Two Videos of E-Lead's Noahpad in Action

Engadget has a couple of great videos depicting the new 'Noahpad' laptop offering from E-Lead. This laptop offers a new kind of touchpad that is integrated with the keyboard. An interesting idea to be sure, but I doubt I could ever get used to typing on something this strange.

They call that a keyboard?

[KublaiKhan]

I'm fairly sure I saw that same design on a recent list of 'worst keyboards of history'--I'm getting carpal tunnel just thinking about typing on that abomination. Not to mention it's one of those flat things of the same type as your typical McDonald's cash register of late '90s vintage--and the chief difficulty of that kind of keyboard, besides the anti-ergonomic layout, was that frequently used keys would wear away, and the contact would become exposed--and shortly thereafter, break.

The designer should be either shot, or forced to use it.

Re:They call that a keyboard?

[ceoyoyo]

From the look of the video it was something a bit different... the trackpad appears to detect where your finger is (what letter you want to type) but to actually type it you seem to have to press the WHOLE half of the keyboard down for some reason. Watching the short bit where the guy was "typing" looked really painful. You can't type properly when the whole keyboard has to depress and then return for every keypress!

Agreed.

[More_Cowbell]

It certainly is strange, and I'm not so sure I could get used to it either. But then wasn't the same said for many of the things we use daily when they first came out?

My question is why? The video seemed to emphasize the idea of having a 10" screen on a 7" device. Where is the great application for this? I mean where is it you are needing to bring a portable that you have room for this but not a 10" version? It's not like it will fit in your pocket.

Re:Blogtard Noise Machine

[Bryansix]

Not only is the keyboard a lame idea but the idea of making you scroll around the screen because the resolution of the desktop is greater then the monitor is dumb too. Been there, done that. It sucks. You miss pop-up windows all the time and never know what the hell is going on.

Re:They call that a keyboard?

[YuuShiSann]

If you watch carefully, the guy using the keyboard needs to look at the keyboard while he is typing and his sleep is slow too. So I think the guy doesn't know what a typist needs. Typist needs to touch the 2nd key before the 1st is releasing. Merging all keys together will disrupt the feel for the typist. The design is good for those who type by using a single finger. That's why I think the inventor is not a good typer. It is an interesting design but without much practical usage. I feel bad that he invested his money on creating such a product.

Slow typing speed

[jon3k]

This would _dramatically_ decrease your typing speed. On a normal keyboard, once you depress the first key, before the key has even traveled back to its starting position you've struck the next key. This is possible because the keys aren't physically linked. The key press isn't signaled once the key has returned to it's starting position, but after it's depressed completely. For you to type any two letters on the left or right hand side you have to wait for the "key" (the whole side) to return to the starting position.

Re:Flactured Engrish

[Anonymous Coward]

"I love how voiceover - done by someone who clearly native English speaker - stick exactly to fractured English script. You got wonder if just wasn't part of job point out all of error, or if non-native speaker who wrote had too high opinion of own language skill to listen to."
There. Translated it for ya.

Agreed. The first time or two the speaker left out "the" I thought it was a mistake. "Wait, did I just hear that?"
After the third, it was entertainment.

Re:They call that a keyboard?

[Qzukk]

that frequently used keys would wear away, and the contact would become exposed--and shortly thereafter, break

It looks like this design is different. It looks like two gigantic "keys", that are actually touchpads with a keyboard printed on top that have a switch underneath to tell the difference between just touching it and pushing down on it.

The keys would eventually rub off, but then you're down to a blank touchpad. Anyone know how long it takes for laptop touchpads to wear out? Most likely, the switch underneath each side would break first.

The virtual desktop thing is what amuses me most. I remember the bad old days when XFree86 defaulted to allocating the largest screen possible whether your monitor could handle it or not, leading to endless streams of newbies on IRC asking how to turn the damn screen scrolling thing off.

Re:They call that a keyboard?

[mikee805]

They say in the voice over that a user us more likely to accept a bad keyboard than a bad pointing device(in windows). And they are trying to fix the pointing device, since most laptops have the emphasis on the keyboard. In short they are admitting the keyboard sucks, but thats not their focus.

Laptop by the anti-Steve

[geophile]

Look, I know everyone is saying the same thing, but sometimes, you know, you've just got to express yourself.

This has got to be the absolute worst computer I've seen since the Adam. That keyboard is insanely ill-conceived -- the key layout, the split, the two big buttons idea. The display is horrendous. I've seen that sliding window idea on laptops and it really just completely sucked. Horrible. And it's just about the ugliest laptop I've ever seen.

An abortion.

Dreck.

Awful.

How sad that someone devoted all this time and money to such a piece of crap.

Whoever invented this is the anti-Steve.

They're just setting out to prove...

[Chysn]

...that British men sound smart regardless of the words coming out of their mouths.