TouchBook unboxing and first impressions

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Google has all the photos I shot here.

A box, hooray!

Inside the box is a smartbook,

a stack of three magnets, a stylus, and a power adapter.

The tablet unlocks from the keyboard base to become a tablet, and once done another latch opens the back of the tablet so you can add USB devices or gawk.

Here's a shot of the bottom of the tablet showing the latch and the ports:

This (back lid) is also how we added the magnets, once unstuck from each other. I powered it up and started messing around even before we'd sorted out the magnet mounting.

There are pretty lights that glow through the case, white red and blue:

touch UI

Magnets

Overall the hardware is pretty cool. The tablet itself has some weight to it and is not balanced by the weight of the keyboard, so it can tip. We placed the magnets with some trial and error and were able to get the tablet to stick to the refrigerator and file cabinet both briefly, although it wanted to slide down. The small plastic latches on either side of the tablet as well as on its bottom seem to work fine. The touchscreen seem to work well and I find it frequently easier to tap the screen with my finger nail rather than drag my finger across the touchpad surface. And of course with the tablet loose, the touchscreen is all of it, but it seems to work well.

The software is labeled as beta and seem to be improving quickly. The community has started up today and looks promising. Equally encouraging is that the developers have started to put information into their wiki and support sites that help fill in the gaps. The IRC channel has been great so far. Early tests with ebooks and video files have been pretty good and the accelerometers (tilt-sensors) are working well .. maybe too well :)