Two new dual-screen laptops from Compal showed up at the IF Design Guide Awards website this week. And they present two different approaches toward how a dual-screen laptop should work.
It’s unclear if either will come to market anytime soon. But Compal is a contract manufacturer that builds laptops and other devices for a number of the world’s largest PC makers.
The Compal Duo360 is basically a traditional notebook-style device, except there’s a touchscreen display where you’d normally find a keyboard (and a detachable leather keyboard that can cover it when you want tactile feedback while typing).
That detachable keyboard can wrap around the laptop and serve as a protective sleeve when the notebook is closed. And it can flip behind the notebook for safe keeping when you’re not using it.
While the second screen can give you extra space for viewing content, it can also function as an input device, allowing you to write or draw on the lower display without covering the top screen. The Duo360 supports pen input and there’s a loop in the keyboard cover for storing the pen when it’s not in use.
One image on the IF Design Guide website also shows that you could flip the screens so the computer stands up like a tent, allowing two people sitting across from one another to see the same content during a presentation, for example.
The second dual-screen Compal laptop is called the Compal Duo360 X, and it adds one key element to the mix — a kickstand that lets you set up the computer as if it were a dual-screen desktop computer.
By standing up the computer, you get two 13.3 inch displays stacked one on top of the other. This can help put the upper screen at eye level (higher than a normal laptop screen), and/or to give you twice the screen real estate you’d normally have.
In this mode, you can either keep the detachable keyboard connected to the bottom screen or move it to a more comfortable distance from the screens and use it as a Bluetooth keyboard.
Again, there’s no word on if or when either dual-screen device will be available for purchase or how much they might cost.
Compal is just throwing everything at the wall, hoping something will stick.
I think there’s a little more to it than that.
There seems to be an industry-wide push for dual screen laptops and they all seem to have those weird detachable keyboards, some of which aren’t actually keyboards but keyboard shaped stylus arrays. And it’s not like there aren’t some practical applications for it.
The duo360 could be the best version of the concept I’ve seen so far, if there wouldn’t be any adverse effects to just closing the lid on top of the keyboard (which people ARE going to try to do no matter how much you tell them to take it off and put it back on the bottom first) and the keyboard doesn’t wiggle around and the keyboards are cheap because they’ll break much more often.