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Seriously. If they can make something like this and sell it for around (say) 500~1000 dollars, I am there.
A while ago there was the fad known as the iPad. Nowadays it seemed that many different companies are following suit for a keyboardless mobile device with a touchscreen.
I have used touchscreens before. They are kind of fancy when you first use them as the interactions is a lot different from, say, using mouse and keyboard. But I also found touchscreens annoying because:
1) it's not accurate.
2) if my fingers are dirty I'll soil the screen
So in my opinion, it's a rather poor replacement pointing-device to the mouse, except it does not require any extra components like a mouse (thus more mobile).
Anyways, I don't give a shit about touchscreen. But that's not what this rant is about.
What I truly want, is something similar to an iPad or the upcoming tablets, but with a pen input with active digitizer and pressure sensitivity - making it suitable for writing on the screen. Of course, the pen itself is an extra component, but it is not very big or heavy and the tablet can probably have a holder for the pen.
I find electronic paper very useful. I take a lot of notes on physical paper, but I often lose them because either
1) they take a lot of space so I have to keep throwing things out year after year (I throw out two boxes of paper very year from the notes and assignments I write as well as handouts); it's hard to carry.
2) mechanical damage of paper (e.g. while in a binder).
3) hard to organize.
Also, with a tablet I can (hopefully) also view research papers, textbooks and other (pdf) files on it and write comments directly on the files instead of printing them out then lose them 3 days later.
Of course, currently there are such products out there. They are tablet PCs. They do exactly what I mentioned above (I own a HP tx2500), but it's very noisy, very hot, starts too slowly, TOO HEAVY, TOO BIG - basically, way too powerful for what I want to do - I just want the following:
1) good pen input (e.g. wacom) with digitizer and pressure sensitivity;
2) be able to read and write pdf files and export them to a computer;
3) be able to save and export my handwritten things;
4) reasonable light-weight;
5) no noises (say, no fans for cooling AND it does not catch fire or blow up).
6) I don't give a damn about internet, flash, youtube, stupid touchscreen iPad games, gravity sensitivity (for flipping the screen based on the way it is held), etc.
Maybe I am asking for too much as the current technologies cannot support these things right now. If it is available, I am there.
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What about a touch screen laptop?
Ah, sorry, must have missed the tablet part :l
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On October 02 2010 09:09 whitelynx wrote:
What about a touch screen laptop?
I have one.
It's too noisy, too big, too heavy, too powerful.
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What about using what you have till it gets broke?
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On October 02 2010 09:20 exeexe wrote:
What about using what you have till it gets broke?
It kind of broke already. I spent 200 dollars fixing it, after my dad's advice. But now I just put it in a corner in case I need mobile computing...
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On October 02 2010 09:10 illu wrote:I have one. It's too noisy, too big, too heavy, too powerful.
Then get a laptop that's less big, less heavy, less powerful.
edit: Srs advice btw I have a mini laptop and it has helped me a lot in classes. They're quite cheap as well.
edit2: actually for physics classes I can see why you'd want to write by hand nvm me.
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On October 02 2010 10:29 hifriend wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2010 09:10 illu wrote:On October 02 2010 09:09 whitelynx wrote:
What about a touch screen laptop? I have one. It's too noisy, too big, too heavy, too powerful. Then get a laptop that's less big, less heavy, less powerful. edit: Srs advice btw I have a mini laptop and it has helped me a lot in classes. They're quite cheap as well. edit2: actually for physics classes I can see why you'd want to write by hand nvm me.
It's 13". It's not that big....
I do math and stats. So yea, typing is not good for me.
It doesn't seem to have wacom or any sort of digitizer? When I use my tablet, I always have touch disabled so I always use the digitizer.
Mine is kind of like this one, but with less beef.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157379
Panel rotates 180° and folds flat. Supports multi-gesture and stylus input through capacitative digitizer technology
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I type so much faster than I can write or speak, nothing will ever replace a good keyboard imo
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On October 02 2010 11:00 endy wrote:
I type so much faster than I can write or speak, nothing will ever replace a good keyboard imo
It's slow to type mathematical symbols and to draw diagrams, which I often need. I am not an English major, you know.
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On October 02 2010 09:06 illu wrote:
2) if my fingers are dirty I'll soil the screen
Just to make a note here: using keyboards with dirty fingers is even worse, as the a screen is at least flat and thus easy to clean.. so this point actually supports touch screens in favor of keyboards :p
this point only supports keyboards in the situation where you have like some fat on your fingers which makes slimy lanes all over a touch screen, which you don't see on a keyboard because you don't look at it. So regarding optics, this favors keyboards. Regarding hygiene, it favors touch screens for sure. Have you ever seen a touch screen as dirty as your keyboard probably is? i have not. dirt just jumps the eye faster on a (touch) screen, because you look at it more intensely than on your keyboards keys.
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On October 02 2010 11:03 illu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2010 11:00 endy wrote:
I type so much faster than I can write or speak, nothing will ever replace a good keyboard imo It's slow to type mathematical symbols and to draw diagrams, which I often need. I am not an English major, you know.
Master latex + high wpm!
I'm surprised the ipad doesnt already have some sort of pen accessory. I dont think it would be hard to make at all. Seeing as frigging sausages work on touch screens, I'm sure the bright engineers at apple can make a pen device.
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On October 02 2010 13:00 ironchef wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2010 11:03 illu wrote:On October 02 2010 11:00 endy wrote:
I type so much faster than I can write or speak, nothing will ever replace a good keyboard imo It's slow to type mathematical symbols and to draw diagrams, which I often need. I am not an English major, you know. Master latex + high wpm! I'm surprised the ipad doesnt already have some sort of pen accessory. I dont think it would be hard to make at all. Seeing as frigging sausages work on touch screens, I'm sure the bright engineers at apple can make a pen device.
EXACTLY.
If that shit had an active digitizer for writing, I'd buy it for sure. But no. They are so stupid.
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As an artist, I was extremely pissed that there was no kind of stylus for the iPad. I didn't buy it so no harm no foul, but I'm not going to fingerpaint everything I want to sketch out, let alone use a sausage.
I know some people who love their iPad, but it seems like they'd broaden their demographic quite a bit if they just made a stylus of some variety. I'm sure there are challenges of some variety given their "surface area friction touchscreen technology" or whatever, but it seems like that should have been sorted out long ago.
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EPT
