Dell's 'Dual Personality' Laptop 126
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."
Re:Where have I seen this before... (Score:2, Informative)
The Sharp Mobilon TriPad PV-6000 from more than a decade ago had a similar form factor. It ran Windows CE and had 16 MB of RAM.
http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Mobilon-TriPad-PV-6000-Handheld/dp/B00000J1AG [amazon.com]
Re:Dimensions? Weight? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure this is meant to be an iPad killer... it's meant to give you the option of using your laptop(/netbook) like a tablet if you want to do so.
And iPad cannot be used as a laptop, even if you want to do so.
It would not be much of a shock if the battery life of a netbook is about the same as other netbooks, nor much of a shock if the weight of a netbook is heavier than that of a big iPhone :)
Re:Where have I seen this before... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's nothing new (Score:2, Informative)
It does, and it uses that proper input to emulate mouse movements which every app for the past 20 years has been written to expect on Windows.
When you start running apps with UIs designed for touch and not a mouse, then you can stop using touch as if its a mouse emulation layer.
Current apps are not designed for touch so having OS support means nothing.
Re:IBM did it first? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Duo (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Solving the wrong problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where have I seen this before... (Score:3, Informative)