Touch me - but touch me the right way
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Toys & gadgets, Hardware, Laptop, HP, Mobile on
I narrowly avoided having an argument with a friend about touch screens the other night. We were talking about the new OQO model e2, an adorably small and functional ultra-mobile PC. It’s available with the ordinary version of XP, the tablet version or with Vista Ultimate (which the CEO Dennis Moore tells me he prefers because he’s getting more battery life). All versions have the active digitizer touch screen, but only the ones with tablet software come with the active pen you need to use it.
If you’re not writing on screen, the mini joystick on the slide-out keyboard and the finger-sensitive strips beside and blow the screen let you scroll and move the mouse pointer as normal. My colleague hadn’t realized there was a touch screen at all until I lent him the pen from my HP 2710p tablet to try with it and then he started telling me he’d rather have it work with the standard stylus from his Palm PDA. Yes, but…
For a start, Windows - XP or Vista - isn’t geared up for finger touch.
Try doing anything apart from opening the Start menu and selecting an icon with your finger? Radio buttons, checkboxes, even menu items are designed to be selected with a mouse pointer - your finger is going to press three or four of them at once. The Media Center interface is a good size for fingers because it’s designed to be driven by a remote control, but I use my PC for a lot more than viewing media. The Origami pack for UMPCs gives you nice finger-sized buttons - but it’s like the interface on the HTC touch, barely skin deep. As soon as you open an application, you’re back to needing the fine resolution of a mouse or pen. HP does rather better with the finger interface on the TouchSmart PC, which I miss hugely now it’s no longer in our kitchen, because there are apps and tools in it to do a lot more - including a family calendar and sticky notes. But eventually, I’m browsing a Web site and ticking boxes and with a finger it’s frustrating.
The TouchSmart is the only finger-touch device that gives you the hints you get with a mouse or an active pen - hover behavior that changes icons, lights up menus and generally lets you know that yes, you do have the pointer in the right place. That’s because it uses four cameras to detect where your finger is. Active digitisers do need a special pen; passive touch screens put more of the workings as a layer over the screen - which means a passive touch screen will never be as bright or clear as an active screen. The sampling resolution is higher too; so writing on an active touch screen can be as fluid as writing with a real ink pen. And while most tablet pens are like a cheap biro, Cross makes a line of tablet pens that feel like a fountain pen.
And then there’s being able to write on the screen with the pen without having the side of your hand writing right alongside it. There’s a technique called blunt touch blocking that it supposed to stop that - ignoring the blunt touch of your hand in favour of the precise touch of the pen. Usually it means you have to press harder with the stylus and you’ll still get some random scribbles. I’ve only ever used one passive touch screen that got the blunt touch blocking right, the Tablet Kiosk UMPC.
Vista improves on the handwriting recognition of XP significantly, and it learns when you correct the recognition - you don’t sit around training the PC. It also introduces pen flicks - gestures that let you copy, paste, delete, scroll or do any eight things you fancy by flicking the pen up, down, sideways and to the four quarters. That only works with an active pen.
My friend might have been saying he wanted a screen he could touch with his finger for pushing the few buttons that are the right size. There are dual-touch screens that work with both finger and active pen and they would give him what he wants - the ability to write with a pen or tap with your finger. This would increase an already high price - but if you think the Eee PC is a bargain and the OQO is overpriced, you’re not the customers OQO is building for (adding an expensive array microphone wouldn’t put off the people who need the functionality it will deliver, Dennis pointed out). But what he was really saying was that he hasn’t seen the point of an active pen because there have been so few successful tablet PCs for the mass market. The OQO e2 still isn’t for the mass market - but if you do get the point of an active pen you’ll love it.
Mary
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