Acer Dual-Screen, Multitouch Laptop Leaks Out

An anonymous reader writes "A 15" laptop from Acer that is currently in production features dual-multitouch displays, one for the main display and one as the keyboard/mouse. It has a 2.67GHz Intel Core i5 processor and runs Windows 7. No release date or pricing information yet as this unit is still heavily in production/testing phases." Replacing a keyboard with a touchscreen sounds like a mixed blessing to me, but not everyone agrees. Witness the (great big) Kno dual-touchscreen e-reader, and the Toshiba Libretto W100 dual-screen mini-laptop, now shipping in Japan.

I'd take the "leak" with a huge grain of salt

[ChipMonk]

It's a tried-and-true way to generate buzz, and it's been around a lot longer than Twitter and Facebook.

Re:I'd take the "leak" with a huge grain of salt

[Idbar]

That works for Apple. Why not let other companies generate buzz?

Trackpad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't a virtual trackpad kinda redundant?

touchscreen keyboard?

[hex0D]

Didn't we all learn the importance of tactile response in a keyboard around the time of the Timex Sinclair?

Yummm battery

[Anonymous Coward]

So let's take a keyboard that doesn't consume battery and replace it with a backlit LCD touchscreen that consumes battery and has no tactile feedback or home key detents. Ok, I'll buy a few of these.

Too bad..

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it's an acer and will most likely fail within 2 seconds past the warranty...

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Touchscreen keyboards are worthless for those who know how to type properly.

Protip: that's not the target market.

Touch as a supplemental control method works, but as a primary or only input method for data it is strictly a marketing gimmick intended to maximize sales to the clueless masses.

Gee, why would a business want to "maximize sales to the clueless masses"?

The world doesn't revolve around you. Not every product is being specifically created for your consumption. Nobody at Acer is going, "Fuck, we totally misjudged the buying habits of some anonymous slashdot reader."

Re:touchscreen keyboard?

[Peach Rings]

How, what? I don't even know how to reply to that. Nobody who is remotely sane would agree with you. Typing 160 character texts is a lot different from typing prose on a full keyboard. On a keyboard I can compose my thoughts and type them out immediately as I think of them. On a tiny touch keyboard it's excruciating to try to express complex thoughts. Since it takes so long to type I constantly try to cut down the amount of text to type instead of thinking of what I'm trying to say.

A full size touch keyboard might be different, but that doesn't mean that your statement about the iPhone is right.

Stop emulating physical books

[Anonymous Coward]

The contents of a book is only words and pictures.

If you choose paper to store your words and pictures, you can either do it in roll form or in a stack of pages form. You can bind those pages together if you wish, the result being the books we know today.

A book uses both sides of a page because it would be moronic not to do so.

An eBook reader uses dynamic display(s). Putting two screens on an eBook reader is as stupid as wanting to put 500 of them on a hinge to emulate real books. It's a dynamic display, you don't need two pages side-by-side. You can hold an open book with one hand just as well as you can hold a closed one. The only benefit of dual screen on an eBook reader is that it costs twice as much in display parts to manufacture.

Re:touchscreen keyboard?

[Locutus]

but since then, schools completely dropped the ball on teaching 10 finger touch typing. Tactile response is only important when you're looking at fast, efficient, and correct typing and that is not what seems to be important any more. I had to shake my head when I read how Google's new live search was supposed to increase effectiveness because of how many milliseconds people take on the search line. They completely left out the fact that most people today have to look at the keyboard( virtual or real ) to type.

LoB

Re:already slashdotted?

[Yvan256]

Slashdot should auto-coralize the links.