Dual-headed Laptops

Baloo Ursidae writes "ABC News is reporting that some little upstart in PA is making dual headed laptops. Orient it like a book, you have two portrait-oriented touch sensitive monitors. Orient it like a laptop, and one of the monitors becomes a soft keyboard. Not cheap, however, they start at $4,000." That is absolutely nuts. More power to 'em!

Comments

gimmick time

[Cylix]

Guess we went through the lifetime of laptops being new and fresh! Now it is time to upsize, kingsize, something else size your laptop with dual displays.

If you thought you weren't going to use it before, chances are you aren't going to use it now, but better hurry and get one while supplies last!

Hopefully, the trend will continue onward, and it will bring down the cost of realistic laptop gimmicks.

I need onboard GPS!

Mobile phones

[MrWorf]

All we need now is for the cellphone companies to catch on. Replacing the keyboard on the phone with a touchscreen would allow for better input (where the "keyboard" would change depending on what the application needs). And if designed into one of those clamshell phones, the risk of damaging it would be minimal.

So, instead of adding an extra display on the outside, place it on the inside (hey, maybe we even can have three screens? Scaaary ;-) )

Interesting but...

[Billy the Mountain]

if you are after screen area, why waste a lot of it displaying a virtual keyboard? This laptop might be a good candidate for those projection keyboards. I bet you could set up the keyboard so that it's repositionable (or use mirrors) so that you can use it while in "dual-portrait" or "dual-landscape" And (not sure if this is feasible) if you are wanting to eliminate the whole touch-screen concept how about a projection mouse pad as well?

BTM

Incremental not revolutionary

[tintruder]

While I think a working one of these devices would be pretty "cool" to own, and it would certainly be a conversation piece, it still lacks any huge increase in usability.

Handwriting recognition is still slower and requires more QA editing than keyboard typing.

Touchscreen keyboards are marginal at best.

Not all applications are or can be made "pen aware" just because the PC itself is. If you need an example, try chnging your iPaq or Jornada to Landscape mode and watch how certain functions become lost and irrecoverable off the screen.

This solution certainly provides a different and interesting way of getting information OUT of the laptop, but it does so at a sacrifice to the means and ease of getting it IN.

Until there are new and functional means of accessing the user interface such as effective and accurate speech recognition or 3D gesturing ala "Minority Report", these gizmos just don't offer enough outside of a very few niche applications to qualify as revolutionary.

Article mentions LCDs as the cost factor

[adzoox]

How could it be that 13" LCD panels are the cost factor. If companies can sell 14.1" LCDs for $149 now and laptop makers can sell Tablet PC 13"-15" for $1400 total, then what is making this $4000?

I do think this is a novel concept. Several of the posts/replies to this article are mentioning they would miss the mechanical keyboard. I believe this would be best suited for an external USB keyboard and "onscreen touch keyboard" when necessary or travelling.

I think this would be a boom for audio & photo/video professionals. Toolbars on one screen, preview/waveforms on the other, plus onscreen tracing/editting/erasing. If you are a photo/ad pro then you you haven't had value until have tried a Cintiq from Wacom. They are VERY expensive but VERY worth it!