Flip-Pad Voyager: Dual-screen Laptop

deitrahs writes "I came across this, and wept with joy. It's an Athlon-based, dual-head laptop. Yes, that's right - dual-head LAPTOP. Dual 13.3" displays. And it folds up like an old-school Transformer. Now I just need to find a buyer for this spare kidney so I can afford it - $5 thousand - but the expressions on people's faces at LAN parties will be OH so worth it."

Comments

Great.

[Hittite Creosote]

Now you can run your batteries down twice as fast

Re:Great.

[JBark]

According to the Tech Specs:

Battery life: 4 hours (Battery Mark V3.0)

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't say dualprocessor ide-raid system anywhere.

This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Photar]

Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one. Especially on that thing. Sure it folds up and fits into your wallet or whatever. This is some seriously wacked out stuff.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Moridineas]

LAN Party? Laptops are really no good for lan parties for the most part (as was proven to me in terribly anti-climactic fashion last week). 3D cards change so fast, that most of my friend who had (univ requirements) to buy laptops last year already can't play recent games on them (Neverwinter nights, wc3, to name a few). At least make sure you're not getting some crappy no name 4mb card (or an s3 :) 3d card in your laptop if you want it for gaming use.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Photar]

I think you replied to the wrong guy. But I see your point.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[CrappyBob]

Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one. Especially on that thing. Sure it folds up and fits into your wallet or whatever. This is some seriously wacked out stuff.

I think this thing folded in half is the size of a regular laptop. The 20 inches of combined LCD screen is very large actually.

Although, not quite sure that I'd want to lug around a 12 lbs laptop so that I can see two pages of text at the same time.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[frovingslosh]

He won knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.

And he won has a typo in his sig looks like a fool.

Sorry, couldn't comment on the 2 headed monnster, slashdot effect.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[afidel]

Get a Dell with the Geforce4 mobile chip, better than most desktop I've seen lately. Most people have geforce3's at the most.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Photar]

How embarasing :/

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[aonaran]

Your friends shoul d have bought Toshiba laptops last year with the Geforce2go

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[ncc74656]

The keys in the middle of the keyboard are also a bunch of weird sizes. Maybe they did that so each half of the keyboard could be fixed in place. I think it would've been better if they'd taken an approach similar to the Palm keyboard, where you unfold the keyboard and then slide the two halves together so that you get the standard layout. I suppose the people who somehow manage to type on those weird-ass split keyboards (Microsoft Natural, etc.) won't be too bothered by the keyboard on this notebook, but it's definitely not a keyboard for the rest of us.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Desco]

I'm surprised no ones ever thought (or atleast mass-produced) of the idea of a dual head laptop, 'cept instead of trying to make it a "traditional" laptop, replace the KEYBOARD with a screen, and have them both touch sensitive PDA-style... On screen keyboards, both a TouchPad style mousing and touch-screen style, totally custom configurable.. mmmm...

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Andrewkov]

You should check your own spelling if you're going to slam other people..

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Anonymous Coward]

They have. I dont think they are selling them yet but they are on their way. I forgot where I read it weas either in the circut section of the New York Times or Popular Scince a few nmonths ago.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[neuroticia]

Yeah. Switching between desktops under x-window is just a key-command away, and with most laptops these days weighing in at under 5 lbs, that little flick of the wrist to switch is not that big of a deal. Better than carrying around a 12 lb monster!

Laptops are for portability, not for screen real estate.

-Sara

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[MooseGuy529]

That sounds cool... How come companies always make bigger and bigger screens but the resolution always stays pretty much the same--how come we aren't seeing 4000x3000 pixel screens yet?

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[PurpleFloyd]

But the Geforce4 MX/Go is basically a GF2 pumped up to higher clock and RAM speeds. It doesn't even implement a full DX8 feature set. The GF4 Titanium models are the ones with a new chipset. That said, the Nvidia mobile line finally is bringing decent graphics to the mobile market. If you can get past the blurriness of an LCD (which isn't that bad), you can finally play games on your laptop. Still, don't fool yourself into thinking it's better than your desktop system. Certain sacrifices must be made to keep power consumption and heat output to a minimum; these are not conducive to a super-high-performance GPU.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Com2Kid]

Yeah. Switching between desktops under x-window is just a key-command away,

Not to be an ass or anything;

but Windows has had this since 3.1. No idea as to WhyTF MS hasn't advertised the shit out of it, I got a little program to do that under Windows 3.1 from SuperCity(name? They went outa business awhile back, service sucked) along with some other tools and utlities after they f*cked up my computer 3 or 4 times in a row. (luckily shortly after that I learned how to f*ck up my own computer, err, I mean repair. Yah thats the word)

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[neuroticia]

Er. If you're refering to Alt-Tab under Windows, that's application switching.

Desktop switching means you press a key-combo and it switches you to an entirely different desktop. Yep, that's right. The applications you see, the icons on the desktop, the wallpaper, etc. can all change. (Or not, depending on what your settings are.) Application switching merely allows you to switch between windows, and does not give you any extra screen real estate at all.

KDE, gnome, and others have both application switching and desktop switching. Windows only has application switching, unless you download a utility to do it. (Most of them suck and feel unnatural.) Optionally you could use another window manager... (Of course I prefer to let lilo work her majic.)

What I don't understand is WHY oh WHY hasn't MS stolen the idea for multiple desktops? It's nothing short of pure genius.

-Sara

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Anonymous Coward]

Because at 4000x3000 you need 45 megs of RAM (at 32 bits per pixel) to store the image. Manipulating that kind of data... It would be really slow. Also you would no longer be able to locate your mouse cursor and a lot of text would become unreadable.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Com2Kid]

Desktop switching means you press a key-combo and it switches you to an entirely different desktop. Yep, that's right. The applications you see, the icons on the desktop, the wallpaper, etc. can all change. (Or not, depending on what your settings are.) Application switching merely allows you to switch between windows, and does not give you any extra screen real estate at all.


No Shit Sherlock.

Now let me repeat myself.

WINDOWS HAS HAD THAT SINCE VERSION 3.1

It just is not advertised / made accessable to the user through the regular GUI. Then again Windows has also had alpha blending since 1999, also not accessible through the normal GUI. ::sighs::

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Com2Kid]

Actualy, on one more note, darn nearly every video card used to ship with progies to do this, but people got tired of it. I mean seriously now, why?

Royal pain in the arse if you ask me, having to keep track of so many screens. :)

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Breakfast Pants]

Thank you for backing up your claims in a professional manner asshole.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Com2Kid]

Poster assumed I did not know WTF "multiple" desktops mean, I know what the term means, and I know what application switching is.

For crying out fucking loud, if a person is sitting on /. discussing driver details of a video card, then take the common friggin courtisy of assuming that the person knows what some rather basic terms mean. I know that X can do multiple desktops, I have used it and I realize it is a superior implementation to the rather hackney jobs that are around for Windows, there is no reason to start talking down to me like I am some fool who doesn't know what the anykey is.

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[sirsnork]

Although his attitudde may be lacking he is in fact correct (well not sure about 3.1 but certainly since 95). Also I'm not sure if it is avaliable without an addon util but do a google search and you'll see them in abundance

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[neuroticia]

What was I supposed to assume?

I'll provide you my thought process so that you can tell me where it broke down.

1- You made it sound as though multiple desktops was already IMPLEMENTED in Windows. Implementation of a feature in an OS/Gui is usually when the vendor makes it easily accessable, or provides it WITHOUT the necessity of a third-party vendor. I do not believe Windows does this. It might have the back-end for the functionality, but it does not make it available in an accessible manner.

2- The only thing I could think of that could possibly be misconstrued as "multiple desktops" that I was aware of was alt-tab, which Windows has had since at least V3.1 which you mentioned.

3- I went back and re-read your post and it still sounds like all that's lacking is MS's willingness to advertise this functionality.

4- Your manner of communicating (from the "Not to be an ass" comment, to the rest of your post, was consistent with someone who is generally clueless, and in fact an ass.

5- My assumption: you were/are an ass and clueless to boot.

My assumption remains unchanged, although I do concede you know what a desktop is, and you have a point about Windows having the FUNCTIONALITY, if not a proper native GUI implementation of it. However, you are still clueless and an ass about human communication and how others can potentially view you due to your nature of communication. I would suggest that in the future you not take affront when someone talks down to you after you've made a comment that could be misread in a number of ways, and instead re-educate them, or back off your position and say "Oops. I can see how my comment would be mis-read, but I meant..."

Intelligence and knowledge are functionally useless to society without the means to properly convey them.

-Sara

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Com2Kid]

1- You made it sound as though multiple desktops was already IMPLEMENTED in Windows. Implementation of a feature in an OS/Gui is usually when the vendor makes it easily accessable, or provides it WITHOUT the necessity of a third-party vendor.


See, what we had here was a communications break down. You are used to Open Source stuff where implementation means there is a button to be pushed, button is pushed, nothing happens, so the user goes into a config file, tweaks some strings, saves, goes to panel, pushs button, nothing happens, user goes and edits a few more stings, pushs button, and something happens.

Now you see that is all the same on Windows, it is just that our Button Pushing Panel has its backend laid down by Microsoft, who then sells off 800 page tomes of API explanation to developers who then to get develope the front end of the Button Pushing Panel, which is then sold to the end user,

who then gets the opporutnity to tweak strings.

:D


I do not believe Windows does this. It might have the back-end for the functionality, but it does not make it available in an accessible manner.


But yah, as I said, in Windows world something is considered 'implemented' when it is documented in some API guide or another.

Actualy I do believe that at once point or another in time it WAS standard fair on windows, but nobody bothered to use it so the feature was dropped and made an optional add on at the OEM/Hardware Manufacturers level. As it is most video cards ship with the underlying system in place (or at least they did a few years ago when I last bought a video card. . . .) and installing the functionality for it otherwise is just a few seconds away for any user anyways (only a gazzilion and one freeware tools to do this exist, the best of which I saw awhile back offers unlimited desktops in any direction and a nifety little uber zoomed out display to scroll around them all, hehe. Rather nifty. ^_^ )

Now I just wish that we would get some decent ANIMATED desktops, ugh. I saw that on a Linux machine YEARS ago, ick. (Active Desktop can do this, but NOBODY uses Active Desktop for anything, heh. It actualy has a good deal of potential, highly under exploited though, could have something to do with it being a buggy piece of crash prone shitware. . . .)

