DIY Windows 8 Tablet

[hackitbuildit], from instructables, has brought us a a DIY windows 8 tablet. To make the tablet, an old laptop is used that meets the minimum requirements of windows 8 preview, a touch screen conversion kit, and of course the software itself. The laptop is first prepared by removing the casing around the screen, and if you just go by the pictures it kind of looks like he is ripping it apart! Though if you look at the video screws are being removed.

The screen is flipped around and laid on the keyboard with a couple spacers between them, as many laptops use the keyboard area as heat sinking. The touch screen is installed, and some wood strips are hot-glued to the outside to fill in the gap between the screen and base. With a little paint you’re left with a large, but functional windows 8 tablet to get started developing for.

26 thoughts on “DIY Windows 8 Tablet

      1. waking up with a windows 8 tablet in your face is like a dog humping you while you sleep. a linux tablet on the other hand is like your cat licking you in the face — it’s cute yet annoying. any tablet that’s on the market these days is about as useful as a motorcycles ashtray. wake me up when your tablets can do what my tc1100 can do.

      2. Just because it doesn’t match your use patterns doesn’t mean it doesn’t match ANYONE’s use patterns.

        In particular, the interests of someone willing to deal with Linux are likely to lie in precisely the area least suited to tablet use.

  1. $100 Fujistus Stylistic from ebay.

    Instant Windows 8 tablet that will last far longer than this.

    Windows tablets have been around for over 20 years guys. Do none of you know any Computing history?

    1. Not really in this form factor and usage scenarios. The point is that people want a full windows experience on a tablet (the ones without a large keyboard and swivel screen) and that hasn’t been possible (or more precisely feasible) before now.

      1. Though they weren’t quite this thin, I’ve seen touchscreen-only tablets that date back to the 486 era, running full Windows 3.1. I still prefer having the screen that swivels around, though, so I have a keyboard when I actually need to type something.

      1. Windows 8 System Requirements
        1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
        1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
        16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
        DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
        Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
        To run Metro style Apps, you need a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 or greater

        Windows 7 system requirements
        1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
        1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
        16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

        DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

        Windows 7 and 8 have the same listed requirements. The fujitsu st5112 runs windows 7 just fine. Some users upgraded to win7 before fujitsu had win7 drivers….a few features didnt work out the gate….but fujitsu has already fixed that. Dont be surprised when fujitsu adds win8 drivers to their downloads page.

  2. To be honest, I’m underwhelmed. This is just turning round the lid and putting wooden spacers between.

    So in the end you have a tablet as bulky and heavy as the original laptop. But you can’t adjust the display angle and type anymore. So where’s the real win compared to just adding a touch screen kit?

    Come on, rip out unneeded stuff like keyboard and trackpad, get the thickness below the original laptop and modify the housing to make up for the lost keyboard heat dissipation.
    I demand engineering! :p

  3. IMO these laptops converted into a tablet end up being too bulky to be practical as a mobile/portable device. Yes if I could afford one, I’d buy one, if I could find a good 10″ screen tablet model other than a Apple I’d buy it. While the the iPad may be a good product, I can’t bring myself to support hacker unfriendly Apple, when the iProducts, along with the generic equivalents are only optional items for me.

  4. The Motion Computing le1700 is a dual core 1.5Ghz, available on ebay for around $350 and works wonderfully with ubuntu… I’ve been using Motion tablets for my last 4 years in college instead of paper and they work flawlessly. No need for a pointless mod when you can get last generation tablets for great bargains.

    1. Hello Jack. Thank you for your reference to the Motion Computing LE1700 dual core tablet. This is the first time that I heard about this device, I really like the idea of using a tablet *instead* of actual paper. The ability to take notes will surpass the limitations of plain paper. The creative in me would still work on a laptop mod in order to take advantage of the hardware lying underneath the screen and keyboard. As of this writing I have at least two old laptops that I would like to convert into Windows 8 Tablets.

Leave a Reply to AnonymousCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.