As I blogged about the other day, the more I use the HP Mini 1000, the more I wish it had touch and pen support. The device is just about the right size and weight to carry everywhere and it has just enough performance and battery life to be satisfying, yet as a companion machine, I’m so notetaking oriented, that I really miss it having touch and pen support.
So what’s a dreamer to do? Take some snapshots and bring up Photoshop, of course!
Since the world seems to currently be enamored with the size/price/performance tradeoffs of the Netbook, I wonder if one of the OEMs could build upon its success to create a slate I’d love to own and use.
Maybe there’s a way to leverage the internals of a Netbook and move them into a slate case, kind of what like Axiotron has done with the MacBooks and turning them into a ModBook.
In large part I guess I want a 3rd generation UMPC, but I accept that fact that one’s not going to exist anytime soon. And if it does I bet it would cost three times what the Netbooks are priced at. That’s not going to work.
Although I’d accept a companion slate from one of a variety of sizes, the Mini’s 10″ display is not too bad. In fact, the display has just about the same dimensions as a stenographer’s pad:
So this got me thinking. What if I rotated the display? Would the 600 pixel “wide” resolution be too limiting?
That’s easy enough to check on the Mini by changing the display properties to Portrait mode. (Right click on the Desktop, select Screen Resolution, and then “Portrait” in the Orientation list. One caveat: If you do this the trackpad isn’t smart enough to compensate for the screen rotation so be forewarned.)
The 600 pixels is a little too narrow, but it’s not terrible if the display also had a digitizer and the unit was being primarily used for notetaking.
So imagine ripping off the keyboard for this “NetTablet”:
Useable? Hmmm.
Well, while I’m dreaming, I also wondered what it would be like to have a two-display unit. A quick return trip to Photoshop gave me this result:
Wouldn’t that be slick? I have no idea if Windows can handle the two displays like this, but it would be cool. 🙂
By the way, in terms of canibalizing something, I’m wondering if the new Convertible Intel Classmate might be the way to go. Seems like it would have a standardized motherboard and parts. Hmmm. More to think about.
[…] what do you want in a Netbook (or whatever we are going to call them)? Loren Heiny is doing the same thing I am at the moment and checking out the HP Mini 1000. Well, when I can get […]
Check out Ken Hinckley of MS Research on The InkSiene Blog for their latest invention…
“The Codex” which is two OQO’s linked together and in a binder.
Lots of screenshots and initial impressions of using two screens on a PC platform.
http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2008/10/01/microsoft-research-codex.aspx
Yes, the second version of features exactly this: dual touch screen:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/20804/page2/
Until then, the Convertible Classmate, CTL 2go tablet for $499 is the way to go.
erwin, agreed the convertible classmate seems like the most appropriate device for me for now. However, I sure would like a slate. 🙂