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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

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TabletKiosk eo Video Review

- Dennis Rice

– Rob Bushway

My kids like calling it “the Origami” and “the Oreo”, my son says it feels just like a PSP or Gameboy, others refer to it as a UMPC or Ultra Mobile PC – whatever it is we name it, it is obvious that Microsoft and Intel have isolated a real “personal” niche. TabletKiosks eo is our real first look at this new form factor and the “Origami experience”. Please use this video review and my “initial thoughts” post as a total review on the TabletKiosk eo and the Origami experience.

In this video review of TabletKiosk’s eo, I take a look at the eo itself, showing my kids interaction with it, an interview with my 11 year old son Dax, overview of the eo, size comparisons with the LS800, software screenshots, handwriting demonstration, resolution demonstration, DialKeys demonstration, and then some closing thoughts. The things that I didn’t mention are covered in the “initial thoughts” post, and if I didn’t cover your particular question or needs, post a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them. I tried encoding this video as a .wmv, but the formatting of the video just never measured up to a quality I was pleased with, so I chose to stick with the embedded Flash Video format.

Things that I didn’t cover in the video:

Screen rotation is not implemented in the eo – I tried it and it does not work. To be honest, I didn’t miss it and would probably find the experience miserable due to screen real estate issues anyway. The only value I see in portrait with this form factor would be in book reading.
I ran out of time to get some outside shot comparisons between the LS800 and the eo. I will tell you that the screen is very nice, but in direct sunlight, it is not viewable. That said, the LS800 VA in direct sunlight is not too viewable either.
I had to revert to screen shots verses Camtasia screen recordings for some of the software demos due to some issues with merging multiple avi files together in our current editing software. In addition, the mic on the prototype eo wasn’t working, so that compounded the issue. For the most part, the screen shots captured what I wanted to communicate anyway.

Watch the Video Review (24 minutes, 54mb, Flash Video)
Read my Initial Thoughts for items not covered in the video
Visit the TabletKiosk website
Visit OrigamiProject.com

Base Pricing:

eo VIA 1 ghz processor, 256mb ram, 30 gb (4200 rpm) harddrive, 120 gram digitizer – $899.
April only special: 512mb ram, 40 gb (5400 rpm) harddrive, 120 gram digitizer – $999

4/18/2006 10:52 AM MST

TabletKiosk eo Video Review Comments [27] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:06:45 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Bravo Rob! Bravo!

Great video Rob, you showed what needed to be shown.

Thanks!

Michael Venini

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:34:21 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

It seems to me that the screen of the eo looks a lot better than the LS800 when they are side by side.

Frank J.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:38:25 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

the ls800 was on about 20% brightness...I think the eo was on full bright. Overall, I think the LS800 has a much crisper screen.

Rob Bushway

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 1:02:06 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Great video! I have to play it again tonight.

Frank J.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:12:13 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

On that video you had problems with srolling... why didn't you use up/dowm hardware buttons on the right???

JJK

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:43:57 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

it honestly never occured to me to use the up / down buttons. In fact, I don't think I ever used the d pad either (except to try it out) - the up and down buttons would certainly work.

I mainly used the left / right buttons and the track stick. Then it would interface with the screen directly, trying to move things about..

Rob Bushway

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 2:58:48 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Ok. I surf a lot with 800 * 480 resolution prototype, so up / down buttons are maybe most used buttons... speciaally with blogs.

JKK

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:09:24 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Rob;
How was it using it as a real computer?

I just can't justify the money on a UMPC device so I can surf the Internet from my sofa even though that seems to be the main thing people with tons of disposable income (obviously not me) are looking forward to doing with the thing.

What was it like to do normal task (like you might do with your LS800) on the EO?

Aaron Walker

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:46:56 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Tee-hee! Less than a minute in and the kids are already fighting over it (in a gnetle way).

People who have fat fingers like me will have real problems with the touch interface ;-)

Some kind of a "right click" method to click on scroll bars that get underneath the dial keys might be a way around that particular problem. I imagine that you could make the dial keys very transparent (to see what you're typing underneath) as you become a better "thumb touch typist."

I'm with you overall though: I prefer an active digitizer (and lots of screen real estate...er...paper)

Scott Guthrie

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:55:21 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Nice video review.

I wonder if the sensitivity of the screen can be adjusted ? The stray markings when inking are a real problem, along with the price and battery life.

The Eo does not have a VGA out, that would be a must for me.

Bren

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:51:23 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I know the Fujitsu has some of those adjustment settings, but I'm not sure about the eo. I'm sure it will depend on the type of screen and what it supports.

to do normal tasks, it was fine, but I had to be mindful about what I was touching on the screen. For some things, like start menu navigation, I enjoyed better due to touch. Others, like right click and hover stuff was a real pain, I can't stress enough about the hover issue, especially as it relates to picking alternate letters in the TIP. That was a real pain not to have that

Rob Bushway

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:59:22 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

quote
it honestly never occured to me to use the up / down buttons. In fact, I don't think I ever used the d pad either (except to try it out) - the up and down buttons would certainly work.
/quote

Interesting .... because I feel that the unit should have one button: ON-OFF. The rest of the sutff on the screen. In fact on my PDA I never use the buttons, I can't remember which one fires up what program. I use my thumb nail to move the screen up and down.

