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Lenovo Tablet PC Multi-Touch on Video

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lenovomutlitouchAs promised here’s two videos from Xavier demoing the multi-touch capabilities on the Lenovo T400s and the X200 Tablet.   (cross posted from our sister site, Notebooks.com.)

Lenovo’s now offering multi-touch displays on the ThinkPad T400s and X200t tablet. Multitouch displays allow users to manipulate maps, multiple items and 3D objects.

(videos and more after the jump)

The X200t can recognize two fingers at a time and the T400s can recognize four fingers at a time.

The touch-enabled ThinkPads will ship with Simple Tap, an application that allows users to change screen brightness, volume and other settings with their fingers.

The ThinkPad T400s is a 14″ thin-and-light notebook. It’s highly unusually to find a touchscreen display on a clam shell style notebook, but I expect this feature to become common since Microsoft is supporting multitouch in Windows 7.

Here’s a quick look at the ThinkPad T400s and ThinkPad X200t with multitouch displays.

Here’s a quick video intro to Simple Tap:

18 Comments

18 Comments

  1. Rob

    09/15/2009 at 12:20 pm

    warner – I think that should be x200 and t400s ;-)

  2. Joe

    09/15/2009 at 12:24 pm

    Wacom digitizers I presume?

  3. Sumocat

    09/15/2009 at 1:27 pm

    Joe’s comment leads me to an interesting question. Things have been moving so quickly in multi-touch lately, but last I heard, Wacom’s multi-touch digitizer was currently limited to two fingers, while N-Trig’s recognizes four. Are they using digitizers from both companies, or is there some upgrade or downgrade at work here?

  4. Warner Crocker

    09/15/2009 at 2:35 pm

    Word is that the digitizers are N-Trig.

  5. Medic

    09/15/2009 at 2:58 pm

    Good news with regard to more screen functionality of the new x200 tablet multitouch. This time it seems that Lenovo is trying a screen technology in the true sense of the word. Before “multitouch” was regarded as have both a resistive anc capacative touch in one. Will both modes of touch also be present in the new X200 tablet multitouch? And what about viewing in the outdoor. Will that be better too? Will it have the same performance and functionality of the previous x200t model?
    I do not agree on the argument that multitouch on the x400 gives a better user functionality. From an ergonomic standpoint the arguement and statement put forward is illogical. I don’t believe that regular net- or notebooks with multitouch screens are for serious use and that it is a disappointing gadget at best. On the other hand a convertible tablet like the X60T, which I have, is far more functional and useful in daily life. This convinces me that the computing power of the x400 should actually be put in the x200t multitouch.
    From a production standpoint I would say that costs are hight if you develop 2 types of multitouch screens. I believe that with a little tweaking 4 finger touch should also be possible in the new x200 tablet.
    I am looking forward to the new x200 tablet a lot. This is going to be a hit. Hopefully the ink recognition will also be much better than the current x200t.

  6. Ben

    09/15/2009 at 5:15 pm

    why is the x200 getting a crippled multi-touch experience at only 2 fingers? i’d like *at least* 4 fingers from any “multi-touch” laptop.

    if they don’t offer a software upgrade in the near future, i’ve got _a finger_ for lenovo.

  7. Chad Essley

    09/15/2009 at 6:00 pm

    Both Lenovo and Fujitsu sure aren’t being very forthcoming about the technology behind each multitouch screen..

    Are they Wacom? Are they Ntrig? Which on which models? How many fingers do they support?

  8. Chad Essley

    09/15/2009 at 6:23 pm

    That is.. it would be great if you guys could do a multitouch roundup to tell us which of the brands out there sport wacom vs ntrig digizers, and if they’re capacitive vs resistive.

    I would think a lot of sales for most people would depend on these statistics..
    C

  9. Chad Essley

    09/15/2009 at 6:33 pm

    Another thing to clarify would be the info that I’ve been seeing around there, that the Wacom multitouch screen only has 15 levels of pressure support for the pen. True? False?

  10. Warner Crocker

    09/15/2009 at 6:47 pm

    As posted earlier in the thread but probably not clearly enough, Lenovo is using N-Trig digitizers.

