Dell Touchscreen Tablet PC Launch Date?

Touchscreens are inferior to RF-based tablets, the only advantage you gain is the ability to use your fingers, but this is typically inaccurate, provides no real pressure sensitivity, and ends up getting skin oil on the display.

What's the advantage gained?

i was playing with the hp one u mentioned few hours ago

its rather heavy, touchscreen is weird to use and the screen itself is sorta fuzzy due to the thickness of the glass (or whatever it is)

>> What's the advantage gained?

I'd like to experiment with some multi-touch hand gesture code.

If implemented properly and as iPhone has already proven, multi-touch hand gesture interfaces are more natural and easier to use.


>> the only advantage you gain is the ability to use your fingers,
>> but this is typically inaccurate, provides no real pressure
>> sensitivity, and ends up getting skin oil on the display.

Good point but I believe software can help alleviate inaccuracies and pressure sensitivity issues.

Regarding skin oil, I think users will learn to have a pack of alcohol swipes/screen cleaners nearby.

PocketXP wrote:

>> What's the advantage gained?

I'd like to experiment with some multi-touch hand gesture code.

I very much doubt that the Dell tablet will support multi-touch.  Get in touch with Harry at www.multitouch.nl and he will sort you out with an MT kit

Rossj wrote:



PocketXP wrote: >> What's the advantage gained? I'd like to experiment with some multi-touch hand gesture code.

I very much doubt that the Dell tablet will support multi-touch.  Get in touch with Harry at www.multitouch.nl and he will sort you out with an MT kit

Why couldn't standard-issue touch-sensitive hardware be capable of detecting more than one press?

It shouldn't involve anything more than a minor write of the driver, surely?

W3bbo wrote:



Why couldn't standard-issue touch-sensitive hardware be capable of detecting more than one press?

Because it is not designed to

W3bbo wrote:


It shouldn't involve anything more than a minor write of the driver, surely?

Even if the hardware supported it, hardly a minor rewrite. You have to track N points where 1 < N < 10. Now put two fingers together on your tablet and then move them apart, which point went which way? Not cross the paths your fingers take, where they crossed which one went which direction.

Thanks for the info.

I contacted Harry 'Gravano' Van Der Veen from http://www.multitouch.nl/.

He's the co-founder of the Natural UI Group.

Interesting info on their Touchlib is here.

I'm waiting for the Dell Tablet as well, the day that baby comes out my credit card companies are going to be VERY happy with me.

I dont think any iPhone patents will affect the tablet, you know, the whole prior-art thing.

Jason Cox wrote:

I'm waiting for the Dell Tablet as well, the day that baby comes out my credit card companies are going to be VERY happy with me.

I dont think any iPhone patents will affect the tablet, you know, the whole prior-art thing.

Question: What's all the appeal with an alleged Dell TPC?

Dell are alright, but Lenovo make better laptops, they're more rugged and are far more user-servicable, and don't come loaded with crápware.

Oh, and Dell laptops are all made of that cheap plastic material with terrible industrial design (except for the metal Lattitude ones).

EDIT: Ooookay, now I've seen the video, I'm impressed.

If it's as lightweight as they say it is and not made of the same cheap plastic they use on their Inspiron lappies and has a powerful GPU, I'm interested.

Bonus points if it comes with a proper TabletPC dock rather than a "port replicator".

W3bbo wrote:


Bonus points if it comes with a proper TabletPC dock rather than a "port replicator".

What's the difference?

Ray6 wrote:



W3bbo wrote:  Bonus points if it comes with a proper TabletPC dock rather than a "port replicator".

What's the difference?

A Tablet dock is what I've got on my desk, it holds your TabletPC upright so you can either use the keyboard, or rotate the mount and use it as a tablet. The mount is also removable from the base (with a short tether cable providing power and periphials) so you can use it more "naturally".

A port-replicatory is either a glorified USB hub or a laptop-style docking station for a TabletPC (i.e. only helps when in laptop mode, you're SoL when in slate mode).

Dell started taking orders for the Latitude XT today.

Does anyone know if the hardware supports multi-touch apps?

More cool info here and here.

PocketXP wrote:

Dell started taking orders for the Latitude XT today.

Does anyone know if the hardware supports multi-touch apps?

Yes, the hardware supports multi-touch.

I'm not sure if it went on sale today, the Latitude XT website was up for most of the day however the ordering page was down and late in the day (EST) the entire Latitude XT site was removed [again].

Thanks Jason.

Engadget also confirmed it today.

IMO, Tablet multi-touch is a big deal.

Apps that may benefit from it are:
 - Video Editors (e.g. Final Cut Pro, Win Movie Maker, etc.)
 - Audio Editors (e.g., Digidesign Pro Tools, Audacity, etc.)
 - Resizing Apps (e.g., photos, CAD images, Medical Images, etc.)
 - Finger flickable browsing apps (e.g., Media Browsing Apps, etc.)
 - Games
 - Navigate 2D and 3D Maps
 - Telephony Apps
 - Paintbrush Apps
 - HW and SW Engineering Tools

W3bbo wrote:

Touchscreens are inferior to RF-based tablets, the only advantage you gain is the ability to use your fingers, but this is typically inaccurate, provides no real pressure sensitivity, and ends up getting skin oil on the display.

What's the advantage gained?

The best is to have both methods built into the same screen, like the Dell has (and the Lenovo tablet).  They are smart about switching between the pen and your hand.  If you use the pen, it does not respond to your hand, and therefore you can rest you hand on the screen while using the pen.  When you use only your hand, it detects this and switches to touch mode.  This is useful for quickly pressing buttons on dialogs, etc. with your finger.

On the other hand, I don't know if multi-touch is that useful though.  I know there are applications for this, as some people have pointed out, but I think in real use the times where this is actually useful and not just gimmicky would be few and far between.