Always Innovating have announced a new ARM based touch screen/tablet computer, which they plan to start shipping the US in May/June with a price starting at $299. The Touch Book will come with the Touch Book OS, based on the Angström Linux distribution. The company says the Touch Book is not limited to their OS and that it’s possible to “install many operating systems on the device, including Google Android, Ubuntu, Angstrom, and Windows CE, though we would not recommend the latter.”
The Touch Book motherboard is based on the Beagle Board and the schematics for it have been released under the GPL by Always Innovating. With an 8.9″ diagonal 1024 by 600 resolution touch screen and an ability to play up to 720p video content, the Touch Book is being sold as a companion to, rather than a replacement for, a user’s main machine.
The Touch Book sports a number of unique features in a small device. The keyboard is detachable, allowing the device to used as just a tablet, and the back of the tablet is magnetic, letting a user stick the device to a fridge or other metallic surface. The device weighs less than two pounds, but offers a ten to fifteen hour battery life. However, there is a catch; the two parts of the Touch Book, the tablet and the keyboard, have their own separate batteries. The tablet alone has 3 to 5 hours battery life, with the keyboard battery extending that to the ten to fifteen hours.
Another interesting design feature is the inclusion of internal USB ports. These allow readily available 3G dongles, memory sticks and other USB devices to be fitted within the unit, avoiding the problem of accidental disconnections. The quiet and cool design doesn’t need a cooling fan due to its use of the low power OMAP3 ARM processor from Texas Instruments.
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Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
I have also …
I have also pre-ordered and have not heard from them yet. I check daily. You can qualify your pre-order on their site, which helps determine your place in line, though they say for the most part they”re going by date of pre-order.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
this thing sucks. …
this thing sucks. its just a beagleboard with a usb adapter in a thick ugly shell. for 300 bucks id rather get a eeepc 1000 that has a 1.6ghz cpu,1gb ram,160gb hard drive and 7 hour battery life and windows xp.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
win xp does not …
win xp does not support arm ..
I asume it uses usb 1.1 right? anybody can confirm?
to integrate camera is not a hard task.
eee 9 h is really about 5h
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
Do you own one?
I …
Do you own one?
I know you don”t know what you”re talking about because you say you would use Windows XP. A sure sign you don”t know much about computers. Beagleboards are great. Just because Microsoft has poor programmers and there OS is so poorly designed that it takes up 20GB of space, yet can barely do anything out of the box, doesn”t mean that this hardware is bad. You can always use Windows CE.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
It has 8 USB 2.0 (4 …
It has 8 USB 2.0 (4 internal, 4 external)
What makes you think it would be using USB 1.1?
XP doesn”t support ARM.
Windows 7 might, but it”s just a much a system hog as Vista, so I don”t know what ARM device it will actually run on, but this is not one of them.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
thank you metalx …
thank you metalx for clarifying that
about win 7 I figured as much… yet I love design and concept of this device
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
oooh! I wants one! …
oooh! I wants one! This would be the perfect notebook to have for this cross-country bicycle ride I want to go on. I love that it”s open source too.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:19
Love to have one of …
Love to have one of these!! Sounds perfect!!
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
LOL, 3:39
Sounded …
LOL, 3:39
Sounded like “facebook pedophile” to me xD
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
Very beautiful case …
Very beautiful case, I have been use my Fujitsu 12″ touch screen notebook for years now. So, the technology is not new, but the design has a new twist to it, and I love the exterior. I might trade it up, but I didn”t see the webcam on this unit, am I missing something?
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
# US Qwerty …
# US Qwerty 24cm-large keyboard — around 95% of the size of a standard keyboard
# Cirque Touchpad
# Two Owolff high-quality internal stereo speakers
# 3D accelerometer
# Two internal batteries 6000 and 12000mAh — it can be replaced with a screw driver
# 7 USB ports: three external, four internal, three of them may be reserved for wifi, bluetooth and keyboard
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
is this multitouch …
is this multitouch screen like an i phone
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
Nope. No Webcam.
Nope. No Webcam.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
Not quite clear yet …
Not quite clear yet. They said that they would no support it. But as far as hardware goes, only time will tell. We have to wait until its released, see if someone can figure out a nice little code to add the capability.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
hehe “open source …
hehe “open source computer on steroids”
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
Nope. The CEO …
Nope. The CEO stated on his website that there”s no point because multitouch is mainly used for zooming in and out on images, and since this screen is fairly large, there won”t be as much need for that.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
What? Did always …
What? Did always innovating change their minds or something? This is getting annoying now, I heard they were going to start shipping from may, it”s now august, by the time they finally ship it something better will be out or I won”t even want it anymore.
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
no you didnt miss …
no you didnt miss anything, theres just no integrated camera sadly..
Oct 19, 2009 at 23:45:20
have you preordered …
have you preordered it ? i have and am going crazy waiting for it. i ordered it a bit late (07/20) but cmon! right? if you get yours first would you please give me a shout. thx