Ever since my mother got a Thinkpad 240 to use for her work, most of a decade ago, I’ve been of the opinion that tiny laptops are really useful for their portability but irritating because of their tiny screens. The ideal thing would be something that was as handy to carry as a book, and with a keyboard just big enough to type on at a good speed (60wpm at least), but which also had a large enough screen that the user wasn’t constantly scrolling and/or suffering from eyestrain.
Some kind of multi-panel, unfolding screen, perhaps.
And all of a sudden, something like this is available on the mass market.
Seeing a real-world manifestation, after a couple of years of harbouring a utopian fantasy in which laptops unfurled giant screens, makes clear that current mass market computer engineering isn’t up to my vision. So I’ve just had a think for a minute about how a manufacturer might narrow the gap.
The answers’s pretty easy: use a resilient flexible display that rolls up around the laptop (like a firehose around its hub, but with fewer coils) and can be unrolled and stiffened with springs, struts or goosenecks for use. A tensegral approach to supporting the unrolled screen would probably be the best for an optimal tradeoff between the twin goals of low weight and high rigidity.
But technology like this is probably still a few years off. In the meantime, the XO-2 will likely be the next best thing.
Interesting stuff. The Awesomer (http://theawesomer.com) featured a concept laptop (the “Dell XPS Baton”) a while back:
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_file.asp?portfolio_id=1430815&individual_id=181914
Designed by Tai Chiem from Melbourne, it sports two unrolling touchscreens that are stiffened by a piezoelectric charge. No indications of prototypes or availability yet though!
PS the XO-2 looks good – I want Nicholas Negroponte’s job!
Ah, rolling up the keyboard too. That’s ingenious. Why didn’t I think of that?
Answer: because I’ve yet to encounter a flexible keyboard that’s stiff enough to be used in anger, and the possibility of piezoelectric support hadn’t occurred to me.
As for getting Nick’s job, all around him (well, 50%) are losing theirs
But if you’re in need of extremely motivated, thoughtful people, this surely is a recruiter’s dream.
PCPro has a review of the dual-screen ThinkPad here.
Here’s a folding-keyboard laptop design. Hmm. If the screen also folded out, that would be way more useful.