Toshiba Libretto W100

Sometime back when the ipad popped out from Apple’s stable, I kind of wished something like this was offered by Apple instead of the current ipad. I think the ipad is beautiful but it’s just not really a useful device.

The Liberto “looks like” it has its basics correct. There are two touch screens, you can use either as an input device and you can use the whole thing as a conventional laptop with a virtual keyboard on one of the touch screens. Smart and ideal. Except that the device looks a little too bulky for it’s size and definitely uglier than the ipad. Personally we would prefer something thats got a 15″ display on each side to work and play with.

http://www.timeline-studios.com/blogs/2010/02/concept-grid-with-tablets/

A concept I had with the dual screen tablets, probably some fodder for those who are actually developing these things.

Tablets in Grid mode. One gets 10 screen space (assuming that the screen borders are minimal) and 5 processors.

Today, in the fast developing craze over ipad and earlier over iPhone, we have somehow forgotten Apple’s first try at building a hand held computing device that did not do so well in the market. It did have a host of features including a fully functional hand writing recognition which was fairly good by existing standards in 1998 when it’s development officially was shelved.

The Newton Handheld platform was only followed by the modified OS X platform for the iPhone 10 years later.

Newton (platform) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Just a tribute to a pioneer. Not to forget what came first and where the “Pad” of ipad actually comes from. Probably just sentimental for Apple.

MessagePad 2000

Here’s another Tablet in the market, hitting it a wee bit before the ipad, sometime in December 2008.

Since it’s a prototype the Adam’s casing here is not what the final design will be; in fact this was hand-made especially for showing the tablet at CES. The eventual hardware will be 14mm thick (Rohan said they could even get it down to around 12mm) with a reasonably minimal bezel, packed with the 10.1-inch Pixel Qi transflective display, a capacitive touchscreen eventually capable of recognizing six simultaneous points of contact, integrated WiFi and 3G. Thanks to Tegra 2 the Adam is 1080p capable, with an HDMI port to output to an HDTV or projector, and while the OS they’re showing today is bare Android they’ve a new UI in the works complete with a replacement on-screen keyboard more ergonomically designed for large-touchscreen use.

- Slashgear

Read the rest here. Notion Ink Adam hands-on via Notion Ink Adam hands-on – SlashGear. Notion Ink is based out of Hyderabad and the product design is carried our by Ether Design very much in Bangalore.

Notion Ink, Adam. Image courtesy - Slashgear

Tablets in Grid mode. One gets 10 screen space (assuming that the screen borders are minimal) and 5 processors.

The idea maybe a little over the top, but things should aim at heading this way.

Well this might be a little too early to say as I may give in to the looks and the design of the ipad sometime soon as soon as its stable and available in India, but I still have my doubts over the whole Tablet concept.

We all wrote on a paper with pen a little more than 2 decades back when Bill and Steve started selling us stuff so that we hit keys instead of flaunting a Pen. In came a PC and then a Laptop. All that was to replace and make stuff easier for us to handle. Little after this Apple got in the Newton and we all loved it, it could schedule and recognize handwritten stuff and let you even scribble aimlessly, and then faded into oblivion.

Then came the Tablet PCs/Laptops which had this screen that swiveled and frankly thats what was the weak point. Sooner or later, they would become lose, wobble etc.

And we are back to the ‘no physical keyboard’ era again with iPhones (and it’s million copies from LG, Sony, Samsung etc.) and now a larger one in the ipad.

But the basic is missing. The ease of having a separate Input and Output device makes like a lot easier. physical memory takes care of the rest, much like the stick shift in a car. QWERTY was perfect.

Hence This. A two screen solution is probably a way to go.

Dual Screen tablet

Although Gizmodo has revealed something similar by Microsoft, I would rather wait for the Apple one.