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Dell's 'Dual Personality' Laptop
njkobie writes "Dell was the unlikely star of today's keynote at IDF, unveiling a convertible tablet. While that might sound a bit been there, done that, the Inspiron Duo can be used as a tablet or opened up to offer a keyboard. The screen rotates inside the frame, taking it to the netbook form factor. It runs on an Atom processor and will be available at the end of the year, Dell said."
I like this but...
I wonder how many times you can convert it before it breaks.
Does dirt and stuff get in the mechanism?
I have mixed feelings, having repaired laptops for a day job and battering plenty of my own.
The idea looks good at first glance, because tablets use something known cutely as The Achilles Hinge. The dell mechanism that swivels the screen does not depend on friction, but probably a latch.
But, there are a good number of hinge-related problems, namely cracked cases around the hinge supports. In this case the top clamshell dosen't have the weight and the sturdiness of a fully integrated LCD and, even with a latch, we may be left with a flimsy outer "picture frame" that may be prone to bending and even breaking. You know what I'm talking about if you've ever opened (carefully) a laptop clamshell without the LCD attached. Any hinges which depend on friction will render your gadget useless if they go limp.
It's all Apple's fault, of course. They had the change to make something more than a glorified, overpriced, locked-down "phone-without-the-phone."
I want to know if it has or can be upgraded to have a Wacom digitizer. Fingerpainting is fine, and reading books with your fingers has an intuitiveness to it, but I've been waiting ages for a nice thin pen-enabled tablet.
When will they realise that it's not the hardware that matters but the software.
I've seen a convertible laptop/tablet before at a customer site. He was trying to use it to take notes. But thanks to Windows it required a reboot as it wouldn't come out of sleep properly. It's a bit annoying when you all have to sit there and wait to start a meeting while a laptop boots.
Anything tablet like needs to be instant on/off. No HDDs, no x86 Intel processors and a keyboard should be totally detachable for those who don't want to use it.
It does it in an entirely different way - one central hinge. That design - the one most convertible tablets use - puts a lot of strain on that one central point.
If you bother to read TFA you'll see that this one uses two hinges (twixt body and frame) to fold/unfold and two (on the screen within the frame) to roll the screen over. Providing the frame is strong enough, this is on the face of it a more robust design; any force acts less than half the screen diagonal from the fulcrum.
Leverage knacks hinges.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This video says it has a dual core atom processor and Windows 7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_JU0sYCpRs
HTC EVO 4G LTE w/ CM 10.2 | NookColor w/ CM 10.2 | Samsung Epic 4G w/ CM 10.1
Behold its majesty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadem_Clio
I really wanted one when it came out, precisely because of the form factor. Given that it runs Wince 2.1 (Sorry, WinCE 2.1), I was probably better off.
But a clever design.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Wrong. If you want use just your fingers, then yes, they're not too hot - but if you use a pen, then Windows 7 is great on a tablet. Even the default handwriting recognition is pretty damn accurate (you can train it to better fit your writing style). Don't bash it until you try it.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I must agree with this sentiment. It does look very much like a gimmick. I feel that tablet PCs (the convertible type) are a gimmick. Having bought one thinking it could be used as a tablet, I was sorely disappointed. The size and weight make them cumbersome, and the UI is completely useless (icons, links, menus are too small in Windows 7).
If Dell were serious about making a tablet they'd ignore the convertible market and leave it up to the ruggedised designs then aim for the iPad/Galaxy Tab market.
Yup. From when I got my first 6x9 Wacom tablet, back in early 90's, have wanted a tablet display on it. At the time, I wasn't too concerned if it had to be hooked in to a parent machine but after seeing what the iPad and similar systems can do with size and weight, am really hoping for a real Wacom tablet.
I drank what? -- Socrates