Asus Eee Top ET 1602 looks good and is functional when mounted on the wall (Image courtesy: Asus Tek)
After the success of touch phones like the iPhone, an increasing number of PC makers are slowly introducing touch-enabled devices. So is it time to throw out the mouse and keyboard?
In January 2007, two devices using touch interface were introduced to the public. One was a PC, the other a phone. Today, one is restricted to a niche segment, the other has transformed the entire cell-phone industry. One is the HP Touchsmart PC, the other is the Apple iPhone.
It’s a stark contrast. Few PCs have touch capability unlike cell-phones where it has become a coveted feature – the iPhone was followed by string of devices, collectively dubbed the iClones or ‘iPhone killers’.
So, why have PC manufacturers shied away from this seemingly addictive technology? For one, attempts in the past have failed to take off in a big way. Tablet PCs (high-end laptops, with a distinctive swivelling screen) manufactured by the likes of Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell, and HP feature touch screens. But companies manage to sell only about 150-200 units per quarter, according to Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst, Gartner India.
In the PC segment, the major player currently is HP. The TouchSmart series is a stylish all-in-one PC. It is a high-end performer boasting great specs in terms of processor, memory, and multimedia. The monitor, of course, is touch enabled. But with a price tag of about Rs90,000 it’s clearly meant for the enthusiasts.
The new Asus EEE Top ET1602, which launched in India last month retails at almost half the price, Rs44,000. What you lose in the bargain is the high-performance specs, but you can easily use the PC for basic functions like editing office documents, browsing the internet, and playing movies. You can also mount this PC on your wall. However, for performing such functions, ET1602 is indeed too expensive.
In short, you are basically forking out extra money for the touch-screen interface. So, does it make a meaningful difference to user experience?
We tried out the ET1602 to find out. The ET1602 is an all-in-one PC, and though not as stylish as HP Touchsmarts, it definitely will draw attention. It uses Windows XP as opposed to Vista in HP.
Almost immediately you realise that having a touch interface by itself is not enough. It has to be applied in a way that truly makes a difference. Even in cell-phones, touch screens were around much before the iPhone. But the difference between a normal and touch phone was just a matter of pressing the screen with a stylus instead of a button. The iPhone’s software transformed the way you accessed data on the phone: Whether it was the sweeping thumb gesture to browse through photographs, or using two fingers to zoom in and out of a webpage.
Back to the ET1602, the ability to tap a link on a webpage with your finger instead of using the mouse isn’t a transformational change (in fact, it’s a bit cumbersome). In the absence of software that takes advantage of touch interface, you are simply not compelled to lean forward from your chair and reach out for the screen – you might as well use the conveniently placed keyboard or mouse instead. We found it difficult to click links on web pages which used small fonts and even normal desktop icons on Windows XP.
No wonder, both HP and Asus have developed custom interfaces of their own. The Asus ET1602, for example, starts in what is called the Easy Mode. You can access your basic applications (from your web browser to office applications and also some games) from the Easy Mode screen. The large icons help and its much easier to tap on using your fingers. But you see a real difference in an application called theS Eee Memo which is used for leaving virtual post-its on the screen. Once you start it, the post-its come in four colours. You can scribble the note using the stylus (which tucks in neatly under the keyboard). As Vinay Shetty, country manager, components, Asus, points out, “such a feature is very handy if the PC is mounted on a kitchen wall.” Once done, the post-its can be picked up using your finger and dropped into the dust-bin on the screen.
But get out of the Easy Mode and try using normal applications, the experience immediately becomes ordinary. The experience is similar for the HP Touchsmart series. Here’s what one reviewer at Gizmodo (gizmodo.com), a popular gadget review website, had to say about his experience with the Touchsmart iQ506: “…while the touchscreen works well within the interface, trying to control the rest of Vista can be maddening. Buttons and icons in Vista are too small for finger taps on the screen, resulting in hitting the wrong button, or not hitting anything at all. I basically gave up on navigating Vista with the touchscreen after the first 30 minutes.”
The bottom line as Diptarup Chakraborti of Gartner puts it, “Current way of using PC doesn’t aid touch. Touch screen works beautifully you are playing games, making phone calls using Skype… basically whenever you are doing minimal typing. Plus, it’s a cool thing to show off. But if you use your PC to type a lot, touch screen becomes more uncomfortable.”
