When Microsoft introduced the tablet notebook eight years ago, Bill Gates heralded it as the future of computing. It would be used to take notes and translate them into text, let you read and annotate documents and books, and offer much more versatility than a laptop. In 2001, Gates predicted that within five years, "the tablet PC will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."
But tablet computers -- notebooks with a touch screen that fold into a tablet -- turned out to be a big flop, filling just a tiny niche market in medical, insurance and a few other business areas. The products were heavy and expensive, and the promise of handwriting recognition failed to deliver.
But several events have occurred since then that may make a touch screen computer much more useful and something worth considering in your next purchase.
First, the success of the iPhone has shown how useful a touch screen can be; not only for selecting an icon, but also to zoom in and out, scroll up and down, rotate an image and lots more. The iPhone is the first high volume consumer product whose capacitive screen can recognize multiple fingers, adding to its usefulness. That's much better than the older resistive screens that worked with just a single finger and degraded the image.
The other factor that will bring touch screens to the mainstream is the Apple tablet, a touch screen device that Apple is developing. It's expected to arrive early next year. In anticipation, many PC companies are already developing their own products, running Google's Android OS and Windows 7. Ironically it was the iPhone that spurred Microsoft to add more capabilities to Windows 7, giving PCs a temporary advantage in this area over the Macs.
Windows 7 incorporates features that make touch screens much more useful than did Vista. Icons and buttons are larger, so that you can use your finger to open an application, zoom, drag and drop, and select and resize a window. You can navigate through a browser, control items on the screen, draw and write, and sort pictures. Windows 7 has a much improved onscreen keyboard that can be made as large as you want, even larger than a full size keyboard. There's also a drawing program built in.
I tried out many of these features using the latest Lenovo ThinkPad X200 with MultiTouch. It's a relatively lightweight, compact notebook and 12-inch 1280 x 800 WXGA display. The X200 weighs 4.2 pounds with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1MHz processor, 4GB of ram, a built-in Webcam and a 160GB hard drive. My test model had an extended battery that provided about six hours of battery life. Cost is $2150.
The X200 has two touch screens, one that responds to the stylus and a second to finger touch. I've used that capability to open and close windows, start applications, and rearrange photos using a built-in demo. I took notes with the stylus and my handwriting was translated into text much more accurately than before. I found it was easier at times to reach for the screen than the track stick.
The X200 looks much like other ThinkPads with its all black composite housing and its superb full-size keyboard. Like other ThinkPads, It has a full complement of ports and connectors, including an SD slot, as well as a connector on the bottom to attach a docking station with a built in optical drive.
I found the X200 to be a great product for traveling. While it's a pound or two heavier than a netbook, it's a "real" computer. There are no sacrifices with the keyboard, battery life or processing speed. Of course it costs much more than a netbook, but it's a primary and lightweight traveling computer, all in one. For many it's the perfect mobile notebook that will be ready for the tablet enhancements in Windows 7 and third party apps, which will make the touch screen even more useful.
Toshiba will be introducing new touch-enabled laptops, the Toshiba Satellite M505 Touch and Satellite U505 Touch with LifeSpace software that lets users access day-to-day activities, tasks and projects with a touch, and drag and drop photos, videos, links, documents and applications into one place.
HP just announced a TouchSmart line of desktop computers with 20-inch and 23-inch touch screen monitors, big enough to let you choose and open multiple windows with your fingers to play music, watch videos and work on the same screen.
For all these reasons, the touch tablet computer may very well be the next big thing in computers. Bill Gates may have been wrong about timing but correct in its impact.
Baker is the author of "From Concept to Consumer," holds 30 patents and is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Phil can be heard on KOGO AM the first Sunday of each month. Send comments to phil.baker@sddt.com. Phil's blog is blog.philipgbaker.com and his Web site is philipgbaker.com.
Reclining massage chair
What do you get when you cross a reclining chair with a masseuse? Human Touch would like you to believe it's the HT-1650 AcuTouch Massage Chair, touting it to be one of the most advanced massage chairs of its kind. This large, reclining chair has built-in motors that can massage from your head down to your feet, controlled using a complex but thoughtfully designed remote control. What looks like an ordinary recliner opens to reveal leg grips and an extended headrest. Using its remote control you can set it to massage specific areas along the back of your body in a 15-minute session. It may be a little eerie for some, but I found it to work well. I did find it to be a little noisy compared to the relaxing silence or soft music accompanying a professional massage. My wife, however, found it confining and a far cry from a true professional massage. (humantouch.com, $4,300)
Back in the late 80s, Mitch Kapor started a company doing pen computers called Go Inc. Bill Gates didn't like that they would not use Windows and did a great job at destroying that companies future. As usual, Pen For Windows was a failure so pen computing didn't show back up until almost 10 years later. Apple, with the Newton, kept the original Kapor idea going in the small handheld format right before Palm took over in the later 90s.
There's a book about it called "StartUp".
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Doug 10:03pm November 2, 2009Back in the late 80s, Mitch Kapor started a company doing pen computers called Go Inc. Bill Gates didn't like that they would not use Windows and did a great job at destroying that companies future. As usual, Pen For Windows was a failure so pen computing didn't show back up until almost 10 years later. Apple, with the Newton, kept the original Kapor idea going in the small handheld format right before Palm took over in the later 90s. There's a book about it called "StartUp".