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[neuroticia]

Actually I'm used to Windows. I spend most of my time on it.

Besides, OS is a bit more than tweaking a few strings of a configuration file. =] (Although I have done that, and with some results.) Usually it takes something a bit more along the lines of jumping into large amounts of code and figuring out "does the button not work because the button doesn't have any code, or becuase something breaks when the button is pushed?"

Ok. I'm damned argumentative.

That said, if Windows goes so far as to make the right-click menu something that I have to buy from a third party vendor, I'll go nuts, format my hard drive and let Linux take over the entire thing instead of being regulated to its half. =]

Seriously, though. If you've used Windows lately you should know that MS doesn't take stuff out just because it's not used.. Their rationale for taking something out seems to be more along the lines of it being used too much!

Animated desktops? Eek. I have enough problems with my desktop when I'm drunk. Imagine if the desktop was moving.

-Sara

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[Brummund]

I want a small and fast laptop with a geforce card and IBM's wonderful butterfly keyboard.

Is IBM still manufacturing laptops with the butterfly keyboards? I loved those, and I still keep an old 701CS next to my bed. (Some customers call me in the middle of the night, and I really hate getting out of bed in the middle of the night.)

Re:This shouldn't really count as dual head

[MooseGuy529]

Then make the mouse cursor really big and make the text have higher resolution instead of smaller size. Besides, there are many 64 MB video cards--it would fit... okay, so it's sorta nuts, but somewhat bigger res (2000x1500) would be nice

Gee Whiz!

[brad3378]

... A dual display Athelon laptop.

That's not gonna need crazy batteries!

Re:Gee Whiz!

[CheechBG]

no, but you need crazy spelling lessons.

ATHLON, not athalon, athelon, or anything else.

Re:Gee Whiz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thinks that ATHLON sounds like a brand of jock strap?

Re:Gee Whiz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who thinks that ATHLON sounds like a brand of jock strap?

Yes.

I'm looking forward to the big screen laptop

[J. Patrick Graves]

I want a laptop with a 21" screen. A portable portfolio sized laptop. full sized keyboard dual processor multi drive. (and about 2 minutes of battery life ) That's where i'll spend my 5 grand.

cheers

Re:I'm looking forward to the big screen laptop

[be-fan]

Actually, I am in need of a laptop to replace my desktop machine. I'm trying to figure out how to stuff Dual Athlons, a GeForce-4, and a RAID array into a laptop. Doesn't seem to be working ;) I can afford a high-end laptop or a high-end desktop, but not both. I'd like to get a laptop because its portable. Even a heavy one can easily be moved from room to room, or building to building, which is what I need, rather than ultra-portability on planes and whatnot. So in my case, your hypothetical latpop would be perfect!

Re:I'm looking forward to the big screen laptop

[Jucius Maximus]

"I want a laptop with a 21" screen. A portable portfolio sized laptop. full sized keyboard dual processor multi drive. (and about 2 minutes of battery life ) That's where i'll spend my 5 grand."

I would love something like this. Perfect for looking at pr0n.

Wait...

Re:I'm looking forward to the big screen laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

with a 21" screen... 2 minutes of battery life

Yep, that's why you don't have larger screens... yet. Someone needs to develop a super battery before they can amp up the screenage. That is, unless there's a market for laptops that need to be plugged into a wall all the time. The largest screen right now is a Sony VAIO with 16.1", which is about the equivalent to a 17" CRT. Not too bad. Has a native 1600x1200. I think that's good enough for most design professionals. Of course, we always want bigger.

stereo surfin'

[pmanheier]

Now we can all surf /. IN STEREO!!!! Woo!!!!

Just waiting for

[maroberts]

First mobile Matrox Parhelia based laptop with two extra fold out screens for 3 head surround video!

Laptop?

[smoondog]

It's an Athlon-based, dual-head laptop. Yes, that's right - dual-head LAPTOP.

Uhh, at 6kg (13.23 lbs), I think I might come up with better term to describe it.

-Sean

Re:Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I know right.. With weight like that, you'll be building some serious leg muscles.

Re:Laptop?

[k0osh.CEOofCLIT]

13 lbs isnt a lot you skinny nerd...go outside and do something sometime and build muscle instead of pasty white skin

Re:Laptop?

[2Bits]

Uhh, at 6kg (13.23 lbs), I think I might come up with better term to describe it.

I think all laptop designers should be required to carry a "laptop" of that weight, with other "necessary" accessories, plus 20lb of contract papers and junk, and walk all day long, for 3 days, and then, they can go back to design laptop, and see what criteria they will value more (hint: weight).

For those of you working in "customer-facing" department, and if your company refuses to buy lighter laptops for reason of uniformity, you know what I mean.

Carrying these heavy thingies is going to break your back. Hope your company's disability insurance cover that.

Re:Laptop?

[RollingThunder]

Pfft. I remember when anything under 20kg was light.

You're just spoiled. Compare it to the actual weight of a real desktop and monitor (hint, at least quadruple that) and stop yer whinging. :)

If you're so weak that 6kg is a problem... get out from behind your desk and get some exercise! Sheesh.

Re:Laptop?

[RollingThunder]

6 kilos is not heavy.

30 kilos is getting there.

60 kilo rucksacks, now you're talking.

Whats next, a two minute walk is a huge distance?

Re:Laptop?

[T3kno]

I never bought the argument that a laptop had to be lightweight to be usefull. I used to travel a lot for work, and I carried around a Toshiba Tecra 8000, not exactly the lightest laptop around, and the weight never bothered me. I would much rather have a heavy laptop with a lot of features over one of this super lightweight glorified palm pilots. I always look at the guy on the plane with the top of the line viao that weighs 2 ounces as some stupid exec or saleman who doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.

Re:Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

My laptop weighs about 130 lbs, and only has one head. This sounds much more portable, and it won't expect you to marry it...

Re:Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, at 6kg (13.23 lbs), I think I might come up with better term to describe it.

Personal Sterilization Device?

Re:Laptop?

[Seehund]

:-D

Laptop quality "cooling" + >1GHz Athlon + all this in a 6kg package in your lap = Sperm death.

At least it's a Temporary Infertilisation Device.

Re:Laptop?

[mickwd]

Dude, buy a car.

Re:Laptop?

[Walterk]

Not if you're got a SPARCstation.. those monitors are really quite heavy, I couldn't lift it alone, and I'm not that weak, I would estimate it at about 80 kg :)

Re:Laptop?

[questionlp]

A car would help for commutes and the like, but they do not quite help if you are carrying stuff around in an airport or within a corporate building between meetings. Airport lines can be quite a nasty bit or dealing with going to different gates of a flight has been delayed, changed, or cancelled but then picked up by a different airline. In that case, a little rolling caddy (of whatever they are called) can be helpful but a pain to work with a times.

The other option could be storing the documents in PDF format, printing them out and then handing them to the proper people. For books... eBooks aren't the best option in many cases, so you are stuck there :)

Re:Laptop?

[questionlp]

I agree speaking as an owner of an IBM ThinkPad T21. Sure, the T21 is not the lightest or the heaviest laptop in the market, but it has all of the features that I care for (integrated Ethernet/Modem, dual PC Card/CardBus Type II slots, 14" LCD, DVD-ROM, dual boot between Win2K and FreeBSD [the latter for my development stuff and the former to access the company VPN device]).

I personally think that the uber-thin/uber-light laptops tend to be flimsy, a pain to deal with at times (mostly ones that do not include a decent CD-ROM/DVD-ROM from the manufacturer, sucks when you need to boot off of a CD on a laptop with a USB CD-ROM and no BIOS support to boot from USB devices). I also do not want to deal with people who lose their I/O dongles (a la some Toshiba Portege laptops) and come whining to me that they do not have access to the network (network port is on the dongle) and cannot used the standardized Intel/Xircom RealPort cards since it only has a single Type II slot.

There are scenarios where ultra-thin laptops are required, but I try to avoid recommending them as much as possible.

Re:Laptop?

[scorp888]

You mean like the one Linus Torvalds uses?

yes, of course no real technies use small laptops..

Re:Laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

aww. you make my compaq portable sound so bad. fuck you i'll go eat chocolate and cry myself to sleep.

Re:Laptop?

[T3kno]

That's cool if he uses one. I in fact have never once in my entire travels to 6 countries and 40 of the 50 states seen a laptop with linux on it. Not saying that real techies need a huge laptop, just saying that my personal preference is features versus weight, and that the people with small laptops USUALLY have small brains. ;)

Re:Laptop?

[Trracer]

Oooh! Dont forget that little keyboard light it has built in =) That's what I love about my T20.

Dual Head gaming?

[NanoGator]

"...but the expressions on people's faces at LAN parties will be OH so worth it."

I have a dual monitor setup at home, and I play Quake a lot with it, but I haven't been able to make much use of the second screen in that game. (I do like being able to see what time it is, though.. heh.)

Does anybody know of any 'dual-head' mods for either Quake or any other FPS game that uses the second screen for anything? I'd *LOVE* if the left screen was the front view and the right screen was the rear view!! Or maybe stats? I dunno...

Just curious if anybody using dual-head has done anything interesting with it in relation to lan-party style games.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Cheeko]

There are a few programs for some RTSs and EQ, that will show you information on a second screen. The EQ one will display maps and statistics on creatures you are fighting, in numerical terms, as opposed to the innacurate color bars in the game interface. The RTS ones that I've seen on the web sound similar. Usually posts things like resource statistics, and running totals of game info. I've also heard rumors of quake hacks that work similarly, like showing a map with blips where people are located, but haven't seen this one firsthand.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[jeeryg_flashaccess]

I've read articles describing a great use for dual head monitors in FPS. One is normal view, the other is zoomed in view. That way every weapon is a sniper rifle. Actually I think I read that here on /.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom actually had this feature. You could actually set up three monitors (one for the left, front, and right view) to simulate a sort of VR environment. Some of the Doom ports nowadays have kept this feature, though I don't recall seeing anyone use it.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Have Blue]

The original Mac port of Duke Nukem 3D could render a view looking backwards on a second monitor (this was also back when multiple monitors were far more common on macs than PCs).