  11. Frank

    09/16/2009 at 7:05 am

    Both Lenovos? Fujitsu uses the the capacitive touch screen made by Wacom, which has a two finger limitation at the moment, which will be solved by a later driver update.
    Because the x200t also has this limitation I think that the x200t also uses the same Wacom digitizer. The x400t however seems to use N-Trig (more fingers supported already).
    If both use N-Trig, then I don’t understand the two finger limitation, and let’s be honest, does anyone ever want a N-Trig device? They produce such crappy drivers, just look at the poor driver support for the Dell tablets, honestly, at the moment, I really wouldn’t want a computer with a N-Trig component in it.

  12. Warner Crocker

    09/16/2009 at 7:06 am

    My info is straight from Lenovo.

  13. Richard Lee

    09/16/2009 at 9:05 am

    Two strikes, one hit.

    SimpleTap is, to put it euphemistically, inspired by the iPhone UI…obviously. Gimmicky at best, useless at worst for two reasons.(a) It’s redundant since access to hardware controls is already present as convenient hardware buttons. (2) Customization with your own quick launch icons isn’t all that useful since a quick finger tap on the Windows start icon brings up your most used apps with decent size icons anyways. The customizable Windows quick launch bar is also available albeit with smaller icons.

    True multitouch isn’t automatically supported by any common PC software. Just how often are you going to resize and scroll through photos? That’s about all it’s good for at the moment. I don’t believe even Google maps on a PC supports it as it does on an iPhone. I can’t see software vendors all rushing to put in multitouch support.

    The outdoor visible screen is a welcome new feature. Even indoor users will benefit. This is the only new practical feature.

  14. BurningOrange

    09/16/2009 at 5:58 pm

    multitouch should be used for scrolling around pages without having to access the sliders. sliders are a pain, they take up real estate and should only appear when needed. this is where the iphone o.s. got it right. i’m not a mac fan, but one thing they have right is the two-fingered scrolling on their multitouch trackpad. windows should implement the two-fingered scrolling/zoom/pan/rotate with ALL their windows and “hide”/”minimize” their scrollbars.

    in slate mode: write with the pen, scroll/zoom/pan with two fingers, tap with one.

  15. Grimulkan

    09/16/2009 at 6:12 pm

    A quick look at the Lenovo drivers page for the latest multitouch drivers indeed confirms the following:

    1) The X200 tablet has the Wacom (penabled) dual-touch digitzer.
    2) The T400s has the N-trig DuoSense digitizer.

    The viewing angles on the X200 tablet (both in this and other videos) on the outdoor display and the touch display look pretty good! The T400s on the other hand isn’t too great, but then its not a tablet PC, so it may not matter.

  16. BurningOrange

    09/16/2009 at 6:27 pm

    … and just to confirm, we can read the n-trig press release on their website:

    “[…] N-trig DuoSense solution can currently be found in Dell’s Latitude XT/XT2 and HP’s TouchSmart tx2. In conjunction with the public launch of Windows 7 this fall, the company will also be announcing additional OEM deals. To view a video demonstration of the multi-touch capabilities inherent in the new ThinkPad T400s, go […]”.

    [https://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseId=566]

  17. Grimulkan

    09/16/2009 at 6:30 pm

    My understanding was that the pen itself supports 256 levels while the capacitive touch supports 15, although the only source I’ve seen is this one:
    https://tabletpcitalico.blogspot.com/2009/09/fujitsu-lifebook-t4310-e-t4410-256.html
    Hope someone can clear that up once and for all.

  18. Grimulkan

    09/17/2009 at 6:08 pm

    To clear this up: the Wacom dual-sense DOES 256 pressure levels. Most reports that claimed 15 levels were quoting this site:
    https://www.golem.de/0909/69541.html
    which has since acknowledged and corrected their error.

    Also, forgot to include links to the source that says the X200 tablet uses the Wacom dual-sense digitizer and NOT the N-trig:
    https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/7wgc01ww.txt
    The T400s uses the N-trig:
    https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/6hgd07ww.txt

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