why the following doesn't exist:
A tablet (or even laptop) style device which consists of an LCD, battery, and wireless HDMI/USB.
The device would stream content from your extremely powerful yet hidden desktop PC so that you can have all the power of the desktop in a very light, cool, long lasting tablet/laptop.
The form factor from the AlwaysInnovating tablet/laptop would be absolutely perfect for this.
I know streaming high res content isn't "easy" but devices do exist for it. I've been looking at trying to develop my own solution for something similar to this but I can never muster up the balls to pull the trigger on buying the necessary individual components.
@ Chad
Hell yeah... I'd connect the thing to my laptop, even (currently my primary computer); you could use it at school to take hand-written notes and at home for when you're lying in bed or lounging on the couch, watching a movie or surfing the web or whatever.
Z'OMG! Typo alert.
Second paragraph, last line: "... larger rivals designing ablets powered by ..."
Albets? ALBETS?! And to think I pay all this money to read Engadget.
Feel free to delete me when you fix the spelling mistake. :D
"Second paragraph, last line: "... larger rivals designing ablets powered by ..."
Albets? ALBETS?! And to think I pay all this money to read Engadget."
Albets huh? ;)
Look who's talking. You misspell a misspelled word that is right in front of you.
FAIL. They wrote ablets and you wrote albets.
also the second sentence of the second paragraph doesnt make sense.
"However, the waters are now attracting larger rivals designing tablets powered by Microsoft operating systems, albeit different ones."
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that sentence. albeit, pronounced : al·be·it, meaning: Despite its being; although. Looks like Emgadget just expandet your vocabulary.
This was a great post, Loved the Dickens reference. Good one Ross.
If you can't do this category right you're going to fail. And it is likely quite difficult. I'm going to want to hold this thing in one hand. On the bed or on the couch. For extended periods of time. Meaning it needs to be big enough to read from a distance, have enough pixels for web browsing. Be bright enough to read in a bright room (but inside). Be light enough and thin enough that you want to hold it for extended periods (think Kindle 2 sized). And yet have a battery that lasts long enough to be useful.
Now personally I think if it runs for 3-4 hours that's pretty good. Doing basic web browsing and internet flash video playback.
I don't even remotely care if it runs a full OS. Some people seem to want that. I want it to be as light and cheap as possible, which means it CAN'T. So it needs to run a Tegra processor or something like that. And just boot straight into the browser from power on.
If it can't do basic web browsing, with decent multi-touch zoom/scroll then forget it. And it MUST be able to handle flash video playback. Including Full Screen flash playback, which means Adobe has to play ball. And NO STYLUS!
Sure I'd love an Apple version of this, with games and an app store, and iTunes integration, and ebooks, remote control functionality, and web calendaring and family memos and and and...
But at heart it needs to do that iPhone web browsing thing, just a little bigger and a little better. And if it can't do that, then forget it.
I haven't seen enough about how well its web browsing works. Have to wait for a full review closer to release I guess.
WOW you really care don't you?
Yeah sorry. Guess I should be all blase about it. But I think it would be a great category.
I understand that a lot of people, maybe even most people, don't care at all.
I'm assuming that if Apple does something in this space it will be great. It would be nice if we could expect other vendors to expend similar amounts of effort in defining a new product. But I don't really expect them to.
Tablets have failed to take off mostly for lack of a really good user interface and hand writing input IMO. Sure windows can be made to work but it's far from an ideal interface paradigm for touch and handwriting. Is it any wonder tablets have reached so small a market when you ignore the basic advantages of the platform in the first place? All I want is a wireless tablet with a good UI and great hand writing/note-taking capabilities. Sadly, no one seems able to do it right. Throw in a Pixel Qi type screen for ebook reading and I would be in love.
When i heard that you could get 40 hours of battery life from surfing the internet, I wanted one. And then I heard that it only lasts 2 hours for HD? Is that good? I tried looking at this review but I don't think i can trust what this guy is saying. Someone help me out?
Here's the link:
http://www.tvlesson.com/video/39224_toshiba-journe-touch-tablet-hands-on.html
I feel like the only person in the room who knows the opening of this article was homage' to Babylon 5, and a nice one at that.
LOL.
wow.
B5, really... you don't think it's possible they borrowed it do you?
If by "homage to Babylon 5" you really mean "homage to a Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens then I agree.
@rupan your definitely the only one in the room that "knows" that. This is obviously a reference to A Tale of two cities by Charles Dickens. Hence the title "A Tale of two tablets".
Your probably the only one in the room that didn't know that. Pick it up and read the first paragraph, you'll understand.
Of all the manufacturers out there, I think Apple can pull off the balance if they take their time, LISTEN to their customers and refine, refine, refine the design until it is small enough to tote around, has a nice battery life (like Air) and just works. They need to listen to the demographic that will benefit the most from a solid tablet design and implementation... lawyers, healthcare, education. These people actually USE the frumpy tablets that are out there now, so imagine if someone can get it all RIGHT. The only place Apple will probably fail is on pricing. If they cannot bring in a tablet around $1000 that does it all, then I don't think it will work.
All I can think it Skype. You put one of these babies in my kitchen, and I could really see myself flying through some YouTube videos, or checking some stuff on facebook while cooking. But maybe I give my gf a call over Skype and have a quick convo while cooking. Not as "boring" as having a TV in the kitchen; it would be very modern and cool IMO.
Any thoughts?
add an alarm function that plays a playlist of mp3s off my server. And a full screen clock that auto dims when the lights in the room go off.
How about a remote control. Pandora, and weather in easy to touch widgets...
These are the little touches that take a product from 'huh, cool' to 'WOW FRIKKING AWESOME'