Open Source Tablet [Touch Book] Kills iPad

From what I heard, Steve Jobs had been working hard to develop a killer device that would change the face of the industry. Well, I blogged live for iPad launch event but I didn’t see that coming. Was it really unveiled ? All I saw was a fancy eBook Reader that can’t even run full web.

Some one rightly said, iPad is a golden calf of DRM for which Apple wants us to fall for. Well, it won’t happen, Open software will always rule. With a number of Tablets coming to the market, Apple will find it hard to survive. The best one I see around is called “Touch Book”.

It’s developed by a company called “Always Innovating“. Well, company  claims that the purpose of the device is “to achieve a breakthrough in both architecture and design. The result: a revolutionary device that works as both a netbook and a standalone tablet thanks to a detachable keyboard and a 3D touchscreen user interface.”

Apart from what company claims, this device is really gorgeous in almost every sense. It’s powered by ARM TI OMAX3 chip which is very nice on the battery. Infact, it is he first ARM device to propose all major distros: Ubuntu, Android, Mer, Gentoo, Chrome OS, more

Touch Book comes with an optimized home-made Linux-based OS, and multibooting is no problem. Company has plans to run Google Chrome OS and Maemo plus Flash 10.1 Touch support soon.

The specifications

• 9.7″ x 7″ x 1.3″ for around 3 lbs (with keyboard) [Double the weight on iPad]
• ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip 600MHz with a Numonyx 512MB (RAM) + 256MB (NAND) Memory
• 1024×600 8.9″ pressure sensitive TouchScreen
• 512MB RAM – 8GB SD card for storage
• Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth
• 3-d accelerometer
• Speakers, micro and headphone I/O
• 7 USB 2.0 (4 internal, 3 external)
• 10 hours of battery life [Two batteries 6,000 and 12,000 mAh, replaceable]
• GPS & 3G dongle [Accessory]

don’t underestimate the capability, this processor can do decent 3D Gaming too. Also, being powered by flash-drive, boot-ups are going to be pretty fast.

Since it has no moving parts (no Hard disk, no fans, no optical disks) it is pretty efficient on battery and operates in Always-ON just like your cellphone or even iPad to compare.

The best Feature of this device is pull-off the Touchscreen and carry it along or attach it in your kitchen.
Watch it in action:

Touchscreen “3D interface”

You can endup using it  via keyboard and touchpad (yes its inbuilt)  OR as a  touchscreen-only like a  Tablet. The screen has decent response to touch (ofcourse not as good as iPad) decent enough for surfing (Mozilla Fennec), reading books.

And yes, most important, Total cost of ownership is much lower ($299 for tablet, $399 with keyboard) and can do more than you think it could. Checkout FAQs.

It may not be the best device, but definitely a lesson for Apple to learn. We ain’t falling for shiny stuff.

We write about Open Source, Gadgets, Apple, iPhone, Android, and latest in Tech @taranfx on Twitter.