All eyeballs seem to be on Apple right now, awaiting the announcement of their rumored media tablet, but that doesn’t mean others aren’t innovating in the direction of media devices too.
Today Engadget is linking to some photos of a Toshiba media tablet that suggests that it can be used from everything including surfing the web to watching videos to controlling your TV. The device is called JournE Touch and is expected to ship by the end of this year.
For those keeping score, the JournE will have resistive touch and Windows CE, so don’t expect any of that super smooth Windows 7 Touch, such as with slick, smooth finger scrolling of Internet Explorer. It won’t be found here since it has neither multitouch, nor Windows 7.
That’s the way things look to be though in the “lower-cost” world of handheld devices. (Of course, I’m putting lower-cost in quotes here, because there are definitely some expensive handheld, connected devices.) If there continues to be growth like this in handheld/mobile devices, Microsoft may want to rethink its strategy of restricting smooth touch and the like to premium SKUs of Windows 7. Sorry, Apple has comoditized smooth touch by virtue of being a successful early provider.
Here’s a video that highlight some features of the Toshiba multimedia tablet:
What’s interesting to see is how these devices are taking the original UMPC design and taking it to the next stage. I’m particularly interested in light and thin devices which are comfortable to hold or carry for long periods of time while reading, traveling, etc.
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Your thoughts on the Archos 9? If they make it capacitive and lower it by $50-$100 it’ll be a winner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cTfXgbuenk
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