Toshiba’s just announced a couple new lappies — and a whole host of refreshes — in anticipation of the Windows 7 launch later this month. The big news here is definitely the touchscreen models: The Satellite U505 (due out November 1) is a 13.3-inch, 5 lb device with an MSRP of $1,049.99, while the Satellite M505 (street date October 22) has 14.4-inches of real estate and an MSRP of $949.99. Both come with the touch-ready LifeSpace software package that includes Bulletin Board (some sort of organizer with to-do lists, calendars and the like), and ReelTime, which apparently “helps you find files based on when they were opened using a visual history.” Tosh is promising to ship Windows 7 devices with minimal software running in the background — which is important if you want to retain performance increases that the new OS might provide over Vista.
Also included in this batch of lappies are new Satellite A500s (optional Blu-ray, Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion II Ultra CPU, discrete graphics options, a 16-inch HD Edge-to-Edge display on select models, starts at $589.99), Satellite L500 Series (displays ranging from 14 to 17.3-inch, Turion II and Athlon II CPU, hard drives up to 500GB, starting prices range from $504.99 to $579.99), Satellite P500 Series (18.4-inch HD TruBrite display, Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion II processors, Blu-ray in some models, starting at $799.99), Satellite L500 Series (up to 17.3-inch display, up to 500GB HDD, and various processor options, starting at $504.99), the Qosmio X505 with an 18.4-inch display and optional 64GB SSD / 320GB HDD dual-drive configuration priced at $1,899.99, and finally the mini NB205, a 10.1-inch netbook with a nine hour battery life, up to 250GB HDD, and five fabulous finishes including Sable Brown, Frost White, Indigo Blue, Posh Pink and Onyx Black (starting at $399.99). PR after the break.
Read – The new Satellite U500 Series Read – The new Satellite M500 Series Read – The new Satellite A500 Series Read – The new Satellite P500 Series Read – The new Satellite L500 Series Read – The new Qosmio X500 Series Read – The new mini NB200 Series
Not that there’s any shortage of choice in the touchscreen all-in-one space, but Fujitsu seems keen on covering all the bases with its latest product unveiling. The headline F series (pictured) will be powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 processor, which represents 2.53GHz of ultra-efficient and plenty capable laptop hardware, and 4GB of RAM. Machines can be had in 23- or 20-inch varieties, with respective resolutions of 1920 x 1080 and 1600 x 900. There’s also the MT series of 12.1-inch convertible tablets, which come with WACOM functionality and up to an SU9400 Intel CPU. Perhaps the most esoteric new offerings, however, are the NF/ER (laptops) and F/ER (desktops), which combine the hip new multitouch skills with specially designed keyboard and mouse inputs, as well as a support hotline, all in the name of getting the older generation in on the computing craze. Video lies after the break, or check out the Akihabara News link below for a full gallery of images.
The HP TouchSmart 600 is sort of like a girl I “dated” in fourth grade. I can’t say I loved her, but I can say that I really, really liked her a lot. But the TouchSmart never wore braces.
Price
Starts at $1,050 on October 22nd. $1600 as tested.
Our Configuration
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, slot-load Blu-ray player/DVD burner, NVIDIA GeForce GT230M with 1GB dedicated RAM, 23-inch 1080P multitouch display, and a slew of inputs, including 6 USB, a card reader, coax, S-Video, HDMI, audio and composite.
What’s New
This is the third generation TouchSmart. The two-point, IR-based multitouch PC remains thematically unchanged, but the combination of hardware and software is finally gelling. The new stuff includes:
• Windows 7 • HDMI-in • Updated TouchSmart UI • Custom Hulu, Netflix, Twitter and Absurdly Cool Recipe Book Apps • HD Tuning (not CableCard) • Fully customizable LED under-lighting • Tilting webcam
The Hardware
You’ll recognize the body design as almost unchanged from the last generation, but that’s not necessarily a strike against the TouchSmart. While the body is mostly plastic, the high gloss black is unoffensive, and good for making screen colors pop like an HDTV. A majority of the TV-style input set is cleverly hidden behind a panel, should you prefer the seamless look.
