i had this idea (its not unique at all) to make i prototype "notebook" but not like a traditional computer. like a tablet pc specifically designed for use by students to consolidate their textbooks and school work. you would be able to record lectures and such, convert speech to text, and make notes on the screen w/ a stylus.

it would not have any fancy features, it would be straight to the point, but easy to use. it wouldnt be used to do much more than what i described. because its not "fancy" i figure it would cost alot less to make and it would be sold at a cheap price to.

cheap prices will attract college students, rather than paying for large heavy text books, they can be uploaded for cheaper or even free. this would make it pay for its self.

currently, i dont know of anything like this that is in an average students budget.

but how can i find and calculate the cost of manufacturing this?

im really no expert on electronics, so i dont know all the technical names of the parts i need etc.

Building a prototype is surprisingly cheap, if you have the skills to design it. Fabricating a multilayer motherboard shouldn't cost more than $30 for a single unit, and pretty much every electronic component can be sampled for free. Displays will cost money, but you can rip one off an old laptop for the prototype.

Now for the bad part. Designing a motherboard is immensely complex. Not only do you need hundreds on interconnects, but you must account for power decoupling, clock distribution, signal impedance, and lots of other things. Then you need to write the BIOS firmware. And figure out what kind of software it will run.

Oh, then you need to assemble it. Surface mount resistors aren't too bad, but good luck with a northbridge's ballgrid array.

So yes, it can be done cheaply, but not easily. This is why hardware development is so expensive.

get your hands on a tablet pc.
Load the software you want (speech recognition, audio recording/editing, handwriting recognition etc.).
Shoot for using open source software.
If you can't find a tablet PC that has the parts you need, make a desktop version.
Meet with someone who has contacts in Taiwan or China.
Let an Asian company give you a price for the slimmed down version.

Your prototype almost certainly has to use parts already fabricated, such as the motherboard, cpu, memory chips, etc.

Books are copyrighted, BTW, so uploading them for free will break some laws.
If you were to scan a text book and sell cd's of them, you could make some cash.
But, if you get caught, I bet you'd get expelled.
Book sales are big bucks, and the profs and the book stores will string you up, big time.

Books are copyrighted, BTW, so uploading them for free will break some laws.
If you were to scan a text book and sell cd's of them, you could make some cash.
But, if you get caught, I bet you'd get expelled.
Book sales are big bucks, and the profs and the book stores will string you up, big time.

Hence why they haven't computerized them yet- Data is a hell of a lot easier to rip off than a textbook.

ive actually considered making my own electronic device too.

ok the idea is a portable peer to peer downloading device, so you can hijack wireless internet where it is free (like at university or mcdonalds or something)

pretty much its like a laptop, but its only designed to run the P2P program (like utorrent) and a media player (to test for quality). it would me very small (half the size of a laptop), have a very large battery (so it can wirelessly download for extended periods of time). it only needs a relatively small hard drive, only about 60 GB, since you dont need to install many programs on it, and youll rarely download 60 GB before you can transfer it back onto your PC or portable hard drive

waterproofing might also be necessary if im going to hide it somewhere for a few hours

...

waterproofing might also be necessary if im going to hide it somewhere for a few hours

Then, be ready to have it disappear.
You may think no one is watching you hide something, but one day you'll be wrong.