I recently came across this interesting gadget: http://www.myboogieboard.com/.

For only $30, I can't wait to get one. But every time they come back in stock, they sell out immediately.

I want to tear it apart, figure out how it works, and modify the electronics so very badly. Maybe add a more powerful battery, a back-light, and who knows what else.

I'll see if we might be able to get my school in the pilot program so I can get my hands on one - or a hundred.

that would be really helpful for me durring time I'm working out puzzles which requires a heavy set of switches in RM1... do want.

Found the datasheet for the LCD screen: http://www.kentdisplays.com/services/re ... tBrief.pdf

Hurray for modern etch-a-sketches.

After a long wait, the tablet is finally back in stock. I'm getting it on the ninth, and am prepared to be underwhelmed.

we want a full review

Will do. Also pics of the guts.

Go in underwhelmed, to be overblown by the quality!!

Well, it's here.

See pics:

It's about as thick as two quarters, with as much writing area as half a sheet of standard letter paper.

My opinion:

The images on the Boogie Board website are misleading - the writing is more of a pale, pea-soup, greenish color, not a bright neon yellow like on the publicity images.

However, it does work. You can write on it with any hard, non-damaging, utensil. Press the "erase" button, and the screen is cleared in about a second, ready for more writing.

Basically it's like a "magic slate" that you can get at the 99 cent store - expect it costs $30.

Is it worth it? In my opinion, no.

It is expensive, the writing does not appear very bright, you can't save your writing, there is no back-light, it's completely sealed and the battery is not user-replaceable.

So - can I mod it?

Maybe. It is really thin, and looks like it's been heavily glued up. This means that it will be near impossible to take apart without completely destroying it. The plastic decal on the top-front of the device looks like it could be peeled back, which may give me access to the battery. But, now that I have the device, it doesn't seem like there is much potential for modding.

Even though I don't have any use for it, I'd feel bad about tearing it apart, and breaking it in the process. If I can figure out a way to do it without damaging it, then I would feel differently.

It's super thin, so adding a back-light may be impossible. Though, I think that the optical properties of this particular LCD technology mean that back-lights wouldn't work anyway.

UPDATE: I got it open!

I peeled back the decal using my exacto knife, found some screws, and got to the circuit board. Pic below.



Trying to pull back the screen is a bad idea. There are three separate layers of plastic, and when you separate them by pulling them back, it causes permanent discoloration of the screen. >_< Good thing I tested it out on the corner, first. So it doesn't look like there is much potential for modding. Well, if I had a few of them to experiment with, I might be able to figure something out, but I'm not willing to risk my only one.

The battery is soldered in place; but a little prying would loosen it. So it's probably replaceable when it dies.

My final verdict: Not worth the money, minimal mod potential (without a few spare units for experimentation), and easy to break.

tl;dr: get an etchasketch

for the most part... i'm just confused as to why this is any better than paper. but also why it's marketed as if it's new technology. if it was on dragons den they'd tear it apart. it's basically just a touchscreen.. my phone could do that.

we had these really big ones in high school that did the same thing except that they also were a screen and showed your desktop and you could use it like a computer with a giant touchscreen... which is exactly what it was.

and when i was little we had these frisbees that had a plastic cover on the bottom that you could write with any hard object on and just pull the plastic flap up to erase. didn't take any power at all.

That's basically what I said in the review I submitted to Amazon.

They say it's better than paper because for $30 you get a tablet you can write on and erase 50,000 times - making it cheaper than paper.

The reason this is marketed as new technology is because it is new tech. It's made out of a new kind of LCD that holds an image indefinitely without using any electricity. Basically pressure on the screen changes the orientation of the liquid crystals, causing them to reflect light. That's the mechanism used to produce the image on the screen, rather than using a more expensive and power-hungry typical LCD display and a touch-screen overlay.

But, as I said in my review, the inability to save what you write, among a number of other things, makes this a silly waste of money.

why was this less possible to make before they were making lcd touch screens and all that?

LCD touch screens, before this, had two separate layers of conductive plastic on top of the LCD which detected touch, sent the electrical signals to a CPU, which then decoded the signals, piped it into the OS of the device, and then would do things based on the touch.

This new technology uses nothing but the LCD itself - no special layers of conductive plastic, no CPU, no OS. And it is a purely mechanical mechanism, requiring no power at all.

somehow still not quite so impressed.. not for 30$ anyway =/ not when things like whiteboards and chalkboards exist that can be used many more times over more years and probably don't produce the amount of industrial waste these things do. but maybe i'm just put off by the name 'boogie board' which is already a type of surfboard isn't it?