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can probably just do with with the nview utilities and set monitor 2 to be zoomed in version of monitor 1 before you start up quake

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this EQ utility called? I can't seem to find a reference to it.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have.... but its linux only....
you can have a little lan party in a box...

http://r0gu3.codices.net/?software

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Migrant Programmer]

Except it was implemented by having three computers on a network, not three monitors on one computer..

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Cheeko]

its called showeEQ, and it will only run on a linux box acting as a proxy server I believe. At least that the machine I ran it on. It filters the packets as they pass through the proxy and collects the info from them.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[BMonger]

I decently sure that Serious Sam (by God Games) utilizes two monitors. Your primary monitor is for playing the game while the secondary monitor is used to show you information regarding monsters, equipment, locales, and cutscenes... for instance... if you pull a lever and it would normally jump to a short cut scene of a door opening the cut scene is shown on the secondary monitor and you can run to the door while watching to scene non-blind like.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[23_Elders]

The Quake 3 engine can be set up to use multiple monitors, though I haven't done this myself. This includes games based on the engine, like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Jedi Knight II, etc. Of course you need a kick-ass graphics card to be able to do this successfully... something the Parhelia is touting as a feature is the ability to use three monitors, for games just like quake (makes much more sense to have three monitors for peripheral vision. Two is awkward, with the split in the middle).

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind posting any links you have to this information? I know of ShowEQ, but I'm interested in finding the RTS monitors..

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[keep_it_simple_stupi]

There is an article on Tom's Hardware about the newest Matrox card... It is capable of using THREE monitors in this fashion for several current games - they are listed in the article. Enjoy!

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

ShowEQ is a passive packet sniffer application. It doesn't have to be between EQ on the Net, just able to see the EQ traffic (like on a hub with a broadband connection.

http://seq.sourceforge.net

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[mrmag00]

Yes, you can play quake 3 with 2 monitors. In fact, if you run Linux, you can use as many monitors as your system can support with 3d acceleration.

All you need is your combined desktop width/height, and set a custom one in quake. Set the following commands in your config:

seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customheight "480"
seta r_customwidth "1280"
seta r_fullscreen "1"
seta r_mode "-1"

The width is 640*2, if your wondering. I got this to work great at 1600x600 (800x600 * 2), but couldn't get 640x480 to work quite right. Anyway, it does work, and its great fun to amaze your friends with it.

Also note that this WONT work in Windows - it treats each monitor seperately, and OpenGL doesn't support more then 1 monitor. Xinerama treats the two monitors as one display, and OpenGL uses that one display, so everything works great.

I've heard this is possible in Unreal Tournament doing basicly the same thing, however I havn't tried it.

The downside is your crosshair is split between the two monitors, and it is impossible to aim. I guess you could get good at it eventually tho, if you don't mind being crosseyed. I'm using a dual head nvidia geforce 2 mx, if your wondering. FPS is hardly affected with my setup. Now if only nvidia would make dual head more stable, i could use it...

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[NanoGator]

Sadly, I am using Windows 2000, however video is being treated as an expanded desktop. That help, you think? *plans to play with the settings tonight*

Hmm that crosshair thing kinda sucks hehe. My monitors have about an inch difference in height. *DoH*

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[glitch_]

Except it was implemented by having three computers on a network, not three monitors on one computer..

I felt that this deserved to get seen in the thread, so I'm using my +1 bonus to mod it up, since I don't any mod points to give. =)
Anyway, I do believe that some of the ports of DOOM did change this so that it worked with multiple monitors on the same machine since the CPU horsepower was now available to do this all on one machine.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[LazyDawg]

Simple. Get a mac and run Marathon. This was the Mac Quake-equivalent that came out back when PCs could barely manage with Wolfenstein. If you had three screens, you could put them around your head and have the lefthand one for everyting to your left, the righthand one for your right, and the forward one for your front.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[NanoGator]

heh. No no, I'm not buying a Mac simply to play an ancient game on it.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[mrmag00]

no, it is impossible to do hardware acceleration on the second monitor in windows. directx apps will work because they do (gasp) software emulation on the second monitor, but thats... slow.

you'll just get an error that opengl can't initalize when you try to use the 2nd monitor.

as for the crosshair, i have 19" and 17", and its not that - its the fact that the crosshair is split half and half on the two monitors, and theres about 4 inches of plastic between the two edges. :)

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[NanoGator]

"no, it is impossible to do hardware acceleration on the second monitor in windows."

Err actually yes it is possible, but not in the way that you're thinking. In my case, the video card is pretending to be 3200 by 1200, and is splitting the signal to both screens. Windows doesn't know any better.

I think you're right that two independent displays can't do that, but in the case of a stretched desktop it works fine. I've proven this.

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[mrmag00]

what card do you have? mine doesn't do that :(

Re:Dual Head gaming?

[NanoGator]

I have a Geforce 4 MX card. It's $150 and works great. :) (tho not as powerful as the Ti series...)

Here is the Best Buy ad.

I can personally recomend the card if you need a dual monitor setup with decent 3D accelleration. I play Quake 3 just fine, plus it works great with LW. Plus, it has two VGA connectors instead of a VGA and a DVI connector. (This is a plus for me, but it may be a turnoff for LCD users...)$150 was very reasonable.

It is an MX version and has only 64 meg of RAM, so I'm not sure a hardcore gamer would go for it. But for $150 plus really good dual monitor support, who can complain?

The driver has some neat things for controlling the dual displays, like it adds an extra maximize button that 'maximizes to display' instead of acros both screens. It's none too shabby! :)

Dual Head on a Laptop...

[ackthpt]

Seriously, why? Looks like the page orientation is a throw-back to the old Radius monitors, but too small to be of much good for graphic design. Also, laptops tend to have the very low-end of graphic card support, so I wouldn't expect it's much good for LAN parties, unless you're still playing NSNIPES.

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you can get Dell laptops with 64MB Geforce4s in them. I wouldn't call that "very low-end". It's far better than my current gaming computer has (32MB Kyro- cheap as hell, and fast enough for CS).

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[ackthpt]

This unit has VGA support with 8Meg memory. Not exactly a statement of graphic power.

6Kg, also, a bit of a boat anchor.

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[porkface]

Bad for Graphic Artists?
Bad for gamers?
Good for programmers.

See, they're not so stupid after all. And most programmers could use the exercise of hauling around an anvil.

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[GeckoX]

Except it's only slash people assuming the use of this is for games (which wouldn't be very useful).

This was designed to give you more screen realestate on a laptop regardless of what you use it for.

Shitty feature just because it's not so hot for games? come on now, laptops aren't so hot for games period.

How about giving credit where credit is due?

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[Jester99]

What? You mean people don't go to LAN parties to play ADVENT anymore?

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[WNight]

Any idea where to get Snipes, and if it worked without Novell networking? Is IPX/SPX enough?

I really enjoyed that back when it was new and would like to show my Q3-addicted friends how us old-timers used to deathmatch.

Re:Dual Head on a Laptop...

[ackthpt]

Try Google search or for Linux, this site

Mirror

[Kevin Stevens]

Seems to Be /.ed
Google Cache Link
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:v1jL4n4 FTLkC: www.xentex.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Not as Impressive as I thought. it still seems to be pretty close to standard monitors

Re:Mirror

[cecil36]

For the lazy people who don't want to copy and paste. click here

Excessive

[DaPhoenix]

Wow... imagine a beowulf clus.... naaah.

slashdotted already

[TDO]

I guess I'll check it out tomorrow.

There should be a less popular service that just posts yesterday's slashdot articles, so as to get around the slashdot effect. I don't mind reading stories one day late :)

Re:slashdotted already

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy - just read yesterday's articles. I think there's a good one on the constitutionality of the pledge of allegiance!

Nifty !

[lawngnome]

Cool, now I can watch a full screen movie and pretend to do actual work while on a plane... Bet the guy in the next seat will be impressed, and in the end isnt that all the matters?

Re:Nifty !

[p3d0]

The guy in the next seat will have half of this monstrosity in his lap.

Re:Nifty !

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy !!!
Who wants a guy next sitting to you ? A cool blonde nerd geek would be better. Hell why would I be using laptop then !!!

Re:Nifty !

[rapidweather]

Years ago, I was chatting with a CPA at a party,
when he mentioned to me that he had a 20 MB Hard
Drive on his system at the office. A hush came
over the room. That thing must have cost
thousands, and was impressive in its day. It's
all relative, and only as good as it's gee-whiz
value, when talked about at the Country Club.

Now, for the gee-whiz part of this post. I
am using Arachne 1.70, running on MS-DOS 6.21.
You know, Slashdot's page looks good in this DOS
browser.

Voyager?

[corebreech]

You mean like the Star Trek reruns?

I like Star Trek too, but c'mon, that's a lame name.

Let's see... the feature of this laptop is that it has two monitors, monitors are something we're always looking at...

What's a good name for two of something we're always looking at? I'm reminded of when /. was discussing ternary computing, and how since binary digits are bits, ternary digits should be called ...

And who on Voyager had the best set of tits? Seven of nine!

And what's seven minus nine?

I think I make my point.

Re:Voyager?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haw haw... Too bad she wuddnt SIX of nine, huh HUH?? 69 d00dz!

Re:Voyager?

[BattyMan]

I think I make my point.

Only if your point is that you like Jeri Ryan's tits (with which I can't argue). Otherwise you're on quite shaky ground....

Re:Voyager?

[lightcycler]

"I think I make my point."

Yes. Admirably. Nurse! Get the straitjacket!

Re:Voyager?

[Anonymous Coward]

what kind of a name is minus two?

Re:Voyager?

[LoveShack]

Seven minus nine...forty-two!

No, wait. That doesn't even work in base 13.

Damn.

Re:Voyager?

[Razzak]

What's a good name for two of something we're always looking at?

Boobies!

Porn

[charlie763]

Now I can look at twice as much porn!

Let me guess

[CaffeineAddict2001]

The lead scientist for this project was the same guy who created monkies with two asses?