As for that screen, it’s as good as any low to mid-tier LCD HDTV, but its multitouch is not quite perfect. If you pace your movements, it’s about 95% accurate at tracking your fingers. If you don’t, that number drops to 85%. And should the system be strained with a lot of multimedia tasking, the touch only gets worse. But I make this all sound a lot worse than it is. No, the screen isn’t as accurate/wonderful as capacitive tech, but it’s a lot better than resistive.
The wireless low profile keyboard and mouse are both understated and completely functional. And a decent remote gives the whole package that home theater feel for when you need to do a little IR blasting.
Audio dribbles through a soundbar sits under the screen. The quality is passable for television, but there’s potential here for improvement—the highs are tinny and there’s not real bass. Music lovers will want standalone speakers (which is too bad, because everything else is great.)
But again, I almost hate saying bad things about the build because what the TouchSmart does right is sooo cool: the software.
The Littlest Media Mogul
If you just want to multitouch your way through Windows 7, the TouchSmart allows that. But to really take advantage of the system, you’ll want to use the TouchSmart interface and the wonderful, custom apps. Sure, you can mess with photos, take hand-drawn notes and watch video clips, but here’s the more notable stuff. (Check out the video above to see some of these apps in motion.)
Netflix I couldn’t enjoy the Netflix interface more. Flick through your library, click a movie and just wait for the server to stream it. It’s probably the slickest Netflix skin I’ve seen to date.
Ambient Lighting It’s technically a series of LEDs under the monitor, but Ambient Lighting makes its way into the apps section since you can choose from the entire spectrum of colors through a touch interface. The glowing effect, while a tad cheesy, is incredible customizable.
Twitter Tweetie is my client of choice on Mac. Most all of the advanced functionality is duplicated here. And if you really want to, you can type on the onscreen keyboard. It works, but I’ll take the real thing, thanks.
Live TV/DVR It’s easy to get mixed up in the submenus and the software is obviously resource intensive, but otherwise, you’re working with a fully-functional HD DVR (sitting on top the core of WMC, as I understand it). Flicking through programming guides is surprisingly natural.
Hulu Stuck in an update loop, I couldn’t test Hulu. Given the quality of HP’s other bundled apps, especially Netflix, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Music The music app is super smart because it incorporates MP3s, Pandora and Rhapsody into, well, not exactly one interface but at least one basic app. Browsing albums is smooth in a Cover-Flow-like spread. Pandora is a bit disappointing in that most of the UI is spent on the Pandora logo. But it works.
Recipe Box Despite the failings during my tech demo above, this little app is embarrassingly fun. Through a built-in browser, you can rip any recipe containing “directions” and “ingredients” from almost any webpage. With one button, the recipe appears in your own book, formatted like everything else in your collection. Now, should you have your hands full, the system supports voice commands to read you the recipe. It didn’t work in my demo video, but even when it did, the system fulfilled all the stereotypes of poor voice commands and text-to-speech. Still, Recipe Box is a clever way to bring an all-in-one into the kitchen.
The one downfall here is that HP has designed TouchSmart to run all of the bundled apps at once. You’re truly multitasking, and that means stacking HDTV, Hulu, Netflix, photo editing, a browser, Twitter, and even more video playback. The system generally handles itself admirably, but the TV tuning definitely tips the scales on occasion (just watch the video for interface stutters). If I were to use the system as my DVR on a regular basis, I’d probably cut down the fat on HP’s apps and buy myself some resources.
Another point to mention is that, while you can customize HP’s dock with any apps you like, those not designed by HP (say, Microsoft Word) will merely link you to the full app in Windows. So you can’t work on a term paper in the fancy media interface, but then again, you probably don’t want to.
Oh, and for some reason, the back button within apps often brings you back to the same information in a different view than you started with. That’s a perfect candidate for a patch if I’ve ever seen one.
Like, Not Love
I want to love the TouchSmart 600, but I just really, really like it a lot. The functionality is all there; no one can question the full media suite of apps, like Netflix, Hulu, and Twitter, let alone the full Windows 7 OS sitting right behind HP’s optional software. It’s the light performance hiccups coupled with a less than 100% touch interface that stop me from screaming at the top of my lungs, “YOU SHOULD BUY THIS RIGHT NOW OR GIVE UP ON LIFE COMPLETELY.”
