A Dual-Screen 10.1" Laptop In Time For the Holidays 104
JoshuaInNippon writes "Japanese computer manufacture Kohjinsha has announced that it will begin selling a 10.1" dual-screen laptop on Dec. 11 — in Japan only. While it is not the first dual-screen laptop, a title claimed by the monstrous 17" Lenovo Thinkpad W700ds series, the Kohjinsha sure looks much more portable and stylish. The Thinkpad's extra screen pulls out slightly from one side for about a 40% increase on its display, whereas on the Kohjinsha's two full separate screens spread out symmetrically from the center. While specs are admittedly lower than the Thinkpad, the DZ series certainly wins on cost. The starting price will be ¥79,800, about $900, in Japan (exporters will likely mark that price up slightly), compared with the Thinkpad at well over $2,000. Kohjinsha says the laptop is great for working on 'large business documents' (e.g. excessively wide spreadsheets), or watching videos while surfing the Web, which is likely what most users will be doing with it. The timing and the price certainly make the Kohjinsha DZ series a tempting toy idea for holiday giving — perhaps to oneself."
Re:More than a gimmick? (Score:1, Insightful)
Dual screens are a lot like garbage disposals and trash compactors for your kitchen: You can get along fine all your life without them, but once you use them, it's just not quite as nice without them. Think of it as a desktop where you can A) spread your papers out or B) have to keep all papers in a single stack. Option A can make many tasks quicker and easier. Dual screens are a nice convenience.
Re:More than a gimmick? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good lord... 1.6Ghz CPU and a gig of RAM will make "doing more than one thing at once ... painful"?? You must have a very low threshold for pain.
I'd love something like that just to have documentation on one screen while I code on the other. Or to have email/IRC/whatever open on one screen while I browse on the other.
Re:It's a Acer Aspire One with 2 screens (Score:5, Insightful)
Specs are 1.6ghz AMD, 1gb ram, 160gb hd, ATI 3200, so it's barely more than a Acer Aspire One with a second 10" screen
I have a Gateway LT3103u and an Acer Aspire One D250-1165 and the Gateway beats the pants off the Aspire... with a 1.2 GHz Athlon 64 L110. Now we're talking about an even-more-capable K8 core at an even-higher clock rate and you want to compare it on a clock-for-clock basis with an Atom processor? I thought we were done with that nonsense some time ago.
Do it in the 11.6" factor and I'll buy (Score:5, Insightful)
The screens are still limited to 600 pixels vertically. Use the ones from the 11.6" version, at 1366x768 each, and I'll be buying one.
I stopped carrying around a 14" notebook because it was just too much to carry around everywhere. A 9" netbook fits the need much better. After playing with someone else's 11.6", I was struck by how much more useful the 1366x768 screen is over a 1024x600 screen (the full-size keyboard doesn't hurt either). If I could have two such screens, which fold up for convenient carrying, I would be all over this.
I have to imagine this will be thicker than a typical netbook, but I could deal with that if the other dimensions do not change.
Mal-2
Re:Ya I fail to see the point (Score:4, Insightful)
By having the two screens split down the middle you can never look at the objects directly in front of the keyboard. You're always forced to look slightly left or slightly right of the divide. This isn't exactly the most ergonomic position for your head. If the secondary screen is off to the side, with the primary screen dead center, then most of the time you will be looking straight ahead (which is a good ergonomic position) and occasionally looking off to the side (say to preview a video).
Re:More than a gimmick? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps I didn't phrase that properly. For tasks that I would actually want multiple monitors for, the specs are rather low, though for things I typically use my own netbook for (mostly web browsing) it's fine. Basically, to me, 2 screens on a netbook is overkill or low powered hardware in a dual screen laptop is not good enough.
You would actually want to code on a 10" netbook form factor keyboard? This is what I was trying to get at - 2 screens are admittedly awesome for tasks like that, but who would want to do those things on a netbook? Well, maybe you would :)