Re:Let me guess

[dadragon]

No, he created the two-headed monkey.... with only one head.

Re:Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're both wrong. She created the amazing equilox, a horse with the [cut to head] head of a rabbit and the body...[cut to body] of a rabbit.

AAAAarrrrrrgghhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why oh why oh why does NOBODY INCLUDE TOUCH
screens with their laptops? Grr, I'll take
a good old Toughbook or Gobook with a touch
screen over this, ANY DAY.

Re:AAAAarrrrrrgghhh

[gatekeep]

Isn't that the idea behind the tablet computers MS was showing off the other day? Those things sound pretty cool, and they're due out in november. Around Christmas I'll probably be making a tough decision between an iBook and a tablet..

Re:AAAAarrrrrrgghhh

[Lumpy]

Hey, tablet computers have been around cince the late 80's it is not a MS invention, it's been around forever and if you want one got to ebay and search for "pen pc".

Quit drooling over old technology. and NEVER EVER believe a word spoken from any microsoft member/employee.

Re:AAAAarrrrrrgghhh

[gatekeep]

Well yah, if you consider devices which can't share applications and program data easily with a PC to be a 'computer' I guess tablet computers have been around for a while. In my mind, these are quite different than previous generations. Especially if their handwriting recognition works with any decency.

Kinda neat but...

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

The only thing I like about it is the ability to look at one thing and show others something else at the same time. That is kind-of cool.

OTOH:

• Total screen resolution is 1536x1024, my Dell Inspiron 8000 is 1600x1200 (albeit probably nicer on a larger canvas I suppose)
• That second screen looks a little fragile to me.
• The whole thing seems *BULKY* to me (my Dell is as big as I would want to get).
• No 3D chipset support at all, 8MB VGA (a little tight there!)
• That price tag.
• All new drivers that Linux won't support for a while

Novel idea, but with some serious drawbacks and a high pricetag, I think I'll be sticking with my current Linux laptop for a while longer...

Re:Kinda neat but...

[Emil Brink]

Hrm. I actually think you're giving them too much of a hard time. I hadn't seen the company before just now, and am certainly not overly impressed by their product or their attitute (too much marketing speech!). Still, I think most people in this thread are mis-reading the tech specs. At least you didn't interpret it to have a pair of 512x768 pixel displays, like someone above, but I think it has dual VGA controllers, too. One per display: the tech specs, under "VGA" (item #8) say "SMI 721 * 2". If so, then that should be adequate for 1024x768. That said, I agree that it's heavy, fragile-looking, and expensive.

Re:Kinda neat but...

[Lars T.]

All in all it looks like they didn't want to spend the money on a "big", ultra-expensive LCD, and sold two much cheaper screens for the same price.

Its really a portable

[Photar]

Why anyone would call a computer a laptop when its battery most likely won't last more than an hour, weights 20lbs and has a 17" screen on it is beyond me.

Oh and another thing, the site is pretty much /.ed allready.

Does anyone else thing that a cacheing system similar to google's google cache would be a good idea? I certainly do.

Re:Its really a portable

[JBark]

According to Tech specs:

Battery life: 4 hours (Battery Mark V3.0)

Re:Its really a portable

[Myuu]

I was really impressed at the advancements in battery life.

I played Rogue Spear on my dad's 15" 1 gig laptop and I got tired before it it.


Does anyone else thing that a cacheing system similar to google's google cache would be a good idea? I certainly do.

Well they have an e! epplet that pops up when there is new news on /. so it would seem very possible to write a script that greps out all urls and caches all links when news is posted.

The only reason I'm not gonna go out play with something like that it that i am afraid my space would get /.'ed

Re:Its really a portable

[Zordak]

Actually, the site itself never actually calls it a laptop. They seem to be pushing it as a "portable workstation." Their tag line is something like "a workstation that you can fold up and take with you" (I'd go look again, but, of course, it's /.'ed now). They seem to be more aware of the fact that this thing is not a laptop than the ./ geeks. They even have a shot where they compare it in size, not to a laptop, but to an LCD and full-size keyboard, showing that it takes up less space. Also, the tour says that if you rotate the right screen around, a second person can log in and use it at the same time (I guess you'd have to attach an external KB/mouse or something), which makes it almost more like a portable server or something. Probably a little bit of overkill for your average guy who's taking the old laptop on travel so he can listen to some CDs on the airplane and look important while he taps away at some Word document.

Re:Its really a portable

[Anonymous Coward]

4 hours if you, 1. aren't doing anything at all, and 2. dim the screen to about 50% of it's usual brightness. Then yes, it might last 4 hours, but pretty useless isn't it?

Re:Its really a portable

[Photar]

Yeah, I figured I wasn't the first person to think about a slashdot cache. After all it seems like it would be a pretty simple functionality to add and make slashdot much more useable. But the searching I did shows that many people before me have complained about it. Its in the faq and basically nobody wants to do it.

Re:Its really a portable

[Photar]

Yeah, I seem to remember a friend of mine talking about a P4 2ghz "laptop" which had all these bells and whistles for $800 then he noticed that the thing didn't have a battery or anyway of attaching one. Really kinda weird.

I guess this laptop would be good for playing battle ship or checkers or something like that.

Useful

[SpanishInquisition]

now you can smash one screen out of rage because Windows crashed for the nth time and you still one left to work with when you cool down.

Bye Bye

[WellHungYungWun]

Well, that site was /.'ed pretty quick. Guess they were using IIS. ;^)

Re:Bye Bye

[Anonymous Coward]

nope. they use apache 1.3.26 as pehttp://visualroute.visualware.com/

the two screens will match

[dubiousmike]

the second asshole my wife will tear me if I buy this thing.

damn

Re:the two screens will match

[jeeryg_flashaccess]

%Smack her. She needs to learn that NO woman stands between a man and his technology.

Re:the two screens will match

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on...that was tounge in cheek funny! He didn't really mean it. % == sarcasm.

South paw version

[Darth RadaR]

I noticed that the mouse touch pad is on the right side. That's gonna be a PITA for south paws unless they have a left-handed version.

Re:South paw version

[cjhuitt]

Not only that, but if you get a chance to look at the keyboard from above, look at where the touchpad is.

Now, I don't know about most people, but when I had a laptop, I rested my wrists on the laptop below the keyboard when I was typing.

Looking again at the picture, and noting where the spacebar is, it looks like the trackpad is perfectly positioned for me to rest my right wrist on top of it while typing. So, either I have to hold my wrists up in the air (perhaps better posture, but I hate doing so) or put up with the chance of my mouse flying all over the screen.

And don't even get me started on how often I'd probably accidentally click the buttons above the trackpad.

Re:South paw version

[xercist]

I'm left handed and have found no trouble at all adapting to using the mouse with my right hand. I think it has much more to do with which way you're used to using it than your "handedness".

I've found that most left handed people have become more ambidexterous than right handed people because they're forced to switch so often.

Re:South paw version

[NeoSkandranon]

I'm left-handed, I mouse with my right hand, and all of the other lefties I know do so as well. Am I just a freak or do people really mouse with the left?

Re:South paw version

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a lefty mouse with whatever hand is closest to the mouse. I never really think about it.

Re:South paw version

[Anonymous Coward]

same goes for me, but when I'm using a wacom and a mouse it becomes something like trying to rub my belly and pat my head. And that's tricky.

Re:South paw version

[WebMasterJoe]

I've found that you can use the mouse with either hand, regardless of whether you're left- or right-handed. When I first started using a mouse (Amiga 2000), I set it on the left side, and used it without a problem. Then, when everybody else started using a mouse, I noticed that the mouse was always on the right side. I made the switch easily enough, and moved my mouse at home to the right so things would be consistent. It's all about what you're used to using.

Re:South paw version

[SN74S181]

I used to use the mouse on the right side. One day I realized 'hey wait a minute' and switched it to my left hand (I am left handed).

It actually seemed to affect the way I think when using the computer, in subtle ways.

A few times I have actually open up the mouse's case itself, cut some traces and add jumper wires to physically reverse the buttons.

Re:South paw version

[reverseengineer]

I'm a lefty, and on my home computer I mouse with my left hand. However, I keep the right handed button configuration, and left-click with my middle finger and right click with the index finger. At work, my mouse is one of those evil right-handed contoured things , so I use it as it was misdesigned. In that case it's somewhat advantageous since I can mouse with my right hand and write with my left hand (I cannot write coherently with the right hand, about the only thing I can't do ambidextrously). Using someone else's computer, I'll usually leave the mouse where they have it, unless I'm using the computer to play an FPS- I'm so used to aiming and firing with the left (with the righty config) and moving with IJKL with the right that I can't play well otherwise. If I ever were to buy something like the Voyager, I suppose I would probably use it right-handed, especially since it isn't particularly designed for gaming anyway.

Re:South paw version

[Anonymous Coward]

I do the same as reverseengineer, except use the arrow keys for FPS type games.. I find it so much easier to use than WASD or IJKL (qwerty) just because i tend to fall off the keys.. with the arrow keys, i can feel that theres no key under my finger and know that I need to recenter myself. I also like using the INS/del/home/end/pgup/pgdn cluster for common game functions.. as well as enter, right ctrl , keypad are all close.

Re:South paw version

[alumshubby]

Well, maybe. OTOH, I'm a southpaw too and I learned starting in 1984 to use my right hand for pointing devices, so it didn't occur to me until a long time after I'd purchased my second Logitech Trackman Marble that there wasn't a left-handed one available.

Re:South paw version

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the above post -1 offtopic. Fucked up moderators on crack! I'm offtopic.

Re:South paw version

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm right-handed, but I prefer a left-handed mouse.

Re:South paw version

[CaptPungent]

Ive found that most left handed people have become more ambidexterous than right handed people because they're forced to switch so often.

I can vouch for this. I'm lefty as well, but I can write with both hands, use scissors with either hand, etc. The list goes on.

"... a new world of productivity"

[idletask]

non-productivity, you mean... Buy this to the average Linux geek and he will spend hours (more probably days) trying to get that 2nd screen to display something...

Advice to bosses, don't buy this to your linux geeks. Oh, you have done so already... You know, TCO is not only about servers...

slashdotted

[brad3378]

Google Cache

It's big but the resolution is pretty low.

