Is the Toshiba JournE Touch headed in a direction we want to follow?

Toshiba pulled a fast one this past week with the surprise announcement of its JournE Touch — a 7″ touchscreen tablet PC. It leapfrogged over the CrunchPad to be the first officially announced slab tablet PC to hit the market. While there is a slim chance that the CrunchPad or (if you like astronomical odds) Apple tablet could hit the American market before Toshiba’s JournE, it’s most likely Toshiba will beat them to the punch.

But is the JournE one we’re willing to embark upon?

We know that the most likely market for the new wave of tablets are going to be flat versions of netbooks. They will give you the ability to surf the internet with a touchscreen interface, play streaming video, edit documents, compose emails, etc. Basically the same tech with new packaging. And that’s what the JournE Touch offers us — a new but limited way to experience everything we’re already familiar with from clam-shell netbooks.

Why not strive for something more from this next generation of tablets? Even though the CrunchPad will be a simple internet surfing device it still integrates SaaS cloud computing. We’re hoping that the most recent rumors of the Apple tablet are true and we’ve already talked about four features we’d like to see incorporated into the iPad or Mac Touch. Plus, look at what Samsung is doing with it’s LED Couple — a LCD TV with tablet control that not only gives you channel guide, widgets and program previews, but streams HD video from your TV to your tablet over an integrated WiFi 802.11n connection.

Designing a simple internet tablet is fine (as long as the price point reflects the technology), but pretty soon someone is going to make THE tablet that will cash in on the market. And that tablet won’t be a simple internet browser. It will be a capable computing gadget that offers the features we use on our current desktops in a new, mobile form.

Here are a few places we think the Toshiba JournE Touch went wrong.

The OS

The Journe runs an OS based off Windows CE. It’s an OS designed for mobile devices and computers with limited system resources. Along with CE comes Internet Explorer 6. Just a note: the current Internet Explorer is version 8. IE6 was release over EIGHT years ago (that’s 78 years in computer years) and has tons of flaws in it.

To begin with IE6 doesn’t fully support CSS styles. That means the browser Toshiba decided to use with its tablet won’t properly display the majority of the internet’s websites (including this one). Transparent PNG files, which are used commonly, don’t display with the proper alpha transparency. Security issues are abundant with the browser. Secunia identified 142 vulnerabilities in January of this year with 22 that have yet to be patched. PC World even called IE6 the 8th worst tech product of all time (right behind Microsoft Bob for those interested). This is the browser that Toshiba decided to put in its first tablet product.

It seems an extremely lazy move by Toshiba. There are other OS options available (they even mention in this video that it’s not Android based because of the lack of applications Android has) that would work much better. Or better yet, put in some elbow grease and design your own OS to run your product. Jolicloud is an Ubuntu-based OS made just for netbooks. Something like it could lend itself expertly to a tablet interface (if the version had touch interface built in).

The Screen

While we think the JournE’s 7″ LCD screen is a bit on the small side, we can’t deny that 7″ is a good marketing point. It offers a good amount of video real estate while still keeping the tablet size transportable. The main problem we have with the screen is the resolution. At 800 x 480 pixels the tablet doesn’t have the ability to view most standard websites. At least at 1024 x 576 you’d be able to view websites without a slide bar.

Also, the JournE touts “HD playback capability” but the resolution doesn’t support the minimum HD of 1280 x 720 (720p). It’s not capable of anything but marginally better standard definition viewing (704 x 480). One of the primary uses for a slab tablet should be video playback. To not have one capable of true HD viewing is a travesty.

Finally the screen looks to have a heavy gloss coating. During the hands-on demo video the recorder has to ask the demonstrator to move it due to glare from the above lights. If it’s as bad as it looks in this video then using it in sunlight or brightly lit rooms is going to be questionable. Don’t make the mistake so many others have had regarding glossy screens versus matte.

Wireless

The JournE Touch comes with 802.11 b/g wireless. I think they refer to that as the “bare minimum” in the computer business. Why not include N? The tech is as inexpensive as G was a year and a half ago. In fact the Wi-Fi Alliance is expected to publish N as the new standard in January. Why release a tablet with connectivity that will be officially outdated in a month?

Toshiba does offer 3G connectivity with the device. Unfortunately it requires the purchase of an external USB dongle to do so. Definitely a nice perk, but something we’d like to see included as a standard feature. Including 3G connectivity could have been a feature that made the decision to buy a JournE Touch an easy one. There’s no word on how much the additional USB dongle would cost or if it would require a paid subscription service to access.

What Toshiba got right

We’re not trying to say the JournE looks like a complete dud. It has its high points along with its lows. HDMI input to your TV is a nice feature. If facilitates the ability to stream HD video like YouTube and Vimeo from the web to your TV. It has expandable SD and SDHC card storage.

Another plus is the price. We can understand the JournE not having a lot of features that we desire if the price is low. The latest announcement has it priced at 249 euros (about $360 U.S.). That seems a high for the features offered, but when you’re the first to market who’s to say what is expensive or reasonable? That may be the most important precedent Toshiba sets with its JournE Touch — the starting price.