MeeGo tablet specializes in audio recording
Dec 23, 2010 — by Eric Brown — from the LinuxDevices Archive — 3 viewsTrinity Audio Group is now selling a MeeGo Linux-based tablet bundled with version 5.0 of its Transmission audio platform for musicians. The $700 Indamixx 2 offers a 10.1-inch touchscreen, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 2GB of RAM and 260GB of storage, plus the Renoise tracking and sampling application, according to the company.
Trinity Audio Group — which has previously introduced a seven-inch, Indamixx tablet (right) based on the Samsung Q1 ultra-mobile PC (UMPC), as well as an Indamixx Netbook based on the MSI Wind U100 — announced the Indamixx 2 tablet in November. Like the previous devices, the Indamixx 2 is aimed at mobile musicians and audio engineers, and runs Trinity Audio's Linux-based Transmission audio software.
The Indamixx 2 ships with a new version 5.0 release of Transmission, says Trinity Audio. For the first time, Transmission runs on the MeeGo Linux mobile operating system instead of Ubuntu, says the company. As before, Transmission supports multi-track audio production, providing a host of mostly open source packages that let users record, edit, equalize, audition, and mix audio at claimed rates of up to 32-bit/96Khz.
Trinity Audio's Indamixx 2
(Click to enlarge)
Trinity began offering the Indamixx 2 (above) in a private beta last month, at which time the device was being sold for $999. Still labeled "beta" but now being sold publicly from the company's online store, the device has been cut in price to $699. In addition, it's said to have 250GB of hard disk storage, instead of the 160GB that was originally promoted.
A $779 configuration, listed but not yet orderable, will be a dual-boot configuration, equipped with Windows 7 as well as MeeGo. Either way, the device includes a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1.3 megapixel camera, a mini-VGA port, and two USB ports, according to Trinity.
The Indamixx 2 is sourced from an OEM, as were Trinity Audio's previous hardware offerings, but this time the manufacturer is unnamed. According to an Engadget story, the device is a rebadged version of the iiView M1touch; however, we note that the M1touch is said to measure 11.3 x 6 x 0.8 inches, whereas Indamixx cites dimensions of 10.3 x 6.6 x 0.72 inches for the product it's selling.
According to a report on the Create Digital Music website, a tablet aimed at musical production would be in high demand, but the iPad and various Android imitators are either not sufficiently powerful or too oriented toward battery life vs. performance. MeeGo may prove to be a more suitable OS for music production, speculates writer Peter Kirn.
Indamixx lead developer Gabriel Beddingfield is quoted as saying, "Unlike any Linux distro we've found so far, MeeGo is from the ground-up about multi-touch, portable devices that compete with iPad and Android. The main 'desktop' user experience is sharp, fast, and finger-friendly."
Beddingfield is further quoted as saying that his team tuned MeeGo for audio production. Transmission 5.0 is "more concerned with a high quality, low-latency audio rather than preserving battery life," he adds.
He also notes that MeeGo's Qt-based multitouch framework "is expected to have a relatively smooth upgrade path to Xorg 1.10 or 1.11 when Xorg officially supports multi-touch," an event that is expected to happen in the first or second quarter of 2011. This is one reason why Trinity Audio chose MeeGo over Ubuntu, Beddingfield is quoted as adding.
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.