Lenovo announces dual-screen Thinkpad
Research Triangle Park (NC) – Lenovo today announced the world’s first dual-screen notebook, which may give the idea of a mobile workstation or business desktop replacement notebook new meaning. The Thinkpad W700ds adds a slide-out display to the system’s main 17” screen to duplicate a desktop dual-screen environment. The privilege of owning one of these notebooks comes at a price – in terms of weight, battery life and money.
The Thinkpad team has had fantastic ideas to enhance the usability of its mobile computers in the past – we especially remember the Thinkpad’s butterfly keyboard in the mid-90s. But few of these ideas actually survived and we are not sure whether the dual-screen notebook approach has the potential to last.
Lenovo’s new Thinkpad is designed as a 17” mobile workstation that is 0.5” thicker than its W700 predecessor and hides a 10.6” slide-out display in its lid. The main screen offers a resolution of 1920 x 1200, the smaller screen (which can be angled towards the user) 768 x 1280, which is about 40% of the screen real estate of the main display. Realistically, the 768 pixel width is not enough to comfortably browse web pages or to edit text documents, presentations or large spreadsheets. In everyday use, the display may be limited to secondary applications such as instant messaging, video calls or emails.
I knew this would happen, just wondered when.
Does Lenovo sponsor this site?
Seems silly if you ask me.
@3
Know one asked u….goose!
Most of us that read this kind of news know about it… why did you post this anyway?
lenovo products are huge pos
Music production, 3d editing, too many uses for it…
@5 Bob
man you seem self-obsessed… but at least you answered your own question when you correctly stated that not everyone (i'm paraphrasing here) reads "this kind of news". hence the post.. duh!
How 'bout a toilet with an extra handle?
Its kind of inappropriate in my opinion. Its more so a gimmick feature than a function feature. I mean do you really another screen to IM video calls and email? Its a bit ridiculous.
This is really good idea.
One monitor for programming, and other for real time preview.
Or music production, as said above.
3D gaming.
Various things, like in-home dual-view.
And if one panel dies, you will always have another.
But how good is the slider, because of constant push-pull?
+1 for "toilet with an extra handle"
An extra handle AND a backwards flush…..
Too bad they didn't work on the battery technology (Tesla Electric Cars did some work in this area that might help - http://www.teslamotors.com/ … 100% electric sportscar, that's just cool, getting power from Coal, not so much so).
"There are plenty of reviews of the W700ds already available on the web and it appears that this system is not exactly as mobile as your average notebook. Not only is it bulky and heavy, its battery time is also well below two hours - if both screens are used. The battery times published in the reviews we have seen range from about 95 to 110 minutes with a standard 9-cell battery."
(from the TGDaily Article link posted - http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/40813/145/)
I have to agree, seems like a good idea, however, the resolution really kind of sucks. Don't see how you'd get much done at all, but I like where it's going. Perhaps in the future, two 14" screens can come out, one from the left, and one from the right, and they can both have a resolution of 1440×900, 1280×1024, or something similar. Then it'd actually be worthwhile. And I'd also be concerned about the longevity of the product because of the pushing/pulling, and the weight of the slide out monitor would also seem to make it less of a long-term product. It's a good idea, I'll give them that, but I think there's two things they need to fix first. One, is to add some weight to the left side of the laptop to help even it out (if they haven't already), and two, they need to make the screen a tad bigger. Since it's a laptop I would say a 14" @ 1440×900/1280×1024, should be sufficient.
Oh, another thing I was wondering, it's really quite useless if it doesn't have a good graphics card. I mean, I've see a $1,000 laptop struggle trying to hook up to a second 19" monitor, and it's expected because a dual-monitor display demands quite a bit from your graphics card. Although, the fact it's only a 10" monitor with a 768×1280 resolution, I would expect it really doesn't need that much. I'm interested in trying one of these out to see how they work.
oh wow sliding screen screen what a pointless attachment to waste power on when you could just connect to normal screen.
they should add extra mouse pad next just to make it even more pointless
AWESOM-O do you always carry a normal screen with your laptop? THAT IS THE POINT. Not to have to find/use/plug a normal screen!
thing is most people use there laptop indoors extra screen would reduce battery life making it irrelevant
only people use laptop outdoors are for bussines purpose and would not need extra screen so it still is completely pointless
@AWESOM-O if your using a laptop indoors why would you worry about battery life? especially if as you say it's plugged into a normal screen…wouldn't you need mains power for the normal screen? so you could use it for the laptop as well..
though I do like the idea I agree that the second screen is really to small to be of much everyday use.