But maybe you should buy the TouchSmart 600 right now. Other than Sony’s upcoming Vaio L, there’s no all-in-one quite like this on the market. Coupled with a netbook, you’d have portability and an entire media center at your disposal. The combo, for something like a dorm room or small apartment, would be unquestionably wonderful.
Elecom‘s USB-powered numeric touch keypad is pretty simple. You plug it into your machine, tap your digits on the board and watch the numbers appear in your calculator app. Once that gets boring, you can also use this as a secondary trackpad. And given that it supports a variety of multi gesture functions (zoom in / out, shift up / down, etc.), we’d say the secondary features here may just be more enticing than the primary. Suddenly overcome with a feeling of want? Get yours later this month for ¥6,500 ($72).
This week the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) went down in British Columbia, and among all the pointing and the clicking the gang from Engadget Japanese were on hand to take a closer look at those wild and wooly multitouch mouse prototypes that Microsoft Research has been working on. Apparently Orb’s hemispheric touch sensor supports a healthy helping of gestures (just the thing for point-and-shoot gaming), while Arty and FTIR certainly seem to know when you’re clicking something. These are just prototypes, of course, but the video provides a fun look at some of the things you might soon see integrated into your computing experience. Peep for yourself after the break.
It’s been done before by the likes of MSI and HP, but given the finger-friendly nature of Windows 7, we aren’t shocked at all to hear that Gateway’s getting in on the action. The splotchy PC maker is unveiling the One ZX lineup tonight, which will initially be comprised of the ZX6800 series and ZX4800 series. Both crews will ship with Win7, and Gateway’s hoping that you’ll fall in love with its custom suite of multitouch-supporting media management tools. If you’re curious about specs, the ZX6810-01 will include a 23-inch multitouch LCD (1,920 x 1,080), 2.33GHz Core 2 Quad Q8200S CPU, 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4670 GPU, 8GB of DDR3 memory, an 8x slot-loading DVD burner, a 1TB HDD (or 64GB SSD), WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, six USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA socket, bundled wireless keyboard and mouse, integrated HD webcam, a hybrid TV tuner and built-in speakers. The lower-end ZX4800-02 steps down to a 20-inch LCD (1,600 x 900), a 2.1GHz T4300 CPU, GMA X4500HD integrated graphics, 4GB of DDR2 RAM and a 750GB SATA HDD. Both lineups should be in US stores later this fall, with prices starting at $1,399.99 and $749.99, respectively.
Rather odd timing, given some recentdevelopments in the Apple camp, but Microsoft Research has just surfaced some of its incredibly wild multitouch mouse prototypes. Each one uses a different touch detection method, and at first glance all five seem to fly in the face of regular ergonomics. The craziest two are probably “Arty,” which has two articulated arms to cradle your thumb and index finger, with each pad housing its own optical sensor for mission-critical pinching gestures, and “Side Mouse” which is button free and actually detects finger touches in the table immediately in front of the palm rest. Of course, there’s plenty of crazy in the FTIR, Orb Mouse and Cap Mouse (pictured), which rely on an internal camera, orb-housed IR camera and capacitive detection, respectively. Of course, there’s no word on when these might actually see the light of day, but it should be quite obvious that Apple’s not the only game in town thinking about this stuff. Check out the utterly enlightening video of these things in action after the break.
While touring Microsoft’s Hardware division, I saw some concept mice that renewed my faith in the quintessential desktop accessory, ones that had capacitive touch surfaces and cameras that enabled an array of precision multitouch gesture. Take a look:
The name of the game is multitouch. The Applied Sciences Group at Microsoft—who helped create with Natal—are basically researching hand-cradled versions of the laptop trackpads and camera gesture systems that are evolving in parallel elsewhere. Though large populations of computer mice may be dying out because buyers prefer laptops over desktops, the mouse still roars in gaming and artistic fields.
