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Toshiba Demos Dual-Touchscreen Netbook
Lanxon writes "Toshiba has announced a trio of new devices that it's hoping will shake up the somewhat stagnant notebook PC market. The most interesting is the Libretto W100 — a clamshell device that comes with two screens in place of a screen and a keyboard. Both screens are identical, measuring 7-inches diagonally, and are touch-sensitive. An onboard accelerometer allows you to use it in landscape or portrait configuration, and Toshiba's pre-loaded a boatload of specialist software that'll let you get the most from the device — including a range of virtual keyboards. It runs Windows 7, is powered by an Intel U5400 processor, and comes with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 62GB SSD, and the usual array of connectivity options, including 3G."
Don't worry. You can just pin a virtual keyboard permanently to the lower touchscreen. It'll be just like a real laptop, only worse and more expensive!
On the other hand, this could really be the computer that takes the underground Nintendo DS emulator scene by storm....
It just seems like a niche product, and the niche is quite tiny.
For a netbook/laptop, a virtual keyboard won't cut it for a long typing session.
For a tablet PC, it is a bit unwieldy, and there are a lot of good alternatives on the market. The iPad comes to mind for a general function device. The Kindle or Nook come to mind for an e-reader that is easy on the eyes and doesn't burn batteries. And for general computing there are laptops which have the screen fold back so they can double both as a touch screen, and a regular laptop with a keyboard.
I am sure that there are some uses for it that come to mind for dedicated applications (control surface for music production, various embedded tasks), but for a general purpose device, there are a lot of form factors that are a lot more ergonomic.