Is the Touch Book right for you?
There are so many choices available if you are looking to compute on-the-go, it can be very confusing trying to find the right device. If you are looking for a highly portable second computer with a long battery life and the flexibility to serve as both a netbook computer and a touch-screen tablet, the Touch Book might be for you.
Click here to see the gallery!But if you are looking for a laptop that can serve as your primary computer and hope to use heavy-processing applications such as photo and video editing, you might be better served elsewhere. And if you are a unconditional Apple aficionado, you are welcome to go with an iPad. Just bear in mind that it is likely to be expensive (don't forget data plans and paying contents), proprietary, non-modifiable, linked-to-iTunes only, and with no keyboard. But it will certainly be very polished. Anyway, there are many ways to "think different".
Hardware specifications
We are publishing the final specifications and we are glad to announce the new Touch Book configuration:
- Texas Instruments OMAP3530 600MHz with a Numonyx 512MB (RAM) + 256MB (NAND) Memory
- 8.9 inches 1024x600 A+ screen
- Main storage: 8GB SD card
- Internal USB wifi 802.11 b/g/n powered by a Ralink 3070 chipset
- Internal USB bluetooth class 2.1
- FCC, CE, UL-certified, 5V, 3.5A power adapter
- 8.9 inches pressure sensitive touch screen
- US Qwerty 24cm-large keyboard — around 95% of the size of a standard keyboard
- Cirque Touchpad
- Two Owolff high-quality internal stereo speakers
- 3D accelerometer
- Two internal batteries 6000 and 12000 mAh — it can be replaced with a screw driver
- 7 USB ports: three external, four internal, three of them may be reserved for wifi, bluetooth and keyboard
- Bi-color silver/black case — see photos — with a beautiful red back cover.
- Secured attachment system of tablet into keyboard
- Independent magnet system for the tablet — we don't want your Touch Book to demagnetize all your credit cards while carrying it in your bag!
The first ARM device to propose all major distros!
Linux and the open source community have made tremendous progress to offer an innovative and user-friendly desktop experience. The Touch Book is picking up this trend and comes with an optimized home-made Linux-based OS. Guided by openness and wide support, we provide natively multi-OS boot on the device. With a simple finger press at startup, the Touch Book will run either our AI OS, Ubuntu, or Android. Mer, Gentoo have also been adapted to the Touch Book. Google Chrome OS and Maemo are on their way!
Always Innovating OS RC1 (January 2010)
Currently, the default Always Innovating OS includes:
- Linux 2.6.29 with all the required drivers
- Xfce desktop environment
- A unique 3D interface for starting applications with your finger
- Firefox 3.5, Midori 0.2.2, and Chromium
- Youtube and daily motion support
- A video and music player, with a special Hulu video watching program
- OpenOffice 3.1
- Bluetooth support
- GPS and 3G dongle support (not included)
- A Google-maps-based application with GPS support (GPS USB not included)
- Some 3D accelerometer-based iPhone games
- A PDF reader, evince
- A chat manager, Pidgin
- Gimp 2.6.3 and Mypaint 5.1
- An e-book reader, Fbreader
- A printer manager, Cups
- All usual accessories (zip, picture viewer, dictionary...)
- Support for most standard USB accessories
- Java support
- Multi-OS selection and reinstall options during boot
- Self-update mechanism
The software roadmap includes at least the following:
- A better Flash solution supporting version 10.1
- Other Linux-based OS support including ChromeOS
International orders accepted
We have received so many requests from around the world, we have decided to start accepting orders from Canada, Europe, and a few other countries. Please be aware that there are a few restrictions: we are shipping the US version so you should expect both a US plug as well as a US
Qwerty keyboard. Nevertheless, the power adapter supports 100-240V, has the FCC,
UL and CE certifications, and in the limit of available stock, we will try to accommodate, free of charge, a plug adapter. Last, you will receive a special discount for a keyboard replacement (not the Touch Book keyboard part, just the keyboard itself) if and when your language is made available.
Pricing, warranties and returns
Pricing has not changed: $299 (USD) for tablet, $399 (USD) with keyboard, plus sales tax and shipping cost ($20 within the US, $45 abroad). You may
read the limited warranty
here (one year
except for some special parts). For US orders, there is a 15-day money back guarantee if the device is returned with all its original parts and in its original condition, otherwise a restocking fee may apply.