It’s telling that despite the iPhone’s success, Apple is silent when it comes to introducing touch interface on its PCs. But other manufacturers are optimistic: “Even when the mouse was introduced more than 20 years ago, there weren’t any application to take advantage of the device. All games were keyboard-based,” says Vinay Shetty of Asus. Admitting that touch may not replace input devices like keyboard and mouse since every user has different requirement, Rajiev Grover, director, consumer products, personal systems group, HP said, “once touch becomes enabled in more devices, programs that take advantage of it will also emerge. Everything from fun apps such as putting together an animated jigsaw puzzle to mimicking the turning of a page when scrolling through a web site could be fun. Therefore the concept of ‘Touch’ has only one way to go and that is upwards.”
For now at least, look beyond touch to get the best bang for your buck.
Visiting Matunga to see the Ganesha murtis is an annual ritual for me. I love clicking photographs of the beautifully decorated pandals. This time though I also turned my lenses on stalls that sell garlands in Matunga. Matunga, as some of you may know, is the temple district of Mumbai. Here’s one of the photographs. The rest on Zooomr.
This guy was hesitant to face the camera, let alone smile. A comment from his colleague however had him in splits --R Krishna
The feeding-the-dog ritual
I had gone to a pretty high-class society to interview someone for a story. On my way down, this auntie here got into the lift. From the liftman to the watchman, everyone playfully chided her.
Once we were down, she asked me if she could get under my umbrella since it was raining. I offered to do the job for her if didn’t involve going too far. She handed me a 10-rupee note to get two packets of Parle-G biscuits.
As soon as I stepped out, I immediately knew why she had ordered for them. Three dogs came rushing towards her.
Once I got the packets she started feeding the dogs, “Yo yo yo yo,” she kept saying.
“Every evening this ritual starts,” said the watchman half-irritated. Feeding the dog was an obsession of sorts for this old lady. Old people, I always feel, should have some sort of obsession. I have seen it in my grandpa. His obsession among many other things was with news and finance.
As age progressed, one by one, he started giving of his obsessions. And every time he dropped one, I knew my grandpa had grown a bit more older that day.
P.S. Aplogies for the bad photograph. The light was failing and I didn’t have me Canon 350D on me. This photo was taken by Panasonic FZ3, my old P&S.
[Story I wrote for DNA] More pics on Zooomr
Angling is a sport of patience
Driving through Powai is an exercise in patience at the best of times — the twirling dust, black, due to the pollution, vehicles vying for every inch of open space on the road, and people filtering through this mess covering their faces with handkerchiefs.
Just a few metres away, in the waters of Powai lake, the going, perhaps, is even slower; but in an entirely different and in a very, very good way. Ignore the vehicular sounds, lower your gaze from the skyline that’s marked by fancy buildings, and you’d almost forget this is Mumbai.
For anglers at the Powai lake this is very easy — you could also say it is necessary. Thin, bright and straw-like, the peacock feathers keep bobbing in the water mysteriously. Follow the rod it is attached to and you will find yourself peering into eyes that are intent, and alert. For when the peacock feather dips into the water, it indicates that a fish is touching the line. The angler rips the line hoping he will hook the fish.
“This is what you wait for — hours together, and sometimes for days. The feeling you get when you hook a fish is incomparable,” says MA Ghani joint secretary of the Maharashtra State Angling Association, and an avid angler for more than 30 years.
But that’s only the start. The fish puts up a mighty struggle before it is “landed”. “The strength of the fish in water is unbelievable,” says Ghani. A big fish can empty the whole line out. The trick is to tire the fish. Let it swim for a bit, and then roll the line back. Judgment comes with experience. Get it closer to you, slowly, and then net it.
The action lasts just a few minutes, but the thrill lasts several hours.
But anglers spend most of their time sitting calmly in machans. Patience, after all, is a key ingredient in angling. A hawk swoops to catch a fish, a water spider skirts on the water, a fish splashes somewhere — “You tell me… where in Mumbai can you see such things? Can you imagine a place like this in any other major city? Just sitting over here is enough to relax,” says AH Husaini, secretary, MSAA, who prefers to spend 36 hours of his weekend by the lake.
