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Hardware

Flip-Pad Voyager: Dual-screen Laptop 305

Posted by michael from the double-the-pleasure dept.
deitrahs writes "I came across this, and wept with joy. It's an Athlon-based, dual-head laptop. Yes, that's right - dual-head LAPTOP. Dual 13.3" displays. And it folds up like an old-school Transformer. Now I just need to find a buyer for this spare kidney so I can afford it - $5 thousand - but the expressions on people's faces at LAN parties will be OH so worth it."
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Flip-Pad Voyager: Dual-screen Laptop More

Flip-Pad Voyager: Dual-screen Laptop

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  • Great. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hittite Creosote ( 535397 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:02PM (#3787369)
    Now you can run your batteries down twice as fast
  • Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one. Especially on that thing. Sure it folds up and fits into your wallet or whatever. This is some seriously wacked out stuff.
    • LAN Party? Laptops are really no good for lan parties for the most part (as was proven to me in terribly anti-climactic fashion last week). 3D cards change so fast, that most of my friend who had (univ requirements) to buy laptops last year already can't play recent games on them (Neverwinter nights, wc3, to name a few). At least make sure you're not getting some crappy no name 4mb card (or an s3 :) 3d card in your laptop if you want it for gaming use.
    • He won knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.

      And he won has a typo in his sig looks like a fool.

      Sorry, couldn't comment on the 2 headed monnster, slashdot effect.

    • Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one. Especially on that thing.

      Yep It is too small. the specs say

      Resolution: 1024 pixel(H) x 768 pixel(V)
      Color16 Bits.

      So each panel is 512(H) x 768(V)

      I can see it in some cases, but other wise ....

      • spec page here (Score:3, Informative)

        by Alien54 ( 180860 )
        Just for the sake of completeness

        Spec page here:

        http://www.xentex.com/voyager/techspecs.html [xentex.com]

        note the resolution specs

      • Re:Resolution too small (Score:5, Informative)

        by laxian ( 174575 ) <digitalstruggle@@@yahoo...com> on Friday June 28, 2002 @01:01PM (#3787795)
        You've got the resolution totally wrong, my friend.

        I just spoke to my good friend who just happened to write all the video software for this laptop (in addition to many other company duties) and he told me that the resolution PER SCREEN is 1024 Vertically x 768 Across.

        Other sweet gossip he told me was that they're working on one with a really nice dual head 3D card suitable for gaming and what-not and various other improvements.

        You all should send your questions and gripes to him directly. His name is Matthew ... now put an @xentex.com after that. (I wrote his email address out like this to prevent spam bots from picking his address up. He's really a cool guy totally devoted to this awesome computer ... it's really a cool thing to see in person. Plus, ask him whatever you want ... he'd certainly fit in here if he wasn't actually doing stuff for his company all day and night.

        • I just spoke to my good friend who just happened to write all the video software for this laptop (in addition to many other company duties) and he told me that the resolution PER SCREEN is 1024 Vertically x 768 Across.

          Then you _need_ to tell your friend that their website's spec matrix says "1024(H) x 768(V)", so that they can correct this error.

          And while 1536x1024 is decent, it's still not worth 13lbs and $5000.

          And can "Matthew" come up with drivers to run XFree86 on it? Inquiring minds want to know.
    • The keys in the middle of the keyboard are also a bunch of weird sizes. Maybe they did that so each half of the keyboard could be fixed in place. I think it would've been better if they'd taken an approach similar to the Palm keyboard, where you unfold the keyboard and then slide the two halves together so that you get the standard layout. I suppose the people who somehow manage to type on those weird-ass split keyboards (Microsoft Natural, etc.) won't be too bothered by the keyboard on this notebook, but it's definitely not a keyboard for the rest of us.
    • Two little screens are really not anywhere near as good as one big one.

      Note, however, that after the thing is opened up one of them can be spun around to face the opposite way. Slave the two together and run a powerpoint presentation on it and you don't need a projector to hold a small meeting.

