The NoteSlateeSketcher takes a bolddirection in the world of gadgetry–simplicity. Life used to be sosimple– just a pencil and papercombined as the perfect sidearm of thestudent, the artist and the listmaker. Today we’ve got our laptops,our iPads, our Kindles and ourmobile phones cluttering up ourdesks. TheNoteSlate hopes to simplifythat, providing one basicfunction to its user: the ability to write,draw and doodle to theirheart’s content, just like pencil on paper.
TheNoteSlateis an e-ink tablet that records hand-drawn input from anincludedstylus. Users can take notes, diagram objects, draw ideas andmakelists, all of which are stored in an internal storagecard. Thesepages can be pulled up later on the device itself, ortransferred to acomputer using a mini USB connection. The internalbattery on theNoteSlate provides up to 180 hours of continuous usebefore requiringanother charge. In the future, NoteSlate can also bepowered by asolar panel on the rear of the device, providing an optionto gogrid-free.
NoteSlate isavailable in several colors, including one option for amulti-colordisplay. The basic versions only allow one color, but themulti-colorprovides white, green, blue and red on a blackbackground. TheNoteSlate has targeted June 2011 as a release date, andwhile theseimages are only renderings, we’re hopeful that this datewill be metwith this very, very coolgadget.“noteslate”目前處於概念階段,設計者稱預計2011年6計畫零售。螢幕尺寸為13英寸(霧面螢幕),解析度1080×750,只有三個按鈕,分別是保存當前、刪除當前和查看以前。可以用紅、藍、綠、黑色在螢幕上進行手寫。基本硬體輸入(USB、耳機、SD卡)位於頂部,電池可以使用180個小時。
大螢幕——13 英寸 750 x 1080 E Ink 顯示屏;長續航——180 小時;手寫——所用技術不明;單色——單色 EInk(五種不同書寫色彩的型號,也有四色型號);輕薄——210 x 310 x 6 mm,280 g;廉價——單色型號 99美元。NoteSlate功能專一,完全奔著紙筆而來,不提供主流電子書全都有的網路瀏覽器,目前唯一的功能就是寫畫(也可以用筆進行擦除)。NoteSlate的檔案管理系統也極為簡單——三個實體按鈕分別為“保存當前圖像”、“切換到上圖”、“刪除當前圖像”。沒有“切換到下圖”,如果只能順序循環切換的話,E Ink 的刷新延時會很困擾。
成像原理本質上更接近紙墨的 E Ink 技術很適合用作顯示目的,但輸入就是另一回事。目前為止最好的量產 EInk設備延時依然嚴重,局部刷新技術改善了這個問題,但延時依然長到肉眼可以看出的地步。許久不寫字的同學可以想像一下按下鍵盤之後要過0.3秒螢幕上才顯示字元的感覺。
有意購買 NoteSlate 的用戶對手寫體驗應該都有不小的要求,無法即時顯示筆跡是一大硬傷。
尺寸
尺寸很重要,NoteSlate 的大螢幕是亮點同時也是問題所在,210 x 310 mm 的正面投影比 MacBook Air13英寸(192 x 299.5 mm)還要大。相比尺寸小過 Letter / A4 的iPad,NoteSlate對包的限制明顯大了不少。一方面 NoteSlate的觸屏無壓感、無法替代專業繪圖板,另一方面它又不是非常便於隨身攜帶,定位頗為尷尬。