Toshiba announce dual-touchscreen libretto W100 concept PC!
To help mark 25 years of designing laptops Toshiba is celebrating by releasing a limited-edition libretto dual-touchscreen, ultra-mobile concept PC.
The libretto W100 offers a device with dual multitouch displays in a 7.95″ x 4.84″ x 1.2″ case and weighing 1.8 lbs. The full specs of the device includes:
- Dual 7.0-inch diagonal multi-touch displays (1024 x 600)
- 6-mode virtual keyboard with haptic response
- Windows 7 Home Premium operating system
- Intel Pentium U5400 processor1 (1.2GHz)
- 2GB DDR3 memory
- 62GB Solid State Drive
- 1.0 megapixel HD Webcam with Toshiba Face Recognition
- 802.11 b/g/n wireless4
- Bluetooth 2.1+EDR5
- MicroSD card slot
- One USB 2.0 port
- TOSHIBA Bulletin Board, ReelTime™ and PC Health Monitor software
- 8-cell battery
- 7.95″(W) x 4.84″(D) x 1.2″(H) when closed
- 1.8 lbs.6
Toshiba is treating this 25th Anniversary celebration as an opportunity to experiment. Only a limited number of the libretto W100 will therefore be released as Carl Pinto, vice president of product development at Toshiba’s Digital Products Division explains:
We will issue a limited run of the libretto W100. We design our products around the way people actually want to use them, so getting this concept PC out into the hands of early technology adopters will allow us to gather invaluable feedback that we can filter into future product developments.
The W100′s screens can be used together or separately giving you the choice of displaying different apps on each screen, or expanding a document or web page across both. Portrait and landscape modes are available with auto-switching between the two due to the included accelerometer. To support the different ways you can use the W100 Toshiba has included six virtual keyboard modes and a virtual touchpad. Haptic feedback is also available.
Toshiba has also included a few apps to aid with personalization, content previews, and file searching. They include:
Toshiba Bulletin Board
Gives users greater personalization of their desktops with fast access to daily activities, tasks and projects, plus the ability to drag and drop photos, videos, links, documents and application shortcuts into one place.
Gives users greater personalization of their desktops with fast access to daily activities, tasks and projects, plus the ability to drag and drop photos, videos, links, documents and application shortcuts into one place.
Toshiba ReelTime
Helps users easily find files based on when they were opened with a simple visual history. With the flick of a finger, quickly scroll through automatically generated previews of documents, photos, videos and more, filter by file type or use the calendar to go back weeks or months.
Helps users easily find files based on when they were opened with a simple visual history. With the flick of a finger, quickly scroll through automatically generated previews of documents, photos, videos and more, filter by file type or use the calendar to go back weeks or months.
File Browser
Makes it easier to access file folders and applications.
Makes it easier to access file folders and applications.
The libretto W100 will be available in very limited quantities “later this summer”. Your best chance of picking on up is probably through toshibadirect.com, but a few retailers will also be carrying the device. No pricing has been announced yet.
Opinion
To put the size of this device in some perspective lets compare it to an iPad which measures 9.56″ x 7.47″ x 0.5″. That means that the W100 is actually very similar in size when opened as it measures 7.95″ x 9.68″ x 0.6″. Obviously it’s thicker when closed, and has less screen space due to the break between the dual-touchscreens, but is still easy to hold in the hands. The weight is just 0.2 lbs more than the iPad.
Toshiba says it is releasing the W100 as an experiment to see how users react. I’d like to see more of this happening as long as the devices released are final products, otherwise people would be spending hundreds of dollars on a device meant to be replaced when the kinks are worked out. As for what the price should be, it can’t exceed the iPad pricing if Toshiba want it to sell.
It’s difficult to know who this product will appeal to. Splitting the screen in two is likely going to turn a few people off the device, and the choice of OS may or may not be welcome. I suspect Toshiba will get feedback stating one screen would be better than two, and the clamshell nature of the device should be replaced with a tablet format. We are about to get a glut of such devices as everyone tries to compete with iPad.
