Quote:
Originally Posted by omro
This is all very interesting, but why bother? My netbook cost much less than the DR, is actually not much bigger than the DR when it's closed and with the extended life battery lasts 5 hours. Don't get me wrong, I still use my DR, but why try and make a DR into a laptop?
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Opening up the USB port would open up unlimited possibilities, not just the mouse and keyboard. Having the internets on the DR is itself useful if you want to read something for a long while on an eink screen (such as going on a Wikipedia hunting spree). Hooking up a small USB keyboard (or a presentation tool which usually has 1-3 buttons) might let you flip pages etc. without using the stylus or nasty capacitive buttons. Musicians who use the DR for notes (for which it is simply great) currently have to stop playing to turn the page (or have someone do it for them), but a wired/wireless keyboard can double as a footswitch to change pages. You can stream out the Wacom data into your computer as you draw on the DR, which could be really great for artists because you have all the advantages of a Wacom drawing tablet
and you can see what the drawing looks like on the DR screen as you draw (like the heavy, horrendously expensive and power hungry Wacom tablets, but better in all those respects). Just ideas.
Most of these uses revolve around:
1. The DR being small and lightweight without the clunkiness of having a flip out keyboard.
2. The Wacom pen.
3. The eink screen.
If there was a 10'' netbook out there with a twisty screen (to counter #1) and a Wacom pen, then alternative applications for the DR loses some ground. I don't know of one.