A lot?
I've thought of similar setups, except using a normal tablet (which, as he said, hides the keyboard when the machine is in tablet mode) - the touch screen should be ideal for this type of games, and though I generally am heavily dependent on the keyboard, I for some reason mostly use the mouse in the Infinity Engine games (because there's simply too many hotkeys to remember, and those I DO remember don't save any clicks anyway).

Fancy indeed.
I have played games with my Wacom tablet as an input device, It's an interesting method of playing games. A touch screen I'm not convinced on, but that article does help.

A question though - how would one do a "right-click" on a tablet? Many games have different actions for right and left buttons, so it's important to be able to do both while in tablet mode (preferably in an easy way, like Apple does with ctrl - hold the button and click).

awesome.
BTW.. i was just thinking that they REALLY should release Ultima Underworld (1&2) and system shock on the DS.... they'd both work perfectly.

Well there's 2 ways I can see, a dedicated right click modifier button on the keyboard (as a kind of shift toggle for normal clicks) or a tap and hold the way it is on a PDA. Neither option would be ideal for something like a shooter but the modifier type would work with an RPG I think

I'm not sure a touchscreen is ideal for a shooter anyway... or I have a narrow definition of "shooter".

Well it'd require a different approach, I'm thinking the thumbstick thing for movement, finger on the touchscreen moves the gun & view (ideally with a semi-floating system like OFP uses where the screen doesn't move till the cursor gets outside the centre 'fine aim' box) and another key next to the thumbstick thing for actual shooting

Yeah, on that specific one it'd work, I was more thinking more in line with common tablets where you flip the screen.

Yeah it'd need a secondary controller or a multitouch display capable of a pretty fine level of sensing, then you'd have an onscreen keyboard/keypad type thing but the expense of that would be mad

Anyone who would want to play something that requires a lot of quick movement on a Tablet PC is insane. Would you want to continue to drag a pen across the screen while using transparent buttons on the HUD? Not to mention if you got scared playing Cryostasis you'd probably flip out and stab the pen through the screen.

For that price I'd pick up something like the Asus U6s. You don't realize how useful a 768 resolution is compared to a 600, until you start run into a bunch of low power games that need the slightly higher resolution (biggest issue I have with netbooks).

Really? I found the game so bad, I would probably just stab myself with the pen to end it all.

Unfortunately for both of you, I imagine the plastic stylus is far too weak to penetrate either.

To each his own. Also, the story can be slow at times, but in a couple of parts, particularly in the end, it's crazy, and it feels much different than many stories you encounter in games.