May be they should offset the "right thumb keyboard" slightly to the left so the vertical slide bar can be seen all the time.

I agree that the thing is too expensive to do Net surfing. I'd rather have the LS800. If I could get the LS800 with 1GB for about 1500-1600!!???

Erich

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 12:19:53 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I'm with Erich. Why is there a "Control Panel" button on the thing? Is there a reason that the trackpoint can't be used as one mouse button? And axe the program launcher button. The scroll buttons should be a touchpad type device (like the right-hand side of most laptop touchpads). Also, I bet 99% of people will use the resolution changer 1 time a month max, so why is there a button for it? This belongs buried in a control panel.

What's the security button for? The hold/power button I DO like. How about it be clickable for the dialkeys function? It would be nice if the volume control was a dial rather than buttons.

So, if I designed it, we'd have these buttons: 1 mouse button, 1 trackpoint/mousebutton, and 1 power/dialkey/hold switch. Wow, did I really get it down to 3?

Sadly, manufacturers just aren't thinking simplicity. Sure, power users eke a little more functionality out of all those buttons, but a much sleeker device could be produced, and would probably sell more units.

Aaron Axvig

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:29:41 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Well, I guess that UMPC are not colors where everybody always find the perfect match. I like the button layout of the eo V7110.

BTW, Rob, I was not joking about the Oscars in the UMPC category ;)

Check this link
http://ultramobilepc-tips.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-video-review-do-you-like-most.html

Frank J.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:33:47 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Question, what do you use to convert your video into flash video?
I see that I'm not the only one that find the wmv format worse than all the other video formats available.

Frank J.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:35:40 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

very cool, Frank. Thanks!

Rob Bushway

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:37:14 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

camtasia

www.techsmith.com

Rob Bushway

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:41:33 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

One thing I would like to comment about regarding the video style, is that I wish you would have moved things along faster. Yeah, it was good to have all that time to drool over the device, but when you took 4-5 minutes to cover all the buttons I found myself surfing the internet on the other monitor while you got down to business.

Maybe I'm just accustomed too much to broadcast TV and radio. :)

Aaron Axvig

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 9:37:41 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Excellent review Rob!
When can we expect a X41T review from you?
Also, do you plan to review the OQO 01+ by any chance?

Alex

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 9:59:56 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Alex said:
"Also, do you plan to review the OQO 01+ by any chance?"

Alex, we have a request in to OQO to get an eval unit, and when we do, we will most definitely do a review!

Dennis Rice

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 12:23:33 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

x41 review will come the week after next. Dennis will be publishing the c200 review next week, then the x41 from me will follow next.

Rob Bushway

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:44:12 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Just out of curiosity. What games did your kids play?

rotten_fruit_fan

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:59:07 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

They mostly played InkBall and Solitaire. However, they mostly used the eo to browse the web (lego.com) and play in Journal. Journal is actually one of their favorite apps.

Rob Bushway

Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:45:27 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Thanks Rob, Nice video as usual. It actually showed the short comings of the Origami system in general. I understand that this was a "beta" version that was not fully functional.
I use a Motion LE-1600 slate all day, everyday and love the tablet OS in general. I have been watching the developments in this area closely with the idea that a smaller, even more portable unit might serve my needs. I'm having reservations now after viewing several video demos. Just not enough usable screen real estate. Especially when the DialKeys function is fired up. Almost no usable screen then. Another oddity I noted in your review is that the mouse buttons on the left side are reversed! What's up with the right click being on the left and visa versa? Seems non-intuitive.
I use a Lenovo USB keyboard with my Motion tablet (the $139.00 BT unit from Motion died!)for extensive text entry so that would be the same for this form factor. I suppose this mitigates the objection to the DK system somewhat although I still use the OSK in the TIP when entering some text that the handwriting system doesn't get right.
So.....still watching as this shakes out.
thanks,
Dana

The Inspector

Thursday, April 20, 2006 4:06:56 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Hi Rob, have you tried Microsoft Reader, TabletPC version on the EO? Apperently, that version has screen rotation at the application level and I would be curious of you impressions on reading text in portrait mode on that 800x480 7" screen.

Richard L.

Thursday, April 20, 2006 4:22:46 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

No I didn't. Unfortunately, I've already sent the demo back

Rob Bushway

Thursday, April 20, 2006 4:59:35 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I was hoping you hadn't send it back yet. But since I don't have a TabletPC to try out MSReader with it's internal screen rotation, I was curious to know if it actually works (i.e. it doesn't rely on the Tablet it self to do it)? Since reading ebooks in portrait mode is a bit of a show stopper for some people for getting a UMPC (including me). It would be nice to know if it can be done (at least with MSReader) even if the device cannot officially do it.

Richard L.

Comments are closed.