Touch screen solutions

Pug · 23 Nov 2009 at 11:34

My bro is looking to throw some money at a HiFi setup. He's going to be using CDs for quality, but also wants the convenience of having a library on a PC. He wants ideally to have a tousch screen interface, so i wondered if people had any options on the touch screen front?

I was thinking of 3 possibles (advice appreciated):

1) Get an Asus (any others?) T91 touchscreen netbook - this has a touch screen, PC built in, tablet stylee (can be rotated to make an A-Frame with the screen presented nicely) with an external drive for storage. Problems i envisage, expensive option, not the most powerful of specs (Thinking Win7 and MCE)

2) Buy a ~15" touch screen monitor. Not seen any in shops, but on eBay there are a few. Thoughts: Cheaper, but will need a PC, may not work well with Win 7(?) may not be the prettiest.

3) buy a little (Lilliput?) LCD Touch screen (7"). Thoughts - Look better, cheapest option, new, may not work well with Win 7, Res may be too low.

Anyone got any other thoughts/suggestions?

Cost is an issue (the less he spends on this, the more he can spend on his sound equipment) budget excluding audio is probably around the £350 mark (a PC can be made up of old parts i have kicking around, or cheaply)

Toastor · 23 Nov 2009 at 17:47

If it's purely for accessing the CD library, I think a 7" touchscreen would be perfect. Big enough to do the job, but not so big as to look out of place in a hi-fi setting. Something like the Nanovision Mimo UM720 might fit the bill: http://www.nanovisionmimo.com/

z0mbi3 · 23 Nov 2009 at 17:51

Netbooks are fine for Windows 7 & MCE, at least the last gen Atoms are anyway. If you could pickup an 8.9" Acer Aspire One or an equivalent you could fit it with the touch screen part yourself, give it a ram bump and you're laughing.

You could push the boat out and get an atom pc and drive it with xbmc. That would be sweet.

Pug · 23 Nov 2009 at 20:46

z0mbi3 said:
Netbooks are fine for Windows 7 & MCE, at least the last gen Atoms are anyway. If you could pickup an 8.9" Acer Aspire One or an equivalent you could fit it with the touch screen part yourself, give it a ram bump and you're laughing.

You could push the boat out and get an atom pc and drive it with xbmc. That would be sweet.

Sorry mate what do you mean fit a touch screen?

Cheers

thepeganator · 23 Nov 2009 at 20:48

Make sure to chuck a keyboard nearby, if you have any number of songs you'll want to be able to search by name.

thepeganator · 23 Nov 2009 at 20:50

And he means~:
http://www.slashgear.com/diy-touchscreen-kit-for-acer-aspire-one-asus-eee-pc-900901-on-ebay-0321241/
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-add-touch-panel-to-acer-aspire.html
etc

Destination · 23 Nov 2009 at 23:13

The archos 9 might be useful to you, but I can't be 100% as I haven't see a full proper article on them since release.

Bigdogbmx · 23 Nov 2009 at 23:42

This doesnt help with your touch screen problem, but I run Windows 7 on my old Sony TX5XN which is a single core Core Solo at 1.3ghz and its plenty fast for me. It lags out a bit on HD flash movies but for HiFi I cant see you having a problem with speed. According to the "Windows Guru" (he had a microsoft shirt and everything) its meant to be 20% faster than XP on the same PC.

Pug · 24 Nov 2009 at 06:59

Having spent time looking into this, i've decided the best option for him will either be an Asus T91

with Win 7

an iRiver P7 (or Archos 5/9) PMP

An Aspire one with a touch kit install (cant fold keyboard out way though)

or an iPod touch with Dock (least favourite choice)

Favouring the iRiver at the mo, as it plays FLAC and mp3, and is ~£120. Cant find info/prices on the dock anywhere though.

thepeganator · 24 Nov 2009 at 12:22

Could always buy an older tablet on the bay if its for this....