You know, netbooks are cool and all. They’re cheap; they’re portable. But you know what I really wish you could do with them? Stick them on the fridge next to grocery list and the kids’ artwork. Enter the Always Innovating Touch Book.

Not only does this netbook have a detachable keyboard which lets you use the machine as a touchscreen tablet, but the tablet also has strong magnets built into it which LiveJournal user Adric discovered lets you stick the Touch Book to your refrigerator!

As I mentioned yesterday, the Touch Book has begun shipping and we’re starting to see unboxing photos appear across the interwebs. Adric has posted a whole slew of photos including a closer look at the stylus, magnets, power supply, and the innards of the keyboard. When you remove the tablet from the keyboard you can open up the tablet in order to access several internal USB ports. This lets you add USB modules for additional storage, wireless connectivity, or other functions. You can check out an image of Touch Book with its top off after the break.

On the down side, Adric says the tablet is a bit heavy and that the keyboard doesn’t counterbalance the weight very well, which can cause the netbook to tip over easily. The machine is also a bit heavy for the included magnets, and eventually will slide down your refrigerator or file cabinet. But it’s still a pretty neat trick.

Meanwhile, Stephen Feger, who posted the first unboxing photos yesterday has a few more to show today.

Update: UMPC Portal has some more impressions. In general, it doesn’t look good. The hardware is reportedly pretty rough around the edges. You can read more about the Touch Book in the Liliputing Product Database.

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The Always Innovating Touch Book has begun shipping, and a small number of people have already managed to get their hands on this unique machine which is something of a cross between a netbook and a tablet-style UMPC. Stephen Feger got one today and has been posting his first impressions on Twitter. And jkkmobile has published a few photos, including the one you can see above.

There are a few things that make the Touch Book different from any other netbook on the market. First, the computer is primarily crammed into the 8.9 inch touchscreen display. If you don’t want a keyboard, you don’t have to buy one. You can pick up the tablet for $299. For $399 you get the tablet plus the base station which includes a keyboard and touchpad.

Second, the machine uses a TI OMAP3530 processor, which helps keep the power consumption down, but which isn’t going to win any awards for speed. Still, the Touch Book is significantly cheaper than the other touchscreen netbooks on the market today, including the Eee PC T91 and Gigabyte Touch Note T1028X, which go for $499 and $680 respectively.

Update: Feger and other users have begun posting more information and photos.

The Always Innovating Touch Book is a unique little device that blurs the line between a netbook and a tablet-style UMPC. For $299 you get a low power, touchscreen computer with a custom Linux user interface. Another $100 gives you a base station with a built in keyboard that transforms the whole thing into a mini-laptop with an 8.9 inch touchscreen display.

Always Innovating recently posted the first screenshots of the computer’s Linux interface. The company still describes the software as beta, which mean it may still be rough around the edges, even though the TouchBook is already shipping. For the most part, the operating system looks like a typical Linux OS using the GNOME desktop environment. It comes with an array of light weight applications including the Gnumeric spreadsheet app and an MPlayer frontend for playing video files.

As you can see from the screenshot above, there are also a few areas that have been tweaked to make it easier to find and launch programs on a small, touch-friendly screen. For one thing, there’s a custom program launcher and list of running applications. The device also ships with the Fennec web browser instead of Firefox. Fennec is the pre-release codename for an experimental version of Firefox built for mobile devices like cellphones. As such, it’s designed to be more touch-friendly than Firefox, but it still uses the same rendering engine, so web pages that load in the desktop version of the browser should render properly in Fennec as well.

The TouchBook has a low power TI OMAP3530 CPU, 256MB of RAM, and 256MB of flash storage. It comes with an 8GB SD card for additional storage. The netbook comes with Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and 7 USB ports (including a few on the inside of the device for peripherals that will always stay connected).

via NetbookNews.de

Always Innovating has begun manufacturing the first batch of its Touch Book computers, and the company expects it to begin shipping in July.

The Touch Book is a mini-computer with two modes. You can use it as a laptop or as a touchscreen tablet. But unlike other convertible tablets including the Gigabyte Touch Note and Asus Eee PC T91, the Touch Book doesn’t have a swivel for folding the screen down over the keyboard. Instead, it has a detachable screen which can be used as a standalone device. When you want to use the keyboard, you just slide the screen into its keyboard dock.

The Touch Book has an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, a TI OMAP3530 CPU with 256MB of RAM, and two internal batteries, a 6,000mAh and a 12,000 battery. There are 7 USB ports, including three external and four internal ports, with three of those internal ports reserved for the WiFi, Bluetooth, and Keyboard. The Touch Book uses an 8GB SD card for its primary storage and includes a USB 802.11b/g/n WiFi dongle. The keyboard is described as being 95% the size of a full keyboard, which is unusual for a machine with an 8.9 inch display.

Always Innovating says the machine’s Linux-based operating system is still a work in progress and that anyone who pre-ordered a Touch Book and receives one in July should expect to be working with beta software, although support and updates will be available.

The Touch Book tablet is available for pre-order for $299, while a tablet and keyboard will set you back $399.

via Engadget

The Touch Book from Always Innovating is designed to blur the lines between netbooks and UMPCs. The machine has an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display and a keyboard. But you can also remove the display and use it as a portable tablet.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of configuration. The original Elonex One netbook had a removable display. But it also had a small 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel screen and a huge bezel around the edges. The Touch Book looks much more attractive. The specs don’t look too shabby either, although I’d like to know more about the operating system and how it performs with that CPU:

• Dimensions: 9.4″ x 7″ x 1.4″
• Weight: 2 pounds (with keyboard)
• CPU: ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3
• Display: 8.9″ 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen
• Storage: 8GB micro SD card
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth
• Expansion: 6 USB ports (3 internal, 2 external, and 1 mini)
• Battery: Claimed 10 to 15 hours of battery life

The machine also has speakers, a mic and headphone jack, and an accelerometer, which I assume will reorient the screen when you rotate the display. The Touch Book comes preloaded with Fennec, which is the code name for Mozilla’s early version of Firefox for mobile devices.

Always Innovating expects to sell just the display for $299, or the display and keyboard together for $399. The company is showing the computer at the DEMO conference today.

Gizmodo has some hands-on photos of the Touch Book, including a look at its motherboard.