Always Innovating Touch Book now shipping

Always Innovating is beginning to ship the Touch Book to customers who placed pre-orders. The Always Innovating Touch Book is a cross between a netbook and a tablet PC. The base unit, which sells for $299, is a low power touchscreen tablet with an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel screen and TI OMAP3530 CPU. For another $100, you get a keyboard that you can slide the tablet into for use as a standard laptop-style netbook.

The computer has 256MB of RAM and 256MB of flash storage, but also includes an 8GB SD card for additional storage. The machine also has 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and 7 USB ports. There are two internal batteries, one weighing in at 6000mAh, while the second is a 12,000 mAh battery.

The Touch Book uses a custom Linux distribution, which Always Innovating describes as beta software that is still under construction. The company plans to offer support for other operating systems including Google Android or Moblin in the future.

via Engadget


Posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009, 3:42 pm by Brad
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  • fulanoDeTal
    I don't understand why in this f-ing world these manufacturers just don't get some famous distribution like Ubuntu, that is already throughly tested and approved by everyone.. No, they have some mysterious URGE to do-it-themselves. I bet this Linux distribution they are developing will be utter c**p.
  • Ubuntu for ARM processors is not perfect yet. you can probably install Ubuntu on the Touchbook if you want.
  • nothing is stopping anyone from installing ubuntu the moment they get it, in the same way that one do with netbooks.

    the big thing is that your not paying microsoft or some other corp for something your not going to use anyways.
  • Mikez
    ???
    I thought computers shipped with MS-Windows so the new user could
    be certain that: "rm -fr /*" worked.
  • bp
    Actually there has been quite a bit of success putting linux onto ARM processors with the earlier successes being non-ubuntu. I started out as a linux novice and have been using a Zaurus for four years now. It has an ARM processor and runs several mature flavors of linux. Most of the work has been contributed by a wonderful development community that is quite independent of the manufacturer. I am looking forward to linux on the Touchbook and am completely confident that people will quickly make things work very well.

    -fulano: There are quite a few machines that run ubuntu quite nicely. Perhaps you should stick with them if a little experimentation gets your blood boiling. (But I bet that some form of ubuntu will run quite nicely within the year on the Touchbook.)
  • John Morris
    Did you notice the 256MB Flash spec? Don't think you will be stuffing many modern Linux distros into that. But enough to boot and run a browser? Yup. Nokia does it on it's tablets.

    Use the internal flash as boot media and put Ubuntu on the internal SD and it would probably do ok.

    This device is what the Crunchpad should have been, had it been designed by someone with a clue instead of a tech blogger.

    Oh, and minor quibble with the story, the second battery is in the optional keyboard. Guess they had to stick something in it to weigh the thing down and prevent tipping and better a big honking battery than a lead weight. It should run a pretty long time on the internal battery, an ARM will be like the Energizer Bunny with 18aH.
  • BoloMKXXVIII
    Regardless of the nature of the OS, why would anyone accept delivery of a machine when the manufacturer admits the OS still in beta? Because this is a unique machine it is bound to need special drivers. Installing another OS would require some serious tweaking and there is no guarantee all the hardware would be supported.
  • fduch
    Some people prefer eating raw meat.
    Some people prefer Linux.
    (If only they didn't force thir opinion on everyone...)
  • Garamond
    Well, if it ain't a Mac and Windows doesn't run on it, that leaves some version of Linux. (I have no problem with Microsoft. They make very good mice. If only they didn't force their OS on everyone.)
  • fduch
    You are technically wrong (Windows CE runs on ARM).
    I was talking about Linux comunity in general though. (Seems that Linus agrees with me...)
  • V
    You do know what the BeagleBoard is don't you? I'm thinking you don't.
  • bp
    "Regardless of the nature of the OS, why would anyone accept delivery of a machine when the manufacturer admits the OS still in beta?"

    -Because they are confident that the machine will work well for them.

    If you don't like the Touchbook then please don't buy one.

    Just wondering: Are you getting paid to trash the Touchbook? Your comment doesn't make much sense otherwise. Or perhaps the weather is nasty outside and you need to vent a little.
  • 257209
    This is innovating and pretty cool but for the same price you can get a netbook with windows that could last maybe 8 hrs compared to 10 hrs. The windows netbooks are has more processing power and support that is compatible with many other devices like ipods. The only reason someone would buy this is because they wanted to mess around with it, but for a consumer who is price conscious, it wouldn't be a very smart buy.
  • John Morris
    Where? Where can I buy a machine with a touchscreen, eight hour battery life and Windows for $399? And if we are talking $399 we are comparing to the version with the keyboard and extra battery and the run time will be a lot more than eight hours. Remember, Microsoft doesn't allow the cut rate XP licenses to go on machines with a touch screen.

    Or they are doing something really wrong on power management. Remember the story here last week about the Pegatron prototype expected to get 8 hours from a two cell battery and 4 1/2 without any power management? This tablet has 18AH with both batteries fitted and the Pegatron was a puny two cell battery.
  • disi
    There is the advantage of source based distributions like Gentoo. Should not be that much of a problem to build.
    Anyway I wait for my deliverey and check out the pre installed system first.
    As I have seen in the video you can easily add another huge memory stick inside the case and push the HD to ~50GB
    Did anyone order and got one yet?
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