Comments on: E-book-related hardware: $300 Touch Book netbook-tablet. Plus, Onyx Boox’s evil text-to-speech

By: Joseph Gray

Joseph Gray — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:07:01 +0000

Well, let’s see…it uses an ARM processor. Although a different one, the same family CPU as every eInk ebook reader, some non-eInk readers and most PDAs, phones, etc. For some uses, lack of i386 Windows is a drawback. However, for many other uses, especially ebook reading, ARM is a plus.

I assume that the battery life they quote is for both batteries when the screen is docked. If the screen by itself had that battery life, then this would make a fine ebook reader (with color). Not as long lived as eInk per charge, but very seldom do I read for 10 hours at a stretch. The touch screen is a plus, especially if you can write on it (annotations).

Stanza, FBReader, a better version of Azardi or even Digital Editions (yuck) on this would be great for ebook reading.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:15:20 +0000

It would be better if both sides were touch screens, so you could have the two page experience like a real book, then use one of the screens as a touch screen keyboard for when you want to use the device as a laptop.

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:05:06 +0000

Pond and LuYu: Many thanks, both of you, for following up on my “red flag” comment. This is a very very interesting device but, as you’ve noted, one with limitations. David

By: LuYu

LuYu — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:32:17 +0000

Yeah, that is what I was going to say. WinCE is the only flavour of MSWin that runs on ARM. ARM is very different than i386 and much better for portable devices. They probably say WinCE is not desirable because it is very slow (although I am sure it is faster than XP or — God forbid — Vista).

Having a mobile device running MSWin is just a waste of good hardware in any case, though.

By: pond

pond — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:23:40 +0000

Why not Windows XP? Probably because it doesn’t use an x86 CPU but rather an ARM, one of the new OMAP3 chips just out from Texas Instruments.

This also limits the flavor of Linux you might put onto it, and rules out the ‘hackintosh’ path.

But it does give the long battery life and ‘instant-on’ capabilities.

They claim that ‘many iPhone games will run on this’ so I wonder about porting over Stanza and other iPhone ebook apps.

It also gives us a tantalizing hint at what Apple *might* be up to with the long-rumored, iPod-family, ARM-based, Apple tablet…