      Salesmen will LOVE this.
  • I want a laptop with a 21" screen. A portable portfolio sized laptop. full sized keyboard dual processor multi drive. (and about 2 minutes of battery life ) That's where i'll spend my 5 grand.

    cheers
    • Actually, I am in need of a laptop to replace my desktop machine. I'm trying to figure out how to stuff Dual Athlons, a GeForce-4, and a RAID array into a laptop. Doesn't seem to be working ;) I can afford a high-end laptop or a high-end desktop, but not both. I'd like to get a laptop because its portable. Even a heavy one can easily be moved from room to room, or building to building, which is what I need, rather than ultra-portability on planes and whatnot. So in my case, your hypothetical latpop would be perfect!
      • With wheels....

        check out www.anthro.com

        Just bolt everything onto that, along with a big ass UPS, and you won't loose downtime moving it around.

  • Just waiting for (Score:4, Insightful)

    by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:05PM (#3787390) Homepage Journal
    First mobile Matrox Parhelia based laptop with two extra fold out screens for 3 head surround video!

  • Laptop? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:05PM (#3787391)
    It's an Athlon-based, dual-head laptop. Yes, that's right - dual-head LAPTOP.

    Uhh, at 6kg (13.23 lbs), I think I might come up with better term to describe it.

    -Sean

    • Re:Laptop? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 2Bits ( 167227 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:21PM (#3787503)
      Uhh, at 6kg (13.23 lbs), I think I might come up with better term to describe it.

      I think all laptop designers should be required to carry a "laptop" of that weight, with other "necessary" accessories, plus 20lb of contract papers and junk, and walk all day long, for 3 days, and then, they can go back to design laptop, and see what criteria they will value more (hint: weight).

      For those of you working in "customer-facing" department, and if your company refuses to buy lighter laptops for reason of uniformity, you know what I mean.

      Carrying these heavy thingies is going to break your back. Hope your company's disability insurance cover that.

    • Pfft. I remember when anything under 20kg was light.

      You're just spoiled. Compare it to the actual weight of a real desktop and monitor (hint, at least quadruple that) and stop yer whinging. :)

      If you're so weak that 6kg is a problem... get out from behind your desk and get some exercise! Sheesh.
    • I never bought the argument that a laptop had to be lightweight to be usefull. I used to travel a lot for work, and I carried around a Toshiba Tecra 8000, not exactly the lightest laptop around, and the weight never bothered me. I would much rather have a heavy laptop with a lot of features over one of this super lightweight glorified palm pilots. I always look at the guy on the plane with the top of the line viao that weighs 2 ounces as some stupid exec or saleman who doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.

  • Dual Head gaming? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:05PM (#3787397) Homepage Journal
    "...but the expressions on people's faces at LAN parties will be OH so worth it."

    I have a dual monitor setup at home, and I play Quake a lot with it, but I haven't been able to make much use of the second screen in that game. (I do like being able to see what time it is, though.. heh.)

    Does anybody know of any 'dual-head' mods for either Quake or any other FPS game that uses the second screen for anything? I'd *LOVE* if the left screen was the front view and the right screen was the rear view!! Or maybe stats? I dunno...

    Just curious if anybody using dual-head has done anything interesting with it in relation to lan-party style games.

    • Re:Dual Head gaming? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Cheeko ( 165493 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:14PM (#3787459) Homepage Journal
      There are a few programs for some RTSs and EQ, that will show you information on a second screen. The EQ one will display maps and statistics on creatures you are fighting, in numerical terms, as opposed to the innacurate color bars in the game interface. The RTS ones that I've seen on the web sound similar. Usually posts things like resource statistics, and running totals of game info. I've also heard rumors of quake hacks that work similarly, like showing a map with blips where people are located, but haven't seen this one firsthand.
    • I've read articles describing a great use for dual head monitors in FPS. One is normal view, the other is zoomed in view. That way every weapon is a sniper rifle. Actually I think I read that here on /.

    • Re:Dual Head gaming? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Doom actually had this feature. You could actually set up three monitors (one for the left, front, and right view) to simulate a sort of VR environment. Some of the Doom ports nowadays have kept this feature, though I don't recall seeing anyone use it.
      • Except it was implemented by having three computers on a network, not three monitors on one computer..
        • Except it was implemented by having three computers on a network, not three monitors on one computer..

