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

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?

[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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Let me guess

[CaffeineAddict2001]

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

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

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

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.

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: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.

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