It has been an interesting last 48 hours. Firstly, thanks to British Airways for not killing me. Secondly, thanks to Freescale Semiconductor for voting us Smart Mobile Devices Top Pundit 2010 and thirdly, thanks again to British Airways for not making one third of this award collection posthumous. Breathing rocks.
So it seems apt that I should conclude my Mobile World Congress coverage with something equally out of the blue: MSI’s exciting dual screen netbook prototype. Hidden away in a small covered corner of MWC, it is somewhat similar to the recently canned OLPC XO-2 and, like the XO-2, it swaps out a physical keyboard in favor of a second screen.
The theory behind such a design makes a lot of sense. For all their portability, netbooks and smartbooks suffer when it comes to desktop retail estate and this is one way of doubling it when performing common tasks or surfing the web. Modern LED backlit displays also use up very little physical space, meaning the netbooks can either be thinner or – as MSI suggested to me – use the extra space for fitting a larger battery, since screens still remain one of the biggest drains on battery power.
Despite the potential to be more fragile than a regular netbook, MSI was also keen to stress that toughened glass would mean that wouldn’t necessarily be the case while it would also be more hygienic and offer better protection from spills.
So how was it? In truth, the theory is better than the reality. For while the prototype ran Windows 7 (Microsoft’s most touchscreen-friendly operating system to date), the UI still isn’t particularly finger friendly. Furthermore, the concept’s Atom CPU and integrated graphics struggled to keep up with web page scrolling, and the resistive screen wasn’t responsive enough to facilitate touch typing.
That said, there is no doubt the model has great potential, especially as multi-point capacitive screens become common, haptic feedback improves and prices of screens come down. It could also be something that works particularly well with smartbooks since they tend to use more smartphone (and therefore finger friendly) OSes. Furthermore, MSI admitted that having a virtual keyboard would make international stocking and shipments easier which could go some way towards bringing down the price.
Dual screen netbooks, smartbooks and laptops may not be ready for mainstream consumption yet, but I have no doubt their time will come.
Gordon