          I felt that this deserved to get seen in the thread, so I'm using my +1 bonus to mod it up, since I don't any mod points to give. =)
          Anyway, I do believe that some of the ports of DOOM did change this so that it worked with multiple monitors on the same machine since the CPU horsepower was now available to do this all on one machine.
    • The original Mac port of Duke Nukem 3D could render a view looking backwards on a second monitor (this was also back when multiple monitors were far more common on macs than PCs).
    • Matrox used Quake 3 based games to show off their Parhelia 3 display feature. Something about the POV option, which causes the display to be spread out over multiple screens (increasing you're range of vision, not stretching the image). If I wasn't at work I'd look it up for you... might want to check Google and Matrox's site. :)
    • I decently sure that Serious Sam (by God Games) utilizes two monitors. Your primary monitor is for playing the game while the secondary monitor is used to show you information regarding monsters, equipment, locales, and cutscenes... for instance... if you pull a lever and it would normally jump to a short cut scene of a door opening the cut scene is shown on the secondary monitor and you can run to the door while watching to scene non-blind like.
    • There is an article [tomshardware.com] on Tom's Hardware about the newest Matrox card... It is capable of using THREE monitors in this fashion for several current games - they are listed in the article. Enjoy!
    • Simple. Get a mac and run Marathon. This was the Mac Quake-equivalent that came out back when PCs could barely manage with Wolfenstein. If you had three screens, you could put them around your head and have the lefthand one for everyting to your left, the righthand one for your right, and the forward one for your front.

  • Dual Head on a Laptop... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:06PM (#3787398) Homepage Journal
    Seriously, why? Looks like the page orientation is a throw-back to the old Radius monitors, but too small to be of much good for graphic design. Also, laptops tend to have the very low-end of graphic card support, so I wouldn't expect it's much good for LAN parties, unless you're still playing NSNIPES.

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by Kevin Stevens ( 227724 ) <kevstev.gmail@com> on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:06PM (#3787402)
    Seems to Be /.ed
    Google Cache Link
    http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:v1jL4n4 FTLkC: www.xentex.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

    Not as Impressive as I thought. it still seems to be pretty close to standard monitors

  • Excessive (Score:2, Funny)

    by DaPhoenix ( 318174 )
    Wow... imagine a beowulf clus.... naaah.

  • slashdotted already (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TDO ( 9537 )
    I guess I'll check it out tomorrow.

    There should be a less popular service that just posts yesterday's slashdot articles, so as to get around the slashdot effect. I don't mind reading stories one day late :)

  • Nifty ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by lawngnome ( 573912 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:09PM (#3787425)
    Cool, now I can watch a full screen movie and pretend to do actual work while on a plane... Bet the guy in the next seat will be impressed, and in the end isnt that all the matters?

  • Voyager? (Score:4, Funny)

    by corebreech ( 469871 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:09PM (#3787430) Journal
    You mean like the Star Trek reruns?

    I like Star Trek too, but c'mon, that's a lame name.

    Let's see... the feature of this laptop is that it has two monitors, monitors are something we're always looking at...

    What's a good name for two of something we're always looking at? I'm reminded of when /. was discussing ternary computing, and how since binary digits are bits, ternary digits should be called ...

    And who on Voyager had the best set of tits? Seven of nine!

    And what's seven minus nine?

    I think I make my point.
  • Now I can look at twice as much porn!

  • Let me guess (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaffeineAddict2001 ( 518485 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:10PM (#3787436)
    The lead scientist for this project was the same guy who created monkies with two asses?

  • Kinda neat but... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Whispers_in_the_dark ( 560817 ) <rich.harkinsNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:12PM (#3787449)
    The only thing I like about it is the ability to look at one thing and show others something else at the same time. That is kind-of cool.