Sitting in the machan, you feel as light as the breeze, as pure as the air you‘re breathing. Watching the water’s gentle rhythmic movement, you’d almost think that it’s not the water, but the machan that’s moving: The oneness with nature is complete. And Husaini’s point is driven home: Is this really Mumbai?
There’s a shout some distance away. Someone has hooked a fish. As we row towards the other machan, I can see Zeeshan Ahmed standing at the edge of this boat. His line is vibrating due to an unknown force in the waters below. The fish is putting up a good fight. “It is a 3kg fish,” says the experienced Ghani even though the fish hasn’t yet surfaced. Ahmed finally pulls the fish closer and nets it. As Ghani helps him unhook the line, Ahmed can’t stop smiling: “I’m on top of the world.”
Ahmed who has been angling for four years is relatively a beginner. But the more experienced members at the lake haven’t yet caught anything for the day. Angling doesn’t work by such rules.
“Sometimes it is beginners luck,” says Husaini. And with a smile he adds, “It’s great to see the excitement when they catch a fish. But actually it is the beginners who get trapped. Anglers know that it is not the fish that is hooked, but the person at the other end of the rod who is hooked.”
The good anglers at MSAA were kind enough to allow me to catch a fish
Recently, I had a discussion with one of my colleagues about arguments. He was of the opinion that when you are arguing, after a while it’s just better to stop talking and listen to what the person has to say. He told me that some of his friends did not agree with his point of view, and felt that it is important that he hold forth his views.
I was reminded of a sentence I read in Paul Theroux’s book, The Elephanta Suite — ‘In India, you really couldn’t say anything that hadn’t been said before.’
And that’s my reply to all those in favour of arguments. ‘Dravid’s a loser’ has been said before, and so has, ‘Dravid is Mr Cool’. There is no end to it. Arguments are always at the risk of becoming an excercise in exerting your ego. After a point of time, it’s not the topic and the truth that lies at the heart of the argument that matters – defending you stand becomes the most important thing.
Am I giving a sermon sitting on top of a white elephant? Absolutely not. As my friends and relatives will assert most incessantly (no point arguing that) I am the worst offender in this respect. I enjoy arguments (until I realise it has turned into an ego slug-fest), but I have realised that there’s no deep meaning in it. Just plain time-pass.
The soon to be launched iPhone 3G is coming to India. But will you be getting the best deal? What about options?
Apple has developed a (good) habit of turning seemingly ordinary
concepts into gadgets that border on science fiction. iPod and the more
recent iPhone will more than testify for this.
iPhone led a new
genre of cell-phones with an intuitive touch interface. Many gizmo
freaks however were disappointed when the iPhone did not launch in
India. But this time ‘round, things look better with two of India’s
biggest telecom players announcing that iPhone 3G will indeed be
available for cell-phone users.
What seems to be catching many
people’s eyes — perhaps more than the iPhone 3G’s new design — is the
price. At $199 (Rs8,000) the iPhone looks cheap. But the iPhone may not
be available at this price in India. Even in the US, the data-plans
offered by telecom companies such as AT&T will be more expensive
for the iPhone 3G than for other phones.
To cut a long story
short, the iPhone 3G costs around $450 to $500. Telecom companies like
AT&T will subsidise the cost initially, but will more than make up
for it in the data plan (cost for talking, SMSing, and browsing the
Internet).
Sources within Vodafone India could not confirm the pricing of the
iPhone 3G or the plans that would be offered along with it, adding that
the pricing model in India may well differ from the one in the US. Surprisingly, existing iPhone users are not too kicked about the launch.
“I would have considered going in for the official version with
Vodafone had I not bought one last November,” says Suyash Barve.
According to Barve, the new version doesn’t offer anything additional
features that are significant, at least in India.
Other users like Ritesh Rai, CEO, Genesis Modern Trade are actually
planning to give up their iPhone. “Once it launches there will be a
whole lot of people who will be carrying the iPhone around. There will
no longer be a novelty factor attached to it,” says Rai.
When the
iPhone launched in January 2007, there was nothing that came close to
its design, touch interface, and audio-video playback. But this time
other companies have caught on and launching worthy competitors of
their own, dubbed the iPhone killers.
HTC’s Touch Diamond has
already hit the Indian market (with Airtel for approximately Rs27,000).
Apart from a sleek design, it features a 3D interface that should make
the Touch Diamond stand out from the crowd. The other goodies are
top-of-the-line as well – it has built-in global positioning system,
Wi-Fi connectivity, and 3G-connectivity. The Touch Diamond runs on
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.
