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A Dual-Screen 10.1" Laptop In Time For the Holidays

JoshuaInNippon writes "Japanese computer manufacture Kohjinsha has announced that it will begin selling a 10.1" dual-screen laptop on Dec. 11 — in Japan only. While it is not the first dual-screen laptop, a title claimed by the monstrous 17" Lenovo Thinkpad W700ds series, the Kohjinsha sure looks much more portable and stylish. The Thinkpad's extra screen pulls out slightly from one side for about a 40% increase on its display, whereas on the Kohjinsha's two full separate screens spread out symmetrically from the center. While specs are admittedly lower than the Thinkpad, the DZ series certainly wins on cost. The starting price will be ¥79,800, about $900, in Japan (exporters will likely mark that price up slightly), compared with the Thinkpad at well over $2,000. Kohjinsha says the laptop is great for working on 'large business documents' (e.g. excessively wide spreadsheets), or watching videos while surfing the Web, which is likely what most users will be doing with it. The timing and the price certainly make the Kohjinsha DZ series a tempting toy idea for holiday giving — perhaps to oneself."

8 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:More than a gimmick? by RobVB · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dude, it's a frickin' dual screen laptop! I want one and I want it now. Who cares what it's good for.

    --
    I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
  2. Re:More than a gimmick? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good lord... 1.6Ghz CPU and a gig of RAM will make "doing more than one thing at once ... painful"?? You must have a very low threshold for pain.

    I'd love something like that just to have documentation on one screen while I code on the other. Or to have email/IRC/whatever open on one screen while I browse on the other.

  3. Ya I fail to see the point by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I only find that dual screens are useful in two situations:

    1) When you have an app that needs a whole screen to work. A video editor would be an example. They often wish to use a dedicated screen as a preview screen. As such you want a second monitor to dedicate to that, regardless of size of your first one.

    2) When you need more screen real estate than you can get in a single monitor, or for a cheaper price than large single monitors. This is by far the most common. You want more room, but a 30" screen is too much money so you get 2 22" or 24" screens instead. The whole reason is more room.

    Ya well, in this case a larger laptop, or external screen (or both) would seem to be the way to go. I'm not seeing the second monitor as useful.

    There's also the fact that the divide is right down the center. In dual monitor setups I've encountered (including mine at work) one monitor is directly in front of the user and is the primary screen, the other is off to the side and contains the less important stuff. I've never seen one where both monitors were in front and the split was centered. That would be very noticeable and very annoying.

    To me, this looks like nothing more than a gimmick.

    1. Re:Ya I fail to see the point by HockeyPuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

      By having the two screens split down the middle you can never look at the objects directly in front of the keyboard. You're always forced to look slightly left or slightly right of the divide. This isn't exactly the most ergonomic position for your head. If the secondary screen is off to the side, with the primary screen dead center, then most of the time you will be looking straight ahead (which is a good ergonomic position) and occasionally looking off to the side (say to preview a video).

  4. Re:It's a Acer Aspire One with 2 screens by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Specs are 1.6ghz AMD, 1gb ram, 160gb hd, ATI 3200, so it's barely more than a Acer Aspire One with a second 10" screen

    I have a Gateway LT3103u and an Acer Aspire One D250-1165 and the Gateway beats the pants off the Aspire... with a 1.2 GHz Athlon 64 L110. Now we're talking about an even-more-capable K8 core at an even-higher clock rate and you want to compare it on a clock-for-clock basis with an Atom processor? I thought we were done with that nonsense some time ago.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Do it in the 11.6" factor and I'll buy by Mal-2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The screens are still limited to 600 pixels vertically. Use the ones from the 11.6" version, at 1366x768 each, and I'll be buying one.

    I stopped carrying around a 14" notebook because it was just too much to carry around everywhere. A 9" netbook fits the need much better. After playing with someone else's 11.6", I was struck by how much more useful the 1366x768 screen is over a 1024x600 screen (the full-size keyboard doesn't hurt either). If I could have two such screens, which fold up for convenient carrying, I would be all over this.

    I have to imagine this will be thicker than a typical netbook, but I could deal with that if the other dimensions do not change.

    Mal-2

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  6. Re:Made in Japan: Cheaper Alternative? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 4, Informative

    >> The price for the laptop made by Kohjinsha (based in Japan) is $900. The price for a laptop having similar features and made by Lenovo (based in China) is $2000. This pricing is quite surprising.

    Similar features? Where?

    Kohjinsha:
    ==========
    two thin 10.1 inch widescreen LCD screens with 1024x600 (WSVGA) display
    AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 ( 1.6GHz ) processor 1GB of memory (with a max of 4GB)
    a 160GB 2.5 inch SATA hard drive
    an ATI Radeon HD 3200 internal graphics accelerator
    a wireless LAN + Bluetooth
    a 1.3 megapixel webcam
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit.

    Lenovo (basic, with nothing extra)
    ============
    Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9600 (2.8GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2)
    Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
    17" WUXGA 400NIT TFT + 10.6"WXGA+ TFT
    NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M 48-core CUDA parallel computing processor 512MB (dedicated)
    2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
    Ultranav + Fingerprint Reader
    Non-RAID HDD, 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
    Integrated Bluetooth PAN
    Intel WiFi Link 5300 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology

  7. Re:Made in Japan: Cheaper Alternative? by bemymonkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Awesome. The SECONDARY display on the Thinkpad has more pixels than both of the Kohjinsha's displays combined.

    WSVGA (1024x600) is a step back into the last decade...