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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."
When will they realise that it's not the hardware that matters but the software.
No HDDs, no x86 Intel processors and a keyboard should be totally detachable for those who don't want to use it.
Yea, those are generally the biggest software issues I have with my tablet...