After the Touch Diamond the
most anticipated iPhone killer is Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 – the name
itself oozes with style. It was rumoured that Sony Ericsson may
postpone the launch to 2009, but recent reports confirm that the Xperia
X1 will be available by late 2008. Xperia X1 will feature a 3-inch
touch-screen display. And for those who type a lot (SMS/email), there’s
a slide-out QWERTY keyboard where the keys are arranged exactly like
your PC’s keyboard.
And can Nokia be left far behind? The
Finnish behemoth till date has not been too keen to develop
touch-screen models, but will now enter the fray with the Nokia Tube.
Nokia has not yet revealed too many details and the phone is due in
late 2008.
Other models to look out for are the LG Dare, which launched last
week, Blackberry Thunder, and the Samsung i900 Omnia, which features a
heavy-duty 5MP camera.
Of course, none of them as of now turn as many heads as the ‘bitten
apple’. iPhone’s brand value will remain high for some time to come.
But while you spending your moolah, you
might as well have a look at the options coming your way.
I’ll do it.” The words escaped my mouth before I could think things through. Sometimes your mouth says yes to something your heart had always wanted to do, before your brain had had a chance to process it. My heart had always wanted to visit the small towns and villages of India — to see the ‘real’ India.
The task I had taken up involved visiting and collecting data from three tribal areas of Maharashtra for a Planning Commission survey to measure the efficacy of income generation schemes for Tribals. One of the districts I had to visit was Nandurbar — a place which I never knew existed until then.
“Volvo hai?”
“Nandurbar? No, only semi-deluxe bus,” the man said. The semi-deluxe bus turned out to be an AC bus with a non-functional AC. But to maintain the temperature perhaps, there were a few windows that wouldn’t budge, letting in wind, dust, and rain.
A light drizzle greeted me when I reached Nandurbar early in the morning. The bus dropped me near the main bus-stand, and I proceeded to check into a nearby hotel, which came highly recommended.
The room was just the way I expected: damp, stuffy, dull, and the mug in the bathroom had paint stains. There were many big black ants loitering about, about which I dutifully complained to the manager. “It has rained, sir. That’s why they have come out,” said the manager in a tone that suggested ‘Why bother? They won’t cause no harm’.
The local tribal office was small but pleasant. On the day I arrived, two officials escorted me from the hotel to the office. I was ushered into one of the bigger cabins, where a formal welcome speech was made, and a bouquet of flowers was presented to me. I was introduced as Krishna Rao, the man from New Delhi — a fact I did not bother to correct, because in government offices, the word ‘navi dilli’ worked like a charm.
Field inspectors were appointed to assist me during the survey. This took a huge load off my mind, as it meant they would take me on their motorbikes to the villages I wanted to visit. “I will introduce you to the tehsildar if you want,” said one of the field inspectors, and turned the bike before I could respond.
At the tehsildar’s office: “Sir, meet this person… he’s come from New Delhi and is a member of the Krishna Rao Commission.” My mouth opened in protest, but I stopped just in time — I had to maintain the façade to get my work done quickly.
Riding pillion with various field inspectors on the motorbike gave me a 180-degree view all along. Nandurbar, and its adjoining areas, Sakri, Shirpur and Navapur have a rugged, untamed beauty. I was on a high when I visited the villages at the base of the Satpura mountain range. Beyond the Satpura is the Narmada, and further North are the Vindhyas – the heart of India is mystical, and I had just touched its southern tip.
The Tribals love their mountains and stay as close to them as possible. This, however, has isolated them. Even for people who wanted to help, travelling in such areas is no cake walk. In fact, many of the villages cannot be accessed by roads.
In one of the villages we visited, almost everyone was illiterate. The whole village came out to see what the man from New Delhi wanted. I was interviewing one lady: “Age?” I asked. “Around 24,” she replied. “Do you have children?” “Yes, I have two.” “What’s their age?” “One is 12 and the other, I think, 10.” I turned to the field inspector in disbelief, “If she is 24 and her child is 12, wouldn’t it mean she delivered her first baby when she was 12-years-old?” The inspector questioned the lady, “That’s not possible!” An old woman in the crowd started laughing, “Please explain to me… in what way is it impossible?”
