When a new netbook hits the market, we usually stifle a yawn, heave a sigh and try to sound interested as we hammer out the same specs we’ve been printing for roughly a year and a half. The Touch Book from Always Innovating has just made my day.
In what’s probably the most impressive netbook to date, the Touch Book was unveiled at the DEMO conference today and is making headlines as a $299 tablet device that lays claim to a battery life of 10 to 15 hours. For $100 more, you can get a Touch Book that is a netbook and a tablet in one. While we’re not going to get excited about the ridiculously good battery life until someone can prove it, we’re pretty excited about the machine itself.
Full specs for the 8.9 inch netbook are as follows:
9.4" x 7" x 1.4" for 2 lbs (with keyboard)
- ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip
- 1024x600 display
- Storage: 8GB micro SD card
- Wifi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth
- 3-dimensional accelerometer
- Speakers, micro and headphone
- 6 USB 2.0 (3 internal, 2 external, 1 mini)
- 10h to 15 hours of battery life
Okay so now the 10 to 15 hour battery is starting to make a little more sense. While Intel’s Atom processor would take the battery life down considerably, we’re not sure how people will react to the fact that the Touch Book is ARM-powered. We’re also not sure how the general public will react to Always Innovating's own heavily customized OS. Rather than opting for XP, the company went ahead and developed its own operating system (Linux-based), which could hurt it when it comes to your average, everyday user who’s used to seeing Windows and nothing else, though supposedly Windows CE and even Android could be in the cards. The Touch Book is available for preorder from the Always Innovating wesbite now and is expected to ship this spring.
That's actually just an in-action shot of how it can be converted from a laptop-style keyboard/touchpad/screen into a standalone tablet. (Probably not the best picture to use without more context). They put two batteries in the keyboard/touchpad attachment for longer battery life, but all the CPU/board components are in the tablet half. It's a really novel concept!
@windglider "Also, I'm not sure what A.I. means by their own custom OS, while the OP teams is going with Angstrom."
According to their site, they are also sitting on top of OpenEmbedded, "on a variant of Angstrom" for their OS (see http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/company/opensource.htm), they just have some extra controls and 3D effects added to take advantage of the tablet-style interface. I don't know to what extent they've added to OpenEmbedded/Angstrom, but they say they will be open sourcing their OS so you can see for yourself when that becomes available.
If you want a portable computer for doing those things you want a LAPTOP, not a NETBOOK.
If you really wanted a netbook, all you would want to do with it is surf the web, read some e-mail, edit some documents, read some book, etc.
Really, this netbook is exactly what the netbooks should have been in the first place.
Nice work, AlwaysInnovating.