[enkidu]

1024x768 for each screen. That's 1536x1024 for the whole "virtual screen". So, it's actually less pixels than the UXGA+ 1600x1200 screens available at half the total price. What's the point of that? Now, if they had gone for the whole enchilada with 1280x1024 for each screen, resulting in 2048x1280 in total screen estate, I would have been impressed. As it is, it seems to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

EnkiduEOT

Re:It's big but the resolution is pretty low.

[BattyMan]

1024x768 for each screen. That's 1536x1024 for the whole "virtual screen".

I don't think so. They state 1024(H) x 768(V), which implies that that's _both_ screens, since it's wider than it is tall. That's about what you get from a 12" Sony VR-505, at 3.5 lbs.

That's pretty unspeakably lame for a 20" laptop weighing 12 lbs. You'd be better off with a pair of 13" 5lb 1280x1024x32 laptops turned on their sides and hooked together via ethernet into a dual-head rig. For $5e3 and 12lbs, you could prolly also afford a (lightweight, maybe fold-up) external keyboard to lay on the table in front of it, and ouf course you'd need a mouse, too. Not that that the whole rig would be something you'd want to plug and unplug and carry around, but it would weigh and co$t less.

Now, if they had gone for the whole enchilada with 1280x1024 for each screen, resulting in 2048x1280 in total screen estate, I would have been impressed.

Right. That's much more worthwhile. There's also the issue of the electronics behind it. 8M and 16-bit color depth ain't gonna command a $5K price tag, either.

it seems to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Maybe if you have _really_ bad eyes...

Re:It's big but the resolution is pretty low.

[GeckoX]

So, 1600 x 1200 on a 13" monitor would be better than 1024 x 768 on 2 13" monitors?

Maybe if you've got some pretty fantastic eyesight!

Personally, I'd rather not have to pull out a magnifying glass just to read the screen.

Re:It's big but the resolution is pretty low.

[GeckoX]

Scratch that, finally just got the pics to pull up.
Posting was a bit misleading ehh? 2 monitors my ass, that's just 2 HALF monitors. WTF good is that?

Re:It's big but the resolution is pretty low.

[victorchall]

Actually its cheaper than that. An Inspiron with the Ultrasharp UXGA screen and a Geforce4Go 440 64MB DDR can be had for less than $1900 now. Go with the normal UXGA (still 1600x1200, just lower brightness/contrast and viewing angle) screen and a Geforce2Go SDR and its closer to $1500. That's not counting the 10-20% off sales Dell has every few weeks.

I know several people with the normal cheaper UXGA screen, one with the Geforce2Go. It's an awesome screen, and the video is fast enough to play most games in lower detail settings if you're not super picky about framerate. I imagine the Geforce4 440 with 64MB of DDR would fair quite well even in games like RTCW with a decent detail setting and 32bit color.

Personally, I'll take a *pair* of Dells before I'd look at this dual product. Although the fullsize keyboard is nice.

Re:It's big but the resolution is pretty low.

[BattyMan]

1600 x 1200 on a 13" monitor would be better than 1024 x 768 on 2 13" monitors?

If you're even considering _carrying_them_around_, certainly.

And I need glasses to focus on anything within a meter of my eyes, anymore, so the magnifying glass isn't an issue.

I recently bought an A22p with the 15" 1600x1200 UXGA screen. They're going to have to do _considerably_ better to get $5K outta me, or get me to carry around anything any heavier than its 8 lbs.

Sony and IIRC Dell recently released machines with 16" 1600x1200 and comparable weight, priced in the $2500 range. There's the bar. Aim to get _well_ over it, or don't bother.

PIMP

[wrax]

This is quite a good laptop. bit of a pig on juice for sure but if they can get the weight down a little more i can see myself purchasing one in a little while.

I'LL TAKE YOUR KIDNEY FOR $5000.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty good price, throw in the your 2nd kidney for an extra $4000, and you've made a sale. If not, I'll take just the one.

Wept for Joy?

[rblancarte]

You need to get out more. And becareful, you see that hot, bright yellow disk in the sky? We call it the sun. Don't look at it and don't stay out in it too long.

When the mainstream manufacturers start making these - THEN get ready for a drop in price, until then...

RonB

Re:Wept for Joy?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sun is as close to white as it gets. Only pictorial representations of the sun are yellow. Have you ever been outside?

Re:Wept for Joy?

[Silverstrike]

Or not. Considering our sun is classified as a YELLOW STAR, as opposed to a white dwarf. Not to mention that everytime I've seen the damn thing, it appears yellow.

Re:Wept for Joy?

[TwitchCHNO]

I've heard about this Sun... This Day Star... is it really as bright as people say it is?

(yeah I know -1 off topic)

Re:Wept for Joy?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what if the color you think is YELLOW is really WHITE?!

Re:Wept for Joy?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the other way around: While physicists - for some scientific reason - call our sun a yellow star, the sun is really what humans who have lived their whole life under direct and indirect sunlight call "white". Our senses adapt to the surroundings and so white is a different color in different circumstances, but if you look straight at the sun (which you shouldn't), it's as white as can be, and not just because of sensory overload. It is our reference for "white".

Is it just me...?

[mark-t]

...or was anyone else expecting to see a laptop that had two *FULL*-sized displays that folded out of it? This is really disapointing.

Re:Is it just me...?

[ari{Dal}]

It's not just you. The 'flip pad' thing had me thinking of a triple fold with a second, full sized display in the middle fold. Now THAT woulda been fun, and more than worth the exorbitant (sp?) price tag.

This one.. gimmie a black marker and I can make an ugly line down the middle of a perfectly good screen too :P

Re:Is it just me...?

[plastik55]

As advertised, two 13.3" displays. You did notice the base of this thing is a freakin' EXTENDED keyboard...?

Re:Is it just me...?

[D_Fresh]

You aren't the only one - I was pretty disappointed. Who wants to look at two tall, narrow screens? The design looks very early 90's to me, too. Why did they split the base down the middle as well? That trackpad on the right is a big no-no - lefties like me would never even consider it.

Don't see a market for this, not unless they get the size down and the appearance more sleek and stylish. Maybe Apple will take a cue from this, but I doubt it - the Industrial Design and potential for usefulness don't add up to much of a market. Nice try, though.

Re:Is it just me...?

[StaticLimit]

Me too...

I'd also take issue with "folds up like an old-skool Transformer". It appears to have two hinged halves, one of which also rotates.

I have very strong memories of transforming vehicles from my childhood and we called things with 2 hinges and a swivel "Go-Bots".

- StaticLimit

Re:Is it just me...?

[iceburn]

I have very strong memories of transforming vehicles from my childhood and we called things with 2 hinges and a swivel "Go-Bots".

That's pretty funny. Didn't you hate it when your parents got you a shitty Go-Bot for Christmas instead of the Optimus Prime you wanted...

Quake 3 engine games should support it

[Chibi Merrow]

Matrox used Quake 3 based games to show off their Parhelia 3 display feature. Something about the POV option, which causes the display to be spread out over multiple screens (increasing you're range of vision, not stretching the image). If I wasn't at work I'd look it up for you... might want to check Google and Matrox's site. :)

Re:Quake 3 engine games should support it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's worth noting that "surround" gaming is a really bad name for that feature, at least in Q3. What they are really doing is this: They set a custom frame size which is just 3 times the width of one monitor and the normal height. Then the same projection as in a normal game of Quake3 is rendered (higher fov, but still a plane) and spread out over the three monitors. To give the correct impression you would therefore have to set the monitors up in a straight line as opposed to being surrounded by game views (by turning the left and right one towards you).

Re:Quake 3 engine games should support it

[Merlin42]

This works fine on three monitors, BUT with two there would be a nice big seam in the dead center .... not exactly usefull IMNSHO. And it is the FOV(Field of View) that needs to be modified. I remember messing with the fov a few years back when my boss got one of those sgi flatpanels (1600x1024 native) ... it was really cool until I realized why LCDs SUCK for fast games ... refresh rate.

Re:Quake 3 engine games should support it

[jantheman]

got one of those sgi flatpanels (1600x1024 native) ... it was really cool until I realized why LCDs SUCK for fast games ... refresh rate

The 1600x1200 LCD's on current A series Thinkpads are fine for FPSs (On Dell's to, I believe, but I've never seen one of those in the flesh).

Re:Quake 3 engine games should support it

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wasn't at work I'd look it up for you... might want to check Google and Matrox's site. :)

So... you can read /. at work, but no google?

Re:Quake 3 engine games should support it

[Nehemiah S.]

NFW... I've got a 1600SW and it rocks for FPS games. You do have to either set up the special resolution (carmack posted something on one of the sgi newsgroups about how to do it) or use a stretched FOV to make it pretty (I use 800x600 with 112 FOV). But it is gorgeous, with no blur at all. Totally unlike quake3 on a standard fpd, which is unplayable (competitively, at least) imho.

Were you using DVI? Was your video card up to the task?

You can also shift your crosshair to the center of one of the screens and use the other for peripheral vision to one side or the other. Not perfect, but I guess it could be useful.

i would personally like to build a laptop based on the 1600SW screen, specifically for gaming. I don't mind if it is "briefcase" sized, as long as it incorporates a good video card and fast proc. Does anyone know of any online resources that talk about, say, wiring up a couple of laptop batteries to simulate an ATX power supply?

Re:Quake 3 engine games should support it

[Merlin42]

Hmmm maybe we had a bad one ...
It was attached to an dual sgi 320(iirc) and I would assume it was using the dvi.
We got it the moment sgi released the 320(modified x86 w/ sgi/nvidia graphics) line based partly on the belief that a complete linux implementation w/ 3d and the works was 'just around the corner'. Of course SGI dropped the whole NT worksation line REAL FAST, and the linux port was never finished.

I remember any game we played on that thing turnded out to be nauseating. Every time you moved the screen looked like a mud puddle.

How to make your laptop dual head

[MBCook]

Well, I'll tell you what it looks like. It looks like all you have to do is put a piece of electrical tape down the middle and BAM - dual head. Not was I was hopping for.

