Microsoft gives away Acer Aspire 1420P touchscreen tablets
- posted by Michael Walsh on November 20th, 2009
- (6)
Once a year around this time, Microsoft holds its annual Professional Developers conference.
This year, to mark the launch of Windows 7 and “to show our gratitude for the support we received by PDC attendees in the development process of Windows 7″, Windows and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky took the stage and announced that all attendees of this year’s PDC will be given an Acer Aspire 1420P Convertible Tablet PC.
Talk about luck! I haven’t even clapped my eyes on anything other than a lousy internal PowerPoint presentation and these guys are taking one home tonight.
As you might have noticed from my last “review” I actually have strong opinions about the reasons why a product does or doesn’t exist. Many of these I’ve developed through talking to you on this blog and at times they don’t necessarily coincide with some of the decisions made by the suits above me.
Take touch technology for example. I kind of like the idea of touch, although I really fail to understand the real-world benefits of this technology as it’s being applied (and sold) at launch. That’s a big claim but here’s my thinking: Everything we do on, with or through a PC we do using a mouse and a keyboard. The User Interfaces we all take for granted (red “X” top right, drop down menus to save, edit and manage documents, etc.) have been optimized around these two peripheral devices and even the ergonomics of laptops have evolved through careful study of the positions we adopt when sitting at a desk (or anywhere else for that matter).
Please correct me if I’m wrong but when you introduce touch into the equation all that goes out of the window. Apart from the fact that it’s hard to hit those little red “X” boxes to close applications, just how long do you think you can keep your arm out stretched without an unbearable cramp ruining your day? For the simply sublime Acer AZ5610 All-in-One Desktop PC
And maybe I’m not alone here. Trusted reviews went as far as to hit Acer (and everyone else producing products like this) with a damning “because we can” is coming before “because we should”…
This isn’t meant to attack Acer – if anything I applaud them for pushing. Acer almost never does anything “extreme” but when it does push the boat out, it often hits a home run.
Which brings me conveniently to what I consider to be the real reason Touch technology should exist. The Tablet PC. The Aspire 1420P is an absolutely brilliant update of the incredible TravelMate C100 which Bill Gates chose as his tablet of choice when introducing Windows XP Tablet edition back in 2002. You take one look at this convertible laptop and the “reason why” just clicks.
Touch was good then, and it’s absolutely brilliant now. They’re lucky guys those professional developers…
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Morris Lee wrote, on November 20th, 2009:
Another “me want me want!”, man, don’t you live technology!
Morris Lee wrote, on November 20th, 2009:
love**
alex wrote, on November 22nd, 2009:
as a student, touch will be really useful on this thing b/c i’ll be able to scroll through PDFs like an e-reader. i don’t know why this isn’t mentioned more: bye-bye books!
Michael Walsh wrote, on November 22nd, 2009:
@alex, you’ve just given me a brilliant idea for when I write the brochure. Make sure you get a copy as this line will definitely be in it
Earl Teigrob wrote, on November 23rd, 2009:
Michael, thanks for the artical. However, I could not disagree with you more as to the application of touch screen computers. The problem so far has been weight, cost and size. I take the bus to work and have been reading books on my touch, which is just to small. Even a netbook is bulky with the keybaord and screen. This device would be perfect for me. I also use my touch for head to head gaming (like air hockey, volley ball, etc) with kids where I do volenteer work and these games are not possible without a touch screen. The application for this type of device is huge given the right device, interfice, size and price point. In a few more years as voice recognition goes from OK to great, the keybaord will become less critical and a totally touch device even more practical. I beleive it is the future…
Earl
Michael Walsh wrote, on November 23rd, 2009:
@Earl,
Thanks for writing your thoughts and contrary to what you may think, I couldn’t agree more. The article wasn’t meant to slam touch technology so much as the superfluous application of it.
Like I said, I feel that from a user’s perspective Tablet PCs are the ONLY reason to invest in touch technology as they are inherently touch devices and therefore make the best use of it.
It’s Touch *notebooks* that don’t make sense to me. The way I see it, there’s really nothing about touch technology right now that makes adding it to a standard notebook design a compelling reason to buy into the idea.
Maybe I’m missing something, maybe I was expecting something more like Microsoft Surface but from what I’ve seen, touch technology isn’t ready to make the jump to traditional hardware devices, so like you said, Tablet PCs are the future.