Multi-head Meets the Laptop

PARENA writes: "Estari comes with a Dual-Screen Laptop! "A what?!" Yes: Dual-Screen. In fact, they are 2 15" TOUCH screens. According to TwoMobile: 'Unlike electronic tablets, the 2-VU(TM) allows users to view two full-page files or documents simultaneously. Users can page through two books at once, or take handwritten notes in a notebook on one screen while paging through a book on the other screen.' Sounds pretty cool!"

Comments

Early promotions

[Mattygfunk]

It isn't due out until the 4th quarter 2002. Why would their marketing department allow this out now? Their concept is new(ish). Why give potential compeditors a break by announcing it now. If I was them I'd announce with a month or two tops before I even acknowledged I had a product like this.

Watch out for the cheap rip-off with a similiar design released soon (before this one is???).

Here's a potential market:

[jc42]

I've been involved with people doing music online. This is "music" in the sense of something that you put on a music stand and read, not "music" as in something that you put in a player and listen to.

One major barrier to use is getting the screen sitting on the music stand. Your typical big screen is hardly portable. Your typical laptop opens up in a way that just doesn't physically work on a music stand. This device opens sideways and lies flat, giving it a lot of potential.

Remaining questions: Can I get it with wireless IP access? If not, forget it. Setting up an Internet connection for N of them at a gig would typically take far longer than the gig itself takes. And if wireless access is via the usual phone-company route with per-minute connection charges, forget it. The cost of N phone connections would typically be more than you make at the gig. Unless it's a true "always on" IP setup, it's not usable.

Also, what happens when someone bumps the music stand and the gadget hits the floor? Do I buy a new one?

Also, forget Windows. If you want quality sheet music on a screen, you want a Mac or linux. Windows only supports commercial music packages with proprietary file formats. If I can't exchange the music files with other musicians, I won't even look at it.

There have in fact been experiments with using computers to display sheet music. One of the things that kills the idea is when the musicians discover that they can't write on the music. This is a total showstopper. In particular, no orchestra or band musician would consider using music if they couldn't write their own notes and comments on it. The article implies some sort of handwritten input ability. How good is it? Can I write on the displayed text itself? If not, forget it.

So we still have a way to go before it's usable. But this gadget shows some slight promise to solving some of the physical problems of current hardware.