Re:How to make your laptop dual head

[heimotikka]

Hey... how about dual head emulator for those of us who don't have $5k to spend on these neat toys - for those who want it today I suggest gimp to create background image with black vertical line in the middle... ;-) Or quadral head? Yeah, lacks some functionality, but it's cheap.

Re:How to make your laptop dual head

[kesuki]

the current notebooks with Geforce GPUs do support 'twin view' so if you got a companion 15" viewable flat pannel, you'd be much more 'impressive' at lan parties etc, especially since you'd be able to game with the thing... and I bet you can get the price under $5,000 too...

Sounds cool, wish I could see it.

[colmore]

Slashdot in effect y'all.

Being completely ignorant and all, I'll post some questions.

$5000? What's the justification for that? I know laptop screens ain't cheap, but are the mechanics behind it so complicated that it has to be double the normal price?

How sturdy does this thing look, I wouldn't want one if it's going to fall apart in a month. Also how easy is it to open and close, a second screen is a wonderful feature (everyone should work on a two-monitor setup just once, you won't want to give it up) but it might not be worth extra weight, shorter battery life, more moving parts, and tedious open and close procedure. One of the great things about a laptop is, you can generally shut it off and stick it in your bookbag (or whatever) in about 10 seconds.

Re:Sounds cool, wish I could see it.

[colmore]

Ha,

Post an admittedly 100% ignorant post and get a +1 insightful. Post a well thought out opinion, complete with links to relevant sources that disagrees with a moderator's opinion and get -1: Troll.

two heads, or one messed up display?

[buttahead]

it looks like they just used broken LCDs for the new screen. who's going to use a screen with a big stripe down the middle. Now with 10% less real-estate!

-tom

Resolution too small

[Alien54]

Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one. Especially on that thing.

Yep It is too small. the specs say

Resolution: 1024 pixel(H) x 768 pixel(V)
Color16 Bits.

So each panel is 512(H) x 768(V)

I can see it in some cases, but other wise ....

Re:Resolution too small

[Photar]

I'm starting to wonder if the guy who posted this story even read it.

Re:Resolution too small

[laxian]

You've got the resolution totally wrong, my friend.

I just spoke to my good friend who just happened to write all the video software for this laptop (in addition to many other company duties) and he told me that the resolution PER SCREEN is 1024 Vertically x 768 Across.

Other sweet gossip he told me was that they're working on one with a really nice dual head 3D card suitable for gaming and what-not and various other improvements.

You all should send your questions and gripes to him directly. His name is Matthew ... now put an @xentex.com after that. (I wrote his email address out like this to prevent spam bots from picking his address up. He's really a cool guy totally devoted to this awesome computer ... it's really a cool thing to see in person. Plus, ask him whatever you want ... he'd certainly fit in here if he wasn't actually doing stuff for his company all day and night.

Re:Resolution too small

[undercanopy]

dude.. you just slashdotted your friend..... un-cool

Re:Resolution too small

[Forge]

I know I shouldn't respond to a sig but the corect quote is.

He who knows and knows that he knows is Wise. Seak him.

He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child. Teach him.

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.

and my favorite adition. He who knows and knows not that he knows is underpaid. Exploit him.

Re:Resolution too small

[BattyMan]

I just spoke to my good friend who just happened to write all the video software for this laptop (in addition to many other company duties) and he told me that the resolution PER SCREEN is 1024 Vertically x 768 Across.

Then you _need_ to tell your friend that their website's spec matrix says "1024(H) x 768(V)", so that they can correct this error.

And while 1536x1024 is decent, it's still not worth 13lbs and $5000.

And can "Matthew" come up with drivers to run XFree86 on it? Inquiring minds want to know.

Re:Resolution too small

[Photar]

Thank you for that informative commentary. I like mine better thanks.

Re:Resolution too small

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't it be 2048 x 768 max, in "superdisplay" mode?

Re:Resolution too small

[Anonymous Coward]

That's matthew@xentex.com, right?

Re:Resolution too small

[Kineel]

Lets see, so I get 1536x1024 with a great big band down the middle. And a 8MB video card. Woot!

For the same price you can buy two of my Tosh*ba Sattellite 5105's, get up to 1600x1200 resolution, and a Geforce 4 Go.

Ok, so you want to do presentations too? No problem, attack a $500 19" monitor to mine, or a video projector, and you have a better setup, and still saved serious bucks.

What IS this thing good for?

Re:Resolution too small

[Axe]

Twice 1024x768, on a side is 2048x1536, not 1536x1024, Archimede. Quite a bit bigger, and much more viewable (1600x1200 on anything less then 20" is far too small) then your Toshiba.

And, honestly, 99% of people with cash to buy it won't give a flying fuck for your ShmeForce69 speed.

And good luck lugging that 19" monitor around through airport security - when you need to work on a meeting somewhere.

WHen such a setup comes down to around 3K I am certainly buying.

Re:Resolution too small

[odaiwai]

> Twice 1024x768, on a side is 2048x1536, not
> 1536x1024, Archimede. Quite a bit bigger, and much
> more viewable (1600x1200 on anything less then 20"
> is far too small) then your Toshiba.

No it's not.

If both monitors are in portrait mode, you get 1536x1024 (HxV). If they're in landscape, you'd get 2048x768.

The only way you could get 2046x1536 is if you have four of them.

dave "is math hard for you?"

Re:Resolution too small

[Forge]

Your response was so apropriate and funny. I am sending you a case of virtual beer in celebration. :)

Re:Resolution too small

[Photar]

Honest your honor. I'm not a drinking man.

Good for presentations but...

[sterno]

The major advantage of this design which they illustrate quite nicely in their photos is that it's ideal for presentations. No longer do you have to deal with trying to navigate a presentation while not being able to look at it.

Other than that, however, it's not thatgreat. You've got two smaller panels rather than one big one which means you actually end up with less physical screen space. Furthermore, your natural tendancy is to look to the middle of the screen which, in the case of a two-panel display, means you are looking at the joint between the two displays.

What I'd love to see is a design where it was three panels that folded out. It would make for a very bulky laptop though, so you probably would want to use it as a portable so much as be able to take it from desktop to desktop.

Re:Good for presentations but...

[sg3000]

> No longer do you have to deal with trying to navigate
> a presentation while not being able to look at it.

But you can do that with any laptop that can mirror what's on the screen and what's on the external monitor or projector.

Generally, if you're doing a small enough presentation where you don't need a projector (1 or 2 people), having them sit on the other side of your screen is pretty weird. It generally works better to have them sit next to you as you run through the slides.

Being able to independently control an external screen from the LCD do it is nothing new as well. I'm on my fourth PowerBook (a tasty G4 model now), and you've always been able to navigate have two screen independently of each other. I think many of the Dells that share the same video card can do it, but it's a little iffy under Windows 2000 or later.

I can't really see a use for this, unless you wanted to flip the screens away from each other, hook up an external keyboard and play Battleship or something.

This is just dumb...

[gslobber]

Why would I want two separate screens, with twice the electronics, rather than a single, large, hi-res display? It's just a big screen split up the middle! The stated advantages all involve viewing multiple windows at once... why can't I do that with one big screen? And the advantage of one screen is that it offers the possibility of viewing a large image in a landscape orientation (something the two-screen setup doesn't).

The only advantage with the two-head design is that you can flip around one of the two screens to give a presentation... but how useful is that for most people?

Just my 2 cents...

Re:This is just dumb...

[_xeno_]

I can't see the thing (stupid Slashdot effect) but I'll comment one aspect I've been trying to figure out. You said:

The only advantage with the two-head design is that you can flip around one of the two screens to give a presentation...

Based on what I've read, that "presentation screen" is a 13.3" screen with an even smaller visible area. That sounds like a pretty small presentation surface. It doesn't sound like it would really be all that useful.

So I have to ask anyone out there who can actually see the thing: what makes this "flip around" screen more useful for a presentation than hooking up a $2500 laptop to a $1500 LCD projector and doing the presentation that way, at a $1000 savings?

It can't be to prevent needing to lug the projector around, can it? From what I've read, it's probably about as heavy as a projector + laptop combo (although I'm not sure - recent LCD projectors are fairly small, but older ones can be heavy). Then again, you can't lose the weight of the projector if you want to use just the laptop to work on while traveling.

This sounds like it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, based on the comments I've read. If anyone has any pictures of the thing, I'd love to see them - I can't access the main site due to the Slashdot effect.

Re:Liberal myth by pwpbot

[colmore]

Ok, slashcode guys, it's been a long time, please fix this bug (oh and mod parent down)

nice try

[BESTouff]

dual 13.3" screen and only 1024x768 ? I prefer my old Armada.

Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can your run Mac OS X on it?

;)

It's a portable desktop...

[Steveftoth]

Personally I don't want a laptop, I want a computer that I can take from place to place without having to unplug 50 things, only like 3, mouse, power and network ( and have the option for wireless network ). If you are constantly moving around or like to put your computer on your lap then this is probably not a good computer for you, but if you want a computer that you can take to a place and sit it down for like a week straight then this is a good buy.

My only concern with it is the durability, it doesn't look too sturdy. I'd want to see it in person before buying one.

Re:It's a portable desktop...

[ultramk]

Don't you mean an iMac?

Re:It's a portable desktop...

[Anonymous Coward]

But you don't mind the 15 minutes it takes you to blow up your love doll, which you get to enjoy for only about 1 minute. Interesting ...

Re:It's a portable desktop...

[Steveftoth]

So you're the one video taping me from across the alley.

Re:It's a portable desktop...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get an iMac, then.

(if you can stomach the limited software choices)

Re:It's a portable desktop...

[Anonymous Freak]

Three? Why not pare it down to one or two? An iMac with blutooth would be perfect. All you plug in is the power cord, and the kb/mouse are wireless, the network is wireless, and the monitor is integrated. That's what I'm hoping Apple will go for next, removing the wires.

For the more power-hungry user, you can do with only two cords. PowerMac with only power and ADC. You plug in the power cord, then you plug the monitor in. Again, kb/mouse/net is wireless.

