Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 15 May 2008 09:09
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
Multi-touch rocks. I’d read that it wasn’t as “smooth” as that on the iPhone or the MacBooks, and it isn’t, but it does work.
I could easily use the “pinch” motion to zoom into my document, spreadsheet or presentation, an image in the photo application and a PDF file.
I actually have to question, however, just how often I’d really use the multi-touch zooming in documents, spreadsheets or presentations.
I could forsee myself using it more often in photos or PDF files, but the multi-touch zooming for photos was much more ‘step-by-step’ than on the iPhone.
It’s certainly impressive that Asus has packed in multi-touch at all, but it clearly still needs more work.
Where I found multi-touch most useful was being able to use two fingers to scroll vertically – or horizontally – through web pages.
This is the same type of scrolling you can do on a MacBook, and it doesn’t rely on you trying to scroll with the edge of the trackpad – just using two fingers will do nicely, and this is what I liked best about the Asus multi-touch implementation.
But what it also means is that we should see more multi-touch trackpads appear on Windows and Linux powered notebooks.
It’s a little surprising that Asus is first to bring it to market after Apple – I haven’t heard any other major PC manufacturer doing so, and Asus has put them all to shame.
But surely they will follow.
So, what didn’t I like about the Asus Eee PC 900? Please read onto page 3.