    OTOH:
    • Total screen resolution is 1536x1024, my Dell Inspiron 8000 is 1600x1200 (albeit probably nicer on a larger canvas I suppose)
    • That second screen looks a little fragile to me.
    • The whole thing seems *BULKY* to me (my Dell is as big as I would want to get).
    • No 3D chipset support at all, 8MB VGA (a little tight there!)
    • That price tag.
    • All new drivers that Linux won't support for a while
    Novel idea, but with some serious drawbacks and a high pricetag, I think I'll be sticking with my current Linux laptop for a while longer...
    • Hrm. I actually think you're giving them too much of a hard time. I hadn't seen the company before just now, and am certainly not overly impressed by their product or their attitute (too much marketing speech!). Still, I think most people in this thread are mis-reading the tech specs. At least you didn't interpret it to have a pair of 512x768 pixel displays, like someone above, but I think it has dual VGA controllers, too. One per display: the tech specs, under "VGA" (item #8) say "SMI 721 * 2". If so, then that should be adequate for 1024x768. That said, I agree that it's heavy, fragile-looking, and expensive.
    • All in all it looks like they didn't want to spend the money on a "big", ultra-expensive LCD, and sold two much cheaper screens for the same price.

  • Its really a portable (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Photar ( 5491 )
    Why anyone would call a computer a laptop when its battery most likely won't last more than an hour, weights 20lbs and has a 17" screen on it is beyond me.

    Oh and another thing, the site is pretty much /.ed allready.

    Does anyone else thing that a cacheing system similar to google's google cache would be a good idea? I certainly do.
    • Actually, the site itself never actually calls it a laptop. They seem to be pushing it as a "portable workstation." Their tag line is something like "a workstation that you can fold up and take with you" (I'd go look again, but, of course, it's /.'ed now). They seem to be more aware of the fact that this thing is not a laptop than the ./ geeks. They even have a shot where they compare it in size, not to a laptop, but to an LCD and full-size keyboard, showing that it takes up less space. Also, the tour says that if you rotate the right screen around, a second person can log in and use it at the same time (I guess you'd have to attach an external KB/mouse or something), which makes it almost more like a portable server or something. Probably a little bit of overkill for your average guy who's taking the old laptop on travel so he can listen to some CDs on the airplane and look important while he taps away at some Word document.
  • the second asshole my wife will tear me if I buy this thing.

    damn

  • South paw version (Score:3, Informative)

    by Darth RadaR ( 221648 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:14PM (#3787464) Journal
    I noticed that the mouse touch pad is on the right side. That's gonna be a PITA for south paws unless they have a left-handed version.
    • I'm left handed and have found no trouble at all adapting to using the mouse with my right hand. I think it has much more to do with which way you're used to using it than your "handedness".

      I've found that most left handed people have become more ambidexterous than right handed people because they're forced to switch so often.
    • I've found that you can use the mouse with either hand, regardless of whether you're left- or right-handed. When I first started using a mouse (Amiga 2000), I set it on the left side, and used it without a problem. Then, when everybody else started using a mouse, I noticed that the mouse was always on the right side. I made the switch easily enough, and moved my mouse at home to the right so things would be consistent. It's all about what you're used to using.
    • Well, maybe. OTOH, I'm a southpaw too and I learned starting in 1984 to use my right hand for pointing devices, so it didn't occur to me until a long time after I'd purchased my second Logitech Trackman Marble that there wasn't a left-handed one available.

  • It's big but the resolution is pretty low. (Score:4, Informative)

    by enkidu ( 13673 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:15PM (#3787474) Homepage Journal
    1024x768 for each screen. That's 1536x1024 for the whole "virtual screen". So, it's actually less pixels than the UXGA+ 1600x1200 screens available at half the total price. What's the point of that? Now, if they had gone for the whole enchilada with 1280x1024 for each screen, resulting in 2048x1280 in total screen estate, I would have been impressed. As it is, it seems to me to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

    EnkiduEOT

  • Wept for Joy? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rblancarte ( 213492 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:20PM (#3787498) Homepage
    You need to get out more. And becareful, you see that hot, bright yellow disk in the sky? We call it the sun. Don't look at it and don't stay out in it too long.

    When the mainstream manufacturers start making these - THEN get ready for a drop in price, until then...

    RonB

  • Is it just me...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <marktNO@SPAMnerdflat.com> on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:20PM (#3787501) Journal
    ...or was anyone else expecting to see a laptop that had two *FULL*-sized displays that folded out of it? This is really disapointing.
    • It's not just you. The 'flip pad' thing had me thinking of a triple fold with a second, full sized display in the middle fold. Now THAT woulda been fun, and more than worth the exorbitant (sp?) price tag.