My PC (I'm one of those odd people who honestly doesn't prefer one platform over the other. I have an iMac running OS X 10.5 sitting next to my PC which dual boots WinXP Pro and SuSE 7.3) already uses Logitech wireless kb and mouse, and I have the reciever box taped inside one of the 5.25" drive bays, so you don't even see that box outside the box. (One of these days I'm going to get around to soldering the wires directly to the PS/2 connectors on the bottom of the motherboard so I don't have the wire going from the exterior ports back in.)

Now merge the technologies!

[dmarien]

We just need to cram this into a cell phone too, and we'll be all set :)

Re:slashdotted (even the cache)

[fruey]

I am only getting 966b/s (on a 2mbps link) from the Google cache. The Google Cache slashdotted? Hehehe

um, ok.

[ultramk]

I love running multiple screens on my desktop machine, though. I had 3-20" Trins on my G3 for a long time. Great for flight sims.

Reminds me of a great trick I played on one of my coworkers... we were required to run a wintel machine on our desks just to access company email--something I could have done with VPC, but nobody would listen to me that I didn't want this ugly hunk of crap in my office, and could do without it.

So one late night, I hooked the PC screen up to my G4, transferred all the files over to VPC, and made sure the network connection was happy. Then, of course, all I had to do was set up VPC so it was running on the PC monitor.

To all appearances, both machines were now hooked up and running normally. (though it was somewhat quieter than before!)

Several days pass. No one notices that I'm only using one keyboard and mouse rather than two. Eventually, a Mac-curious coworker stops by for a chat. He asks how hard it is to move files over from PC to Mac and vice versa. Without skipping a beat, I grab a few files from the Mac desktop, and drag them over to the VPC screen. They copy flawlessly (of course). I showed him how you can move the mouse from one screen to another. His jaw dropped.

I said I had wireless networking between the two machines.

m-

Re:um, ok.

[kcarlile]

I love it. Now if only someone was forcing me to use a PC...

Good use for it

[Sarin]

I know a musician who has made a portable studio out of a bleeding fast laptop an highend external soundcard and a mic with a little tube amplifier, he takes this set anywhere he goes. Usually he goes to the artists that want him to compose the music, because they don't have time to go this his studio.

I know from experience that running virtual studio on a computer forces you to use multiple displays, I use 3 displays for displaying my cubase sx stuff, which rocks, only thing is they all have different sizes so that's not really handy sometimes.

Before I read the specs on this laptop it seemed like a great machine to use for music purposes, but then I saw that it used the ali magic chipset, which sucks - at least for desktop computers - if you want to use a lowlatency soundcard.

I might want to buy it if it had the newer xp processors and an other chipset, but I think I rather buy 3 nice 18.1" lcd screens instead.

Re:Good use for it

[Anonymous Coward]

The little tube amplifier is in a transparent 'cage' so that everybody can see the tube, right?

Or, better yet, is it one of those tube amps where the tube isn't enclosed at all?

Sounds pretty snazzy.

Re:Good use for it

[Sarin]

yeah actually it is!
you musta been familiar with these kind people/harware. lol

spec page here

[Alien54]

Just for the sake of completeness

Spec page here:

http://www.xentex.com/voyager/techspecs.html

note the resolution specs

not worth the bother

[shaldannon]

If somebody can show me a laptop with two 15" screens where one unfolds out and sits beside the other, I might be interested. As it is, this thing looks more like a gimic than a useful tool. Wake me up when there's something worth looking at.

LAN Parties?

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of a dork actually goes to a LAN Party? If I was ever invited to one I'd kick that persons ass. So lame....

So it cost almost as much as a new PowerBook?

[multiOSfreak]

It doesn't cost *that* much more than the very high-end laptops made by Apple.

I've known about this for a while

[prestomation]

Is it just me or are stories always late? I've know about this thing for several weeks. It is in the July issue of Maximum PC(which I've had for like a month)

Don't be two dollar whore

[petree]

If you are going to bother to karma whore like that at least do two things.
1) Make it a clickable link.
2) Make the link right. (It has a space in it)

Corrected:

Google Cache Link
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:v1jL4n4FTLkC: www.xentex.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Nice but....

[Anonymous Coward]

I can get dual head out of my 'ol Lataiude CPi by just plugging a second screen into the back (or a TV into the side) and altering a couple of checkboxes. Not quite as badass, but just as functional. (the neomagic doesn't do 3-d either...)

a 3 screen laptop would be easy

[Lumpy]

That barely meets the definition of dual head.

Now, give me a laptop that is 3 inches thick and you open the lid and then flip out 2 wings that reveal 3 14.5 inch TFT lcd screens? (oh and add a set of REAL video controllers not this crap we keep getting in laptops) I'll thunk down 10K in a heartbeat.

and it would be very easy/possible with today's tech.

Re:Liberal myth by pwpbot

[momobaxter]

All I see is a bunch of words separated by asterisks. Nothing really wrong but a stupid post... what's the deal?

Re:slashdotted (even the cache)

[Peyna]

If the links to images on their page are absolute URLs, then you are waiting on it to pull the images from their server still. Google only caches the web page there.

Drooling?

[InnereNacht]

Nobody is going to be drooling over an 8mb video card at a LAN party, especially not some unknown card manufacturer.

And 13 pounds? No thanks.

Image mirror

[Otto]

I put up a couple of images from the site here:

Small animated GIF of how it moves

Big pic of the unit unfolded

Criticisms

[2nd Post!]

Alright, $5000 for a 20" LCD on a 1.4GHz Athlon.

Now, let's see if I can do better (I know I can't beat 13lb).

Apple Titanium: 6 pounds, 1280x854 15" screen 667MHz *and* DVI out. $2500

Apple 22" LCD: 25 pounds, 1600x1024 22" screen, DVI in. $2500

So yeah, you'll have to lug around 31 pounds to lan parties, but that's still lighter than a 17" monitor, and you get 6" of additional screen, cost you the same, get you less processor power, but more battery life, and nearly 3x the number of pixels.

Re:Criticisms

[drew]

or you could get a dell i8000 series laptop at 1.6GHz with 1600x1200 resolution and a GeForce or Radeon video card (who even makes the video card for that voyager? somebody mentioned ali? no thanks...) for around $2300.

oh, and it weighs about 8 lb.

and if you really need the cool two screen factor, you can, as somebody else mentioned, stick a stripe of electrical down the middle of your lcd panel, and still have more screen real estate than 1536x1024.... or you could just buy two of them. still be cheaper, and not much heavier. and then you could beowulf them. er, forget i said that.

Re:Criticisms

[2nd Post!]

Well, the Mac already has a 32mb DDR Radeon, that's not a problem :)

And it weighs 6 lb on its own, for $2500, so your Dell isn't exactly that much cheaper. 1GHz more and an additional 3000 pixels, yeah, I know.

One word

[Tony.Tang]

*spooge*

crap[ nowq ,my k,eb0rd *is screw3ed~~!

get a TiBook + LCD

[goon america]

I can do the same thing with my Titanium Powerbook and an extra LCD screen (I'm using this setup as we speak, BTW). It has a built-in plug for a second monitor which can be used in mirroring or side-by-side mode, where you can move across the two screens as if they were joined along that side.

Of course, you can't fold it up like that cool thing but you can use it in lieu of a kevlar vest in combat situations and it looks like a small gray file folder when it's closed and sitting on a desk.

Dual head on a laptop

[octogen]

A dual head laptop doesn't seem to make much sense.. does anyone intensively use his or her laptop for CAD/CAM?

Personally, I would rather prefer having dual CPUs instead of dual heads ;-)

The real secret out this

[Seekerofknowledge]

I think the real secret about this "dual head" laptop is that is it easier to manufacture than a laptor with a 1600x1200 screen. It's just two 1024x768's on end. Really, who would want to use this? The page orientation I think would be an immediate turn-off, and even looking at the pictures imaginging seeing something there was already making me uncomfortable with it.

And so it seems like this was created just to get rid of some old or cheap inventory.

Not that remarkable...

[call -151]

1536x1024 total is not exactly miraculous- and since pretty much every Powerbook since 98 has had the ability to do "dual head"="extended desktop" or whatever you want to call it, I don't think this counts as ground-breaking. Since there are already machines with 1600x1200 on a single LCD and there are already machines driving a second desktop (which could of course be an LCD) I don't see the novelty. Why, my puny 3-year-old Powerbook G3 drives its 1024 x 768 and an external monitor at 1600x1200 (maybe even higher with a bigger screen, not sure...)

Re:Not that remarkable...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, if you get chilly, the battery in your Powerbook can start a little fire for you.

I know, I know, that particular quality disaster is only in a select few Powerbooks.

The main point is: Apple did it first (had a laptop that would consistently burt into flame). I'm not sure Dell can do that even today.

Nothing special..

[Junta]

From what I could see the usual benefits of multi-head aren't there or intended. The intent is to have a larger screen yet fold into something the size of a small laptop. You cannot change the swivel of each display while in use, so acheiving the surround effect won't be happening. Each display on it's own is pretty small, so having multiple desktops would not be very useful. In fact, I'm not so sure that the video card would report these two displays as separate monitors, they may be transparently represented as one to the graphics card, an LCD which just happens to have a clean split down the middle.

What we have here is something that aims to have very small folded profile while having a large unfolded profile. The weight and power consumption (and price) make it a bad choice for an everyday portable. The end result is just a display with an ugly separation in the middle, not a flexible multi-head system.

Re:Nothing special..

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm...did you miss the part of the demo where they said the right LCD can be swiveled?

Re:Nothing special..

[Junta]

Ok, I've seen more of the demo and do see swivel, but they are still right next to each other while swivelling. You would need both to swivel *and* slide horizontally to acheive good panoramic effect. Both displays are independent though, so that is saying something, but presenting without a projector or large screen will not impress PHBs.

The ultimate point is that good multi-head setups are just not possible with a laptop set up.

YES (looking forward to a big screen laptop)

[jonadab]

YES.

If I buy a laptop, there are two main questions I'll
be asking:

1. How big is the display?

2. How well does it support Linux?

The first is the more important issue for me. Anything
less than 16" viewable is totally useless, and I would
pay a significant amount extra to get 18" viewable. I
would _almost_ sell myself into indentured servanthood
for 20" viewable or more.

