A DIY Macbook tablet

Hardly the easiest DIY project I’ve seen, but I give this guy credit for assembling his own tablet computer using a Macbook and Intuos Wacom tablet, which  he calls an iTab. Apparently Wei of weistudio has been planning and building this thing for little more than two years and now has a polished product which is being shown off on YouTube. Quite impressive, particularly the well-documented process on his website, but I see a few flaws to consider.

First, there is a noticeable lag in the inking shown in the video, or at least it’s noticeable to a veteran Tablet PC user like me. I watched it in HD and re-ran that part several times to confirm, and I definitely see a delay. Could be overall slowness from just starting up or maybe that’s normal for Inkwell (I would hope not), but I couldn’t deal with that.

Second, an Intuos isn’t designed for a video overlay, so I don’t know if there’s a way to recalibrate the pen input. Considering that’s a standard feature of Tablet PCs with Wacom digitizers, I’m guessing physically positioning the LCD over the digitizer isn’t enough, particularly since the added distance from the LCD creates parallax.

Finally, the finished product doesn’t strike me as very mobile. This guy’s a graphic designer, so he probably doesn’t need to run around with it, but I don’t see the point of making this an all-in-one unit if it’s going to be a challenge to haul. In fact, it looks like it  would be more portable as two pieces.

Regardless, I’m very impressed by the effort and engineering. And who can blame him for wanting to turn  an  inkless Macbook into a superior  pen-centric tablet? :)  Good job!

Via Lifehacker