The irony is that Microsoft’s reveal of these concept mice comes on the heel of Apple rumors that a new, multitouch Mighty Mouse is on the way to market. Regardless, before Apple lets its mouse out of the bag, take a look at these, because there’s a lot going on here:
• Cap Mouse – So named because it’s capacitive touch, it’s possibly the most completed concept design, mapped with a series of sensible gestures, not just momentum scrolling and pinch zooming, but even thumb flicking to shift photos and toss windows around the screen. The designers made a conscious decision to leave the click mechanism in place, because, like on the MacBook Pro trackpad of their arch-competitor, that physical clicking reduces user confusion. In the video below, you can see the finger activity in the window on the left, while you see the results on the right:
• FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) Mouse – Loser of the “coolest mouse name” competition here, this one uses an infrared camera that’s gauging the positions of fingers on a curved acrylic surface. The amount of finger positioning you could see on this baby was astounding, though it probably isn’t economical to use full-rez video of hand positions as a control.
• Orb Mouse – It’s similar to the FTIR but with a semi-sphere where the hand rests. The team mapped gaming commands to demonstrate how regions of the sphere could control different pieces of an app. Something about that sphere makes sense, like it would be easier to remember gestures at different clock positions or something.
• Arty (Articulated) Mouse – A smart low-bandwidth multitouch concept, it basically makes sense of assorted pinching gestures. There’s no camera, instead, the two finger pads each have a little mouse tracker in them, and the system measures how all three “mice” move relative to one another in order to fire off commands.
• Side Mouse – This strange half-mouse has a tracker and clicker, just like mice have had for eons. But it also has a camera that looks forward, interpreting what your fingers are doing and why. The beauty is that it’s basically a Natal for your hand—you can even set it a foot away, and gesture at it with both hands, if that’s what an app calls for. The catch is that when you are using it, you have to rest your fingers on the table, and it’s apparently a bitch to program around all of that involuntary hand movement.
I couldn’t help feel a bit sad when talking to these brilliant guys about their mice. After all, even though I used to be a huge mouse fanatic, it’s been years since I’ve used one. Perhaps it’s laziness or forgetfulness, or my couch-friendly work habits, but I do get the feeling the mouse’s days are numbered. Am I wrong?
Update: Video the research team made, complete with soothing ambient music, showing how each mouse works. Take a look:
Apple may soon introduce a mouse featuring multitouch technology, like that seen in its iPhones, iPods and MacBook trackpads.
Sporting a touch-sensitive housing, the new mouse will do away with the roller ball on the current Mighty Mouse (pictured above), sources told AppleInsider. The rumored multitouch mouse might apply the inertia feedback seen in iPods and iPhones, whereas scrolling speed accelerates or decelerates in response to how the user touches the surface.
Presumably an Apple multitouch mouse would function similarly to the unibody MacBook trackpads, which detect multitouch gestures. On new MacBooks, tapping the trackpad with two fingers triggers a right-click function, for example; this rumored multitouch mouse might copy this behavior. Also, for a mouse, we would expect a multitouch gesture to replace scrolling in different directions, and perhaps there will be special gestures that trigger Exposé commands as well.
Apple’s new mouse may be released with new iMacs, AppleInsider’s sources said. The popular iMac desktops were last refreshed in March, and Apple typically upgrades them every seven months. That would suggest new iMacs — perhaps packaged with multitouch mice — will hit stores very soon.
Another month, another compelling Apple patent application that’s just too delectable to ignore. This go ’round, the Cupertino powerhouse has filed a lengthy document that spells out its plans to revolutionize the multitouch game by creating a solution that recognizes both palms and all ten fingers. According to the filing, such a system could provide “unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device,” and when we hear things like “computer input device,” we think of precisely one thing. Of course, the oft-rumored Apple tablet has been spinning for what feels like ages now, and we’ve definitely seen countless applications from the company that have yet to lead to any meaningful developments. Still, a multitouch surface that recognizes all ten digits simultaneously? Slap that on a Palm IIIc and we’d still be interested.
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Versatile media platform
Imperfect, but decent multitouch
Speakers sound pretty lousy