A normal-sized keyboard would be a nice bonus too.

Yeah, I know it would take up my whole lap and weigh
twice as much, but so what?

Processor? As long as it's x86-compatible, who cares?
(Well, within reason. I wouldn't want a 386 laptop...)

Actually, if Apple came out with a large-screen
laptop, I'd consider it. OS X isn't the _same_
as Linux, but I'd settle for it.

The dinky screens are the biggest reason I've been
avoiding laptops. (There are other reasons... less
standardization, more cost, poor viewing angle...
but the biggest thing is the dinky screens.)

Re:YES (looking forward to a big screen laptop)

[BigBir3d]

When you are talking viewable, do you mean in reference to the laptop (ie LCD) world, or the desktop (CRT still, for the most part) world? I am confident you know the difference.

If Linux is such a priority, and Linux is still quite a bit of command line, or maybe you write a decent amount of code, than I am not sure I understand you wants/desires. Gaming?

Bigger is better, I know, I know. I think Dell, or maybe it is Gateway, not sure, has a 15.7" display for their laptops now (yep, Gateway does).

And your gripe about poor viewing angles has been a moot point for at least a year or two now. Besides, the entire point of a laptop is that IT'S MOBILE. You could just move it a bit.
Less standardization? You should have said "less options."

Re:YES (looking forward to a big screen laptop)

[jonadab]

> When you are talking viewable, do you mean in reference
> to the laptop (ie LCD) world, or the desktop (CRT still,
> for the most part) world? I am confident you know the
> difference.

I understand the difference. I said viewable, because
my current monitor is 18 inch viewable (a "19 inch" CRT),
and if I got a laptop for my next system, I'd prefer not
to lose screen real estate. That's why I chose 18,
instead of 17 or 19, as the value for a future laptop
to match in order to be an acceptable replacement for
my current (desktop) system.

> If Linux is such a priority,

Not so much Linux specifically as Unix in general, but
I said Linux because it tends to have better hardware
driver support than (say) BSD, particularly on low-end
consumer-type hardware.

> and Linux is still quite a bit of command line, or
> maybe you write a decent amount of code, than I am
> not sure I understand you wants/desires. Gaming?

I'm not sure I understand the question. I was talking
about being able to get all the hardware (NIC, sound
if possible, and so on) working with the a Linux kernel.
Hardware that doesn't work except with Windoze or NT
is of substantially decreased value to me.

> And your gripe about poor viewing angles has been
> a moot point for at least a year or two now.

Such has not been my experience. Current LCD screens
(at least, the low-end ones) do not have viewing
angles that impress me much. In particular, if you
move your head as little as thirty degrees (relative
to the screen) it changes the colour ballance. It's
not as horribly bad as it once was, but LCDs still
need some improvement to catch up to CRTs.

Still, I'm not a graphics artist, and so to me,
screen _size_ is more important than colour accuracy,
so I might be able to settle for a laptop screen if
it's large enough.

15.7" is really not large enough. I could use maybe
use it on trips, but I can't afford to buy both a
laptop (for trips) _and_ a new desktop for regular
use. Plus, it would drive me out of my mind not
having my regular (heavily customised) environment
on the laptop. So if I'm going to get a laptop,
I'd really want one with a display large enough
that I could also use it as my regular system. So,
18" or thereabouts.

Display specs

[nedric]

LCD[s]:

• Size: Dual 13.3"
• Type: TFT Resolution 1024 pixel(H) x 768 pixel(V)
  
• Color: 16 Bits
  

*16-bit* color is hardly "workstation" quality. All my purdy Powerpoint cross-fades will be washed out...

for that kind of money...

[univeralifepadre]

...i could buy a couple of 3 pound vaios, save my aching back and some money.

Its called a desk

[Pfhor]

With wheels....

check out www.anthro.com

Just bolt everything onto that, along with a big ass UPS, and you won't loose downtime moving it around.

NSNIPES!!! YES!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now there's a GREAT FPS. SNIPES on an Novell network. Sometimes that was the only game I could get the boss to agree to play. (I kicked his ass!) :-)

check out the Celsius Mobile H

[gessel]

Compare the Fujitsu Siemens Celsius Mobile H which has more pixels (1600x1200 vs. 1536x1024), a killer GPU (64MB Quadro4 to go with twinview for a 2nd external UXGA screen), and wins or ties every other spec + bluetooth removable keyboard and fingerprint authentication to decrypt the harddrive on boot.

Not available in US, so get your euro friends to send you one or hassle Fujitsu into putting it into the US market.

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/rl/products/works ta tions/mobile/celsiusmobile/celsiusmobile_h.html#

Not an Athlon?

[non-poster]

The tech specs says "L1 Cache: 128k, L2 Cache: 64k". That sounds a lot more like a Duron than an Athlon. I thought Athlon's have 256k secondary cache. Built-in IEEE1394 is cool, but where's the 802.11b?

I think everyone's missing the point

[Ex-Parrot]

I was only able to load one image, but to me it looks like the main benefit is the ability to fold this laptop (portable, whatever) into fourths. That makes it all the more portable and easy to carry. Whether that's worth the tradeoff in screen space remains to be seen. Maybe someday soon we'll have displays that can actually be folded. Then we'll see some really cool laptops.

Re:I think everyone's missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I think this is the whole point of this laptop, its compactness.

Re:I think everyone's missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure aint it's weight! I don't care if it folded into a 1 cm cube. I don't want to lug around 12 *pounds* of dead weight. I think people are on point. It's over priced and over weight and it's gee whiz factor folding won't keep it alive.

Gaming?

[DF5JT]

What a laugh:

VGAChip SetSMI 721 *
2 Bus PCI Bus
On Chip Memory8MB
EXT. MemoryN/A
3D FunctionN/A
Motion Compensation
Dual Panel Supported

You'll be the riot on a LAN-party. For sure.

Thanks to everybody!

[NanoGator]

I just wanted to thank everybody who posted. I got lotsa info to look through. It's appreciated! :)

But since one turns around ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one.

Note, however, that after the thing is opened up one of them can be spun around to face the opposite way. Slave the two together and run a powerpoint presentation on it and you don't need a projector to hold a small meeting.

Salesmen will LOVE this.

Re:But since one turns around ...

[Qube]

Or instead, get them a 15" TFT for £300 (or $400, whatever). Plug into VGA out on laptop. Problem solved, without forking out $5000.

They'll even fit into one of the thicker laptop cases (in the "printer" compartment), and weigh a hell of a lot less than a projector or this monstrosity.

Solution looking for a problem IMO. Even my mono-screened Dell has a higher res than both of those screens put together.

Linux Snipes! (Gasp!)

[ackthpt]

Here, please note, I just found this and I haven't tried it out yet.

Battery Life

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked their technical specs on the battery life and it makes me wonder:

Battery Li-Ion, 8cells, 1350mA/3.7V
Battery life 4 hours (Battery Mark V3.0)

now, its an athlon 1.1-1.4ghz machine w/ a crappy video card, but *2* lcd displays(given lcds are still love voltage/current but 2 of them) plus cd-rom, floppy, network/modem 4 usb and a host of other built in devices to power.. how did they get 4 hours on that thing?

i use a toshiba 5005-s504 which is a p3-1.1ghz w/ a geforce2go and a 15" lcd and it uses a
10.8v *3900*mAh battery and the laptop only lasts for almost an hour and a half on normal power usage, maybe 2 hours on minimum power usage settings(which turns it effectively into a p3-800 =/

.. so their 1350 mA battery is going to last 3 times as long as my battery which has 3 times the storage on a similiarly powered system.. hrm.. funny math there. i give their battery maybe 45min of actual usable power before it flatlines

oh and btw, i do go to lan partys w/ my laptop ;-) and it does run counter-strike, quake3, soldier of fortune2, and warcraft 3 great hehe(no, not as max res or max detail, but hey, a laptop you can frag with is something to be happy about)

Not worth it

[Servo]

IF they had dual "regular size" screens, I might be tempted. But just splitting it down the middle doesn't help me any. The appeal of having dual heads is having twice as much screen real estate... this unit doesn't do that.

OK, OK, I fucked up..

[Axe]

..still much more usable then 1600x1200 on a single 15" that I saw.

They need double 1280x1024.. And $3K price point..

Would not it be nice to have a normal sized machine when working outside office..

I was expecting ..

[peatbakke]

.. two full sized screens. Not two half sized, odd aspect screens, divided by a really irritating bar.

What's the point of it? I suppose they could be trying to make use of two high resolution screens in order to be cheaper than using a singular high resolution screen ... but that bar is hideous, and it's still farking expensive.

My prediction is a crash n' burn on this one.

What would really make it useable...

[Viceice]

Is not not brand it a Laptop, but a mobile desktop/desktop replacement.

All they have to do is to make the most of that bulk, add a GeForce2Go and make the LCD moduler so that it's reorientable to 3:4 and DDR RAM/ a GPRS modem and a properly designed backpack.

Sure, It weighs, but it'll be very useful for field work where you need the power of a full fleged desktop while mobile.

Donkey Kong

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo had a dual screen portable about 20 years ago. :)

Image is a lot in sales.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Or instead, get them a 15" TFT for £300 (or $400, whatever). Plug into VGA out on laptop. Problem solved, without forking out $5000.

You miss the point.

It's worth an extra two grand (5 grand fancy laptop - (2 grand non-fancy laptop with 1 grand spare display)) to have it in one pretty package and impress the customer with how slick you are. Not to mention the attract-the-nerds value. Helps them control the discussion and lead the customer's mind into saying yes.

You make it back in the first sale, with interest, then keep making it back over and over.

Read _Winning Through Intimidation_ for more.

Re:Image is a lot in sales.

[Qube]

OK, I'm not a salesman - but have had to sit through dozens of powerpoint presentations from them.

From my point of view, if it's that small a meeting (say 2-5 people) they're better off sticking the laptop at the end of the table so everyone can see. It's a lot better than them sitting behind one (as would be done with this flip-round screen) - you end up with something in the way.

Once it gets beyond that size, they're better off with the projector just so everyone can see.

And I don't know about you, but if a salesman came along with one of those I'd be laughing my ass off.