LOL @ 2
WOW this has to be the most blatant dumbest advert ive ever seen… why all these lenovo adds? no one here buys anything.
@7
No, there are no uses for it. Its stupid. There is not enough room on there to keep an application open and USEABLE for, i quote "Music production, 3d editing"
Lets see. hmm ok so we have pro tools open in the main window and Reason open in the tiny POS second screen…oh wait…the resolution sucks! i cant see much of it! oh wait, this laptop is USELESS for music production!
This is so freaking stupid. If you are going to have dual screen, it needs to be the SAME FREAKIN SIZE.
Well that looks like a pointless waste of time.
All the possible uses one can think of are better done with a desktop setup and not commonly done "on the move". Hence this silly gimmicky idea is bound to fail.
But, one cannot rule out the idiotards completely. Look how they've made the pathetic iPhone a success story!
CAN U SAY CRAP?
This is a product that only apple could sell. Its like walking around with a notebook and a netbook.
I think this should have stayed as a prototype. It's an interesting idea, but probably not one that's going to catch on. This will be limited by battery life, so in all likelihood you'll be plugged in to the mains power. If it's also heavier and bigger than a normal notebook then it's not as portable so you'll be sitting at a desk. It's like having a normal desktop computer then. It might be useful for business usrs who travel around a lot, but then a normal notebook does exactly the same job, for less money. I'm not really sure what niche this product fits into… Maybe technophiles who need everything, regardless of how useful or efficient it is.
Er.. wokai. Now, let's say I went to a store to buy an awsome notepad, why this one? It still looks, feels and weighs like one from years ago, oh but wait, theres an additional screen. Er… wokai. I'm not quick on judgement, so, it's touchscreen right? For designers, they can install a palet and easily pick colors from the whole colour prisma or select another brush. What do you say? It's nót touchscreen. So basically it's a notebook, with, ok, pretty good performance, but it has been to Westcoast Customs to get a rearviewmirror TFT in it. There is really no actual good use for it. Excuses to expand your enviroment, just get a multidesktopswitcher application and spend your money on better stuff. Like a HP Tabletpad.
Lenovo DS
Then again, before Nintendo released the DS,
hardly anyone believed in it.
Me included.
Maybe two screens is the way of the future.
Hmmm, I'm now thinking of starting my own blog with Lenovo adver- erm, *reviews*. Tell me, Martin, do they pay well? Weekly, biweekly or monthly?
As for this monstrosity, the only way to make it more ludicrous would be to add a sliding ashtray to the front. Lol @ arguments of serious music/3D production with anything like this on the go; get a clue plz.
who needs such crap? Is it going to be like with those crappy shavers, who adds more razorblades/screens?
No kim, I don't seem self obsessed nor am I!
This news was posted on numerous sites… it's not news anymore. If he wants to write news then he should write about something useful for watching movies… like the Lenovo A600… or news Twitter or The British problem of privacy violation… not some useless crap about and overhyped and overexpensive laptop. And judging by the later comments, people seem to agree, it's crap!
i think this is a great idea. I use a dual monitor setup for work everyday. Although it reamins to be seen how usable it in this form really is.
I think it's a great step in the right direction. Having only one screen sucks, even if it's only small it'll still be nice to have someplace to put winamp, editpad, AIM, etc. As for the whiners, well some people will complain about anything.
Come on, you can never have enough desk space.
@15
Two things:
First of all it would literally be required for both monitors to have the same pixel height for the "side-by-side" configuration you're thinking about, or else the workspace would be uneven.
Second, this laptop has a Quadro FX 3700 (the workstation equivalent of a 9800M GTX, the fastest laptop graphics card known to man) so yeah it can handle plenty.