Acer Review, Asus Review – Netbook 10

There are quite a few netbooks coming out this half of 2009 which will incorporate touch screen keyboards to some degree, like the  swivel-tablet-netbook Asus T91 and  Gigabyte T1028M Touch Note, the Always Innovating removable-touch screen-display Touch Book, the Archos 9 PC Tablet and TechCrunch’s Crunch Pad.

If you’re leaning towards one of these nifty technologies over the conventional form netbooks and are willing to invest in these slightly higher priced devices, you need to determine where you stand on the subject of touch typing (like thumb typing on the iPhone).

• No physical keys, distorted sense of touch. We’re so accustomed to typing on physical keys that the notion of typing on a flat screen surface is alien. You won’t have the familiar sounds of the keys going clack as you type, and accurate typing may be a challenge if you aren’t aware of your fingers misssing the virtual touch-keys.

• You get used to it. Remember how skeptical people were about thumb typing on the iPhone? If you don’t own one you probably still are! Everyone imagined it would be hard to get used to and vocally declared their undying love for the old school Nokia  keypads which they didn’t have to look at to type out text messages. (Back in school, I knew tons of kids who could text each other without even taking their cell phones out of their pockets!)Apple compensated for these concerns by building in an auto correct feature into it’s intelligent keyboard, and buy making each ‘key’ or letter increase in size after you touch it. Sure it takes a while to get used to, but once you have it down, you’re a pro! I’d imagine devices like the Archos 9 PC Tablet would come with similar software to make typing quick, easy and intuitive.

• But you need to look as you type. If you’re familiar with the iPhone, you also know that the screen is so small that looking at the screen means you’re looking at the keyboard. Archos 9′s touch screen keyboard takes up half of the 9″ screen, so typing should be easy. However, if you’re trying to type up documents and need to look at the hard copy instead of the screen you may run into some difficulty.

Your decision on whether or not you are open to touch typing depends on the kind and amount of typing you intend to do. If you intend to use the touch screen device for multimedia playback, as a GPS travel guide, an ebook reader, or a device for light web surfing you should be fine. But if you’re looking to hack out essays and multi-page business reports, you should play with the device extensively before you buy it.

Some more things to think about:

• Angles, ergonomic positioning. In other words, how will you be propping the device up? Will you lay it flat on a table and type and look vertically down? Will you hold it in one hand and type with the other? Think about your body posture and how you intend to use the device.

• Screen sensitivity - How sensitive and responsive will the screen be to finger touch and stylus touch? How durable will it be – how long will it last from repeated impact? Logically, the more expensive the device the better quality it is. It will interesting to see how netbook makers reach the balance between affordable prices and high quality hardware.

• Unexplored area. In the future, it would be amazing to access Microsoft Powerpoint and Adobe Photoshop (or any photo editor) using a touch screen (via finger and stylus), and it would be ideal to use touch screen computers in schools to promote creativity amongst kids. But as of 2009, we don’t have the software and hardware for smooth touch screen computing  on a large scale basis.The hardware is expensive limiting it to a select niche of users, and it isn’t profitable for software companies like Microsoft and Adobe to pour resources into optimizing their products for touch screen access. The bridge is about to be crossed with Windows 7 which will be touch optimized.

The Archos 9 Touch Screen Keyboard

Take a look at this video of the Archos 9 PC Tablet, it helps visualize all the above points. Also, note how Archos included a physical button to bring up the virtual keyboard (the 2 minute mark), and how the stand props the PCtablet up.

Related posts:

1. Asus Eee PC T91 Touch-Screen Tablet – The Mother of all Netbooks
2. Asus Eee PC vs. iPhone Extreme Typing Race
3. Touch Book Netbook + Tablet hybrid from Always Innovating
4. Dual Screen eInk, LCD netbook based on Android?
5. Archos Netbooks – Archos 10, Archos 10s, and 9″ MiniPC Tablet

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