      This one.. gimmie a black marker and I can make an ugly line down the middle of a perfectly good screen too :P
    • Me too...

      I'd also take issue with "folds up like an old-skool Transformer". It appears to have two hinged halves, one of which also rotates.

      I have very strong memories of transforming vehicles from my childhood and we called things with 2 hinges and a swivel "Go-Bots".

      - StaticLimit
  • Well, I'll tell you what it looks like. It looks like all you have to do is put a piece of electrical tape down the middle and BAM - dual head. Not was I was hopping for.
    • the current notebooks with Geforce GPUs do support 'twin view' so if you got a companion 15" viewable flat pannel, you'd be much more 'impressive' at lan parties etc, especially since you'd be able to game with the thing... and I bet you can get the price under $5,000 too...

  • Sounds cool, wish I could see it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by colmore ( 56499 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:25PM (#3787525) Journal
    Slashdot in effect y'all.

    Being completely ignorant and all, I'll post some questions.

    $5000? What's the justification for that? I know laptop screens ain't cheap, but are the mechanics behind it so complicated that it has to be double the normal price?

    How sturdy does this thing look, I wouldn't want one if it's going to fall apart in a month. Also how easy is it to open and close, a second screen is a wonderful feature (everyone should work on a two-monitor setup just once, you won't want to give it up) but it might not be worth extra weight, shorter battery life, more moving parts, and tedious open and close procedure. One of the great things about a laptop is, you can generally shut it off and stick it in your bookbag (or whatever) in about 10 seconds.
  • The major advantage of this design which they illustrate quite nicely in their photos is that it's ideal for presentations. No longer do you have to deal with trying to navigate a presentation while not being able to look at it.

    Other than that, however, it's not thatgreat. You've got two smaller panels rather than one big one which means you actually end up with less physical screen space. Furthermore, your natural tendancy is to look to the middle of the screen which, in the case of a two-panel display, means you are looking at the joint between the two displays.

    What I'd love to see is a design where it was three panels that folded out. It would make for a very bulky laptop though, so you probably would want to use it as a portable so much as be able to take it from desktop to desktop.
    • > No longer do you have to deal with trying to navigate
      > a presentation while not being able to look at it.

      But you can do that with any laptop that can mirror what's on the screen and what's on the external monitor or projector.

      Generally, if you're doing a small enough presentation where you don't need a projector (1 or 2 people), having them sit on the other side of your screen is pretty weird. It generally works better to have them sit next to you as you run through the slides.

      Being able to independently control an external screen from the LCD do it is nothing new as well. I'm on my fourth PowerBook (a tasty G4 model now), and you've always been able to navigate have two screen independently of each other. I think many of the Dells that share the same video card can do it, but it's a little iffy under Windows 2000 or later.

      I can't really see a use for this, unless you wanted to flip the screens away from each other, hook up an external keyboard and play Battleship or something.
  • Personally I don't want a laptop, I want a computer that I can take from place to place without having to unplug 50 things, only like 3, mouse, power and network ( and have the option for wireless network ). If you are constantly moving around or like to put your computer on your lap then this is probably not a good computer for you, but if you want a computer that you can take to a place and sit it down for like a week straight then this is a good buy.

    My only concern with it is the durability, it doesn't look too sturdy. I'd want to see it in person before buying one.

  • um, ok. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ultramk ( 470198 ) <{ten.llebcap} {ta} {kmartlu}> on Friday June 28, 2002 @12:41PM (#3787614)
    I love running multiple screens on my desktop machine, though. I had 3-20" Trins on my G3 for a long time. Great for flight sims.

    Reminds me of a great trick I played on one of my coworkers... we were required to run a wintel machine on our desks just to access company email--something I could have done with VPC, but nobody would listen to me that I didn't want this ugly hunk of crap in my office, and could do without it.

    So one late night, I hooked the PC screen up to my G4, transferred all the files over to VPC, and made sure the network connection was happy. Then, of course, all I had to do was set up VPC so it was running on the PC monitor.

