Having laid up carbon fiber . . . respect. And keeping the natural epoxy finish is good industrial design, not to mention opening a whole new au-natural style for tablets. I want this with <favorite-OS> on board.
If 1.5kg and 2 hours battery life is acceptable, just buy a tc1100. It's industrial design of a different philosophy, but on a part with Apple. The form factor is from 2001, and is still competitive. Oh, and you'd have to use a stylus.
This is a preview of the Win 7 tablets that will eventually be coming out after everyone gets over being scared shitless of the iPad. If 'some guy' can hack together a tablet as impressive as this, it makes me wonder what HP has been doing this whole time and gets me excited about how awesome Dell's version of this (even running Android) will be.
This is a project I have been working on in my spare time for the last few months. I wanted a Windows 7 touchscreen tablet with a large screen that could handle HD video and wasn't too thick or power hungry. The build cost for this was around $600-700.
Impressing handcraft / engineering work, although with weight of ~1.5 kg it's not particularly lightweight (twice iPad's weight). What about battery life? I'm surprised if more than 2 hours.
Personally I don't understand what's the big deal to have exactly 1280x720 pixels in handheld device.
Yes, in theory you will get wider field of view compared to e.g. iPad's 1024x768 resolution, assuming you adjust your watching distance accordingly (to keep visible pixel size same), but it's not that big difference, given that tablet watching (close-distance) is always big compromise compared to big screen watching, due to fact that eye is relaxed when focused to infinity.
This guy single handedly built a tablet that's only twice the weight of the iPad but considering the specs that's actually really good. The screen is 13", for example.
He built this himself! It's his first go at it. Imagine what he could do on his 2nd or 3rd try. If you're going to compare specs with the iPad then you should compare the engineering efforts, time, and money spent as well.
> All I have left to do is complete the new battery pack, which should boost the battery life to around 8 - 10 hours. I'm hoping to have that done in the next couple of weeks.
If this is an external battery pack, don't forget to add its weight when comparing the iPad to his device. I think it's an amazing hobby project, but it's quite clear that getting ten hours of battery life out of a tablet is a tricky proposition involving tradeoffs from top to bottom of the hardware and software stack.
Cool project, but way too heavy to be used as a tablet. Even iPad is a bit too heavy at 680g (1.5lbs) and has to be rested on something after a few minutes of use.
I used to own a HP TC4400 (2kg) and an older Progear tablet (1.5kg) and that range is just not usable in the same way as iPads or Kindles are. Kindle at 290g is about the optimum, weighing the same as a typical book and easy to hold for extended periods of time.
The Kindle's weight is closer to that of a paperback book; it's size is also analogous. The iPad is closer in size and weight to a hardcover.
While I prefer the weight of a paperback to read, I don't think that the weight of the current iPad is a huge problem. I don't see the iPad getting much lighter because I don't see Apple switching from a glass screen.
what you need now is a howto and a components kit sold in radioshack for the consumer boffins and we will soon see another sinclar / apple / Microsoft in the making.
Hmm, one thing Apple could do is to seed a company that does this, but only for Intel x86 chips. This would be a great way to attack the margins of their competitors while ensuring their own iPad is immune.
1) that's something to put on your cv & bring with when applying for a job. it tells you something about the guy as an engineer.
2) if he was a founder this shows he can deliver and compete. you want to invest in people who can deliver and compete. those tablets are kind of big deal now you know.
