Tablet and notebook in one? Asus has one of the early tries.It seems to me that if the software was done really right, this might be an ideal machine. The simplicity and portability of a tablet, the power and flexibility of a desktop machine. But how many people would really take advantage of both faces of this monster? I don't think we'll know for a while, because nobody has yet written an OS designed to work well with both a keyboard/mouse and a multi-touch screen. And seeing the trouble everybody has making a really good interface for just one of those, imagine the complexities in combining them!
Update:
Stephen A said...
A modular approach like this may be able to finesse the inherent problems of the monolithic tablet. The big/heavy/expensive tablet doctrine explicitly dictates that a monolithic tablet must obsolete the netbook and laptop. This forces a vicious cycle of adding processing power, storage and batteries in a single package. As a result a tablet which is seldom more than a few feet from a charger used for reading, surfing and an occasional video is designed to do video editing for the length of a transpacific flight. Teardowns of the iPad2 indicates that it is mostly battery. On the other hand, there are plenty of incredibly light thin and cheap tablets which have short battery life (2-4 hrs) and moderate processing power. I have a sub $200 Telepad 10.1” which is light as a feather, decodes 1080p video without breaking a sweat but has a 2-3 hr battery life.
A modular hybrid approach like this ASUS model allows you to offload batteries, storage, ports and even supplementary-processors to the keyboard element, which can be considerably heavier since it will either sit on a table or in a bag. Furthermore, if the keyboard incorporates a processor you can establish a wireless link between it and a detached tablet, accessing storage and using that tablet for a remote for presentations and video viewing on a larger screen.
3 comments:
Eolake said...
"I don't think we'll know for a while, because nobody has yet written an OS designed to work well with both a keyboard/mouse and a multi-touch screen. And seeing the trouble everybody has making a really good interface for just one of those, imagine the complexities in combining them!"
When I had my Acer Travelmate 300, I got Franklin Covey's 'Plan Plus' for Tablets, way back in '04. It allowed me to BOTH use my keyboard/mouse and write on my screen. I was pretty impressed; it seemed quite ahead of its time.
Also...just the Travelmate, alone, had the capability where a person could both type and hand write on the screen. I can't quite remember the name of the software that enabled it to do that. I would need to research that technology, a little. It's been a little while since it finally died (rest it's wonderful technology!). :-(
A modular approach like this may be able to finesse the inherent problems of the monolithic tablet. The big/heavy/expensive tablet doctrine explicitly dictates that a monolithic tablet must obsolete the netbook and laptop. This forces a vicious cycle of adding processing power, storage and batteries in a single package. As a result a tablet which is seldom more than a few feet from a charger used for reading, surfing and an occasional video is designed to do video editing for the length of a transpacific flight. Teardowns of the iPad2 indicates that it is mostly battery. On the other hand, there are plenty of incredibly light thin and cheap tablets which have short battery life (2-4 hrs) and moderate processing power. I have a sub $200 Telepad 10.1” which is light as a feather, decodes 1080p video without breaking a sweat but has a 2-3 hr battery life.
A modular hybrid approach like this ASUS model allows you to offload batteries, storage, ports and even supplementary-processors to the keyboard element, which can be considerably heavier since it will either sit on a table or in a bag. Furthermore, if the keyboard incorporates a processor you can establish a wireless link between it and a detached tablet, accessing storage and using that tablet for a remote for presentations and video viewing on a larger screen.
Thanks, you have some interesting points there. Quite.
Where do you find all those off-beat tablets I never heard off?
Where can I find that Telepad?
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