    To all appearances, both machines were now hooked up and running normally. (though it was somewhat quieter than before!)

    Several days pass. No one notices that I'm only using one keyboard and mouse rather than two. Eventually, a Mac-curious coworker stops by for a chat. He asks how hard it is to move files over from PC to Mac and vice versa. Without skipping a beat, I grab a few files from the Mac desktop, and drag them over to the VPC screen. They copy flawlessly (of course). I showed him how you can move the mouse from one screen to another. His jaw dropped.

    I said I had wireless networking between the two machines.

    m-
  • I know a musician who has made a portable studio out of a bleeding fast laptop an highend external soundcard and a mic with a little tube amplifier, he takes this set anywhere he goes. Usually he goes to the artists that want him to compose the music, because they don't have time to go this his studio.

    I know from experience that running virtual studio on a computer forces you to use multiple displays, I use 3 displays for displaying my cubase sx stuff, which rocks, only thing is they all have different sizes so that's not really handy sometimes.

    Before I read the specs on this laptop it seemed like a great machine to use for music purposes, but then I saw that it used the ali magic chipset, which sucks - at least for desktop computers - if you want to use a lowlatency soundcard.

    I might want to buy it if it had the newer xp processors and an other chipset, but I think I rather buy 3 nice 18.1" lcd screens instead.
  • If somebody can show me a laptop with two 15" screens where one unfolds out and sits beside the other, I might be interested. As it is, this thing looks more like a gimic than a useful tool. Wake me up when there's something worth looking at.
  • That barely meets the definition of dual head.

    Now, give me a laptop that is 3 inches thick and you open the lid and then flip out 2 wings that reveal 3 14.5 inch TFT lcd screens? (oh and add a set of REAL video controllers not this crap we keep getting in laptops) I'll thunk down 10K in a heartbeat.

    and it would be very easy/possible with today's tech.
  • Nobody is going to be drooling over an 8mb video card at a LAN party, especially not some unknown card manufacturer.

    And 13 pounds? No thanks.

  • Image mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Otto ( 17870 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @01:15PM (#3787902) Homepage Journal
    I put up a couple of images from the site here:

    Small animated GIF of how it moves [arczip.com]

    Big pic of the unit unfolded [arczip.com]
  • Alright, $5000 for a 20" LCD on a 1.4GHz Athlon.

    Now, let's see if I can do better (I know I can't beat 13lb).

    Apple Titanium: 6 pounds, 1280x854 15" screen 667MHz *and* DVI out. $2500

    Apple 22" LCD: 25 pounds, 1600x1024 22" screen, DVI in. $2500

    So yeah, you'll have to lug around 31 pounds to lan parties, but that's still lighter than a 17" monitor, and you get 6" of additional screen, cost you the same, get you less processor power, but more battery life, and nearly 3x the number of pixels.
  • *spooge*

    crap[ nowq ,my k,eb0rd *is screw3ed~~!
  • 1536x1024 total is not exactly miraculous- and since pretty much every Powerbook since 98 has had the ability to do "dual head"="extended desktop" or whatever you want to call it, I don't think this counts as ground-breaking. Since there are already machines with 1600x1200 on a single LCD and there are already machines driving a second desktop (which could of course be an LCD) I don't see the novelty. Why, my puny 3-year-old Powerbook G3 drives its 1024 x 768 and an external monitor at 1600x1200 (maybe even higher with a bigger screen, not sure...)

  • Nothing special.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @01:39PM (#3788081)
    From what I could see the usual benefits of multi-head aren't there or intended. The intent is to have a larger screen yet fold into something the size of a small laptop. You cannot change the swivel of each display while in use, so acheiving the surround effect won't be happening. Each display on it's own is pretty small, so having multiple desktops would not be very useful. In fact, I'm not so sure that the video card would report these two displays as separate monitors, they may be transparently represented as one to the graphics card, an LCD which just happens to have a clean split down the middle.

