There's a really nice Gizmodo hands on too:<p><a href="http://i.gizmodo.com/5162584/always-innovating-touch-book-is-a-part+netbook-part+tablet-open-source-frankenstein?skyline=true&s=x" rel="nofollow">http://i.gizmodo.com/5162584/always-innovating-touch-book-is...</a><p>Curious, is this the fabled TC tablet? or is this just another company who decides to make this?<p>I really like this concept of a dockable keyboard. I wonder if they/3rd parties will offer a way to dock separately. I'd like some kind of charging base to dock it on, so I could have it set up at eye height and use a bluetooth/etc keyboard.<p>I already have an acer aspire one - the touchscreen is not something I care too much for personally, but I am still curious and who knows, maybe I'll grow to enjoy it.
This is exactly what I've wanted for quite some time! Previous attempts at getting it have included a Gateway Handbook 486 (which got 10 hours on 4 AAs, but had an atrocious LCD), and the OLPC XO-1. When the OMAP3 started shipping I wondered how long it would be before someone made a netbook with one -- it takes balls most people don't have to ship a non-x86 computer. This one hits it out of the park!<p>There are some unanswered questions:<p><pre><code> * What's the ratio of battery capacity screen:keyboard?
* What voltage/amperage is used for the charger? (how big is it?)
* How fast can it read from the MicroSD and USB2?
</code></pre>
My only gripes with it that I can see are:<p><pre><code> * The mediocre keyboard layout (the lower-right corner, as always)
* Using MicroSD instead of plain
* Not having a Mini-PCI-E Flash slot in the internal space (could share with one of the USB ports)
* Only 256mb of RAM (really gimps web-browsing)
* It's a bit thick with the keyboard (though it's worth it for the battery)</code></pre>
If you line up devices starting with a big desktop PC on one side and simple mobile phone on the other end, there's a gap today between netbook and smart phone. I wonder if something like this is the thing that will fill the void. Imagine adding a WAN dongle and a Bluetooth headset to this. With Skype, it's half phone/half PC.<p>Writing this post got me thinking about something. It would be cool to be able to carry this in my backpack in the "on" state and get notifications about important events via smaller, wristwatch-like devices. Imagine your watch vibrating when you get a call and showing you caller ID info or text messages popping up on it.<p>There are certainly downsides compared to the iPhone or what I hope the first really nice Android device will be. However, I find these too small for "real" work so I have to carry a laptop around anyway. A hybrid could be both to some portion of the population.
<a href="http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/faqs.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/faqs.htm</a><p>The FAQ made me grin with regards to OS:<p><i>...This enables to install many OSes on the device, including Google Android, Ubuntu, Angstrom, and Windows CE, though we would not recommend the latter. You are free to do whatever you want.</i>
I was looking at <a href="http://www.tabletpc2.com/Review-HPTC1100.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.tabletpc2.com/Review-HPTC1100.htm</a> which was made a few years ago by HP. I've been searching for something like this in the last few weeks, but no one made exactly what I'm looking for yet.<p>The Touch Book come really close but I want more cpu power out of it.
I have a tablet pc I draw and design on and have though so many times that if I could just remove the monitor I could avoid so many heat problems. I got really excited when I saw this... Unfortunately this device just appears to be a touch screen based on the stats.