    What we have here is something that aims to have very small folded profile while having a large unfolded profile. The weight and power consumption (and price) make it a bad choice for an everyday portable. The end result is just a display with an ugly separation in the middle, not a flexible multi-head system.
  • Every laptop I've ever owned has had an LCD display plus a VGA output in the back for easy dual-head setup. The only problem is that I could never figure out how to have 2 seperate desktops... ;-)
    • Those were predominately mirrored setups, for presenting. Sharp did make a tiny laptop w/ four mb ram per head, true dual head capable. A friend of mine has one. It works okay, but due to the tiny LCD on the tiny laptop, there's no way to practically get two monitors next to each other to look good, and the only time we've had any major use of it was when using my LCD projector anyway.

      I'd think that an iBook with three displays, two of which slide to each side, would be a much more practical multihead configuration, since 1) there's a center display, which really makes things clean compared to two, and 2) they're small in size but high resolution, so they look sweet. I doubt Apple would build one though, since that would be REALLY expensive...
  • I was wondering what the equivalent size of this dual-monitor setup would be. For those too lazy to do the math, here it is.

    13.3" screen, standard 3x4 aspect ratio, rotated, gives 10.64" height, 7.98" width. So two screens combined, ignoring the gap between, is 10.64" x 15.96" (2x3 aspect ratio). Diagonal size is 19.18".

    So, while the resolution leaves something to be desired, as others have said, this is a bloody big amount of viewable area. 169.2 sq. inch as opposed to 124.4 sq. inch on the sony grx (16" screen), the largest laptop screen I know of... 36% bigger.

  • 1) At 12 pounds, that is one heavy laptop. My old iBook wieghs in at 6.6 and that's a heavy sucker to lug arround with other equipment. I'd hate to lug 12 pounds of laptop.

    2) That split down the middle would bug the crap out of me. If I'm going to pay the money for LCD, I want a smaller split betweent the two screens.

    3) The reverseable screen thing kicks ass

    4) With 20 inches of screen, this is gonna be one pain in the ass to use on business trips.

    5) with 12 pounds of wieght and at 5,000 bucks, those speakers better be good.

    6) Since the screen is one of the biggest power consumers on a laptop (next to the processor) this sucker will eat up bateries reall fast. Espesialy since the battery is rated for 4 hours you can expect about 3 if not less.

    All in all a cool machine, but not currently very practical or an ideal laptop. More like a mobile desktop.
  • I do not know if I would really trust a Dual Head solution from a company other then Matrox. Matrox has been at the dual screen thing for quite some time and they have a ton of the interface wiggles worked out, you would not believe how many ways there are for things to go wrong when you have two displays to operate.

    That and compatibility with existing applications. WTF are programs going to think when they query the display and get back 768x1024!!!! My word! LOL! Many programs freak out if they get anything even SLIGHTLY off from normal, and Matrox has worked good and hard to find various ways to fool a lot of different programs into operating in environments that they would otherwise object too, but here. . . .

    For that matter, what would happen when you go to a webpage (eeew, 768 wide screens, ick, just enough to ensure that those 800x600 minimum pages do not fit!) that is laid out in the standard 4:3 ratio? (like, err, pretty much every webpage out there, heh). With a ton of sites pre-existing to the 4:3 spec, all hell would break loose if you go about and try to screw with that. Imagine a Shockwave Animation trying to maximize itself to one of your displays! Eeeew, stretched vectors! Ick. (Actually I have no idea how Shockwave would handle an unconditional "Take up the Full Screen" command on a non traditional ratio display, but there is a good chance that it wouldn't be pretty. ^_^ )

    How would any full screen DirectX/OpenGL application act though? Unless the screens can be tilted sidewise to get a proper orientation (and the site does not suggest that). . .

  • A better deal (Score:2, Funny)

    by jdhouse4 ( 14603 )
    So, let me see...here we have a machine that weighs 12 lbs, is 3 inches thick when folded up, has 2 16-bit 1024x768 displays, and cost $4,995.

    Consider for a moment 2 Apple PowerBook G4 667's with a total weight of 10.8 lbs, 2 inches thick (stacked on top of each other), 2 32-bit 1280x854 displays, and costing $4,998, $3 more than above.

    Hmmm...tough choice.

    Until you consider I could give one of the TiBooks to some hot artsey-babe. Now what would I get for that? Talk about maximizing one's return on investment. Well, that does it for me!

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