Dual-screen laptop madness from Lenovo

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 06 January 2009 15:45

Your IT - Home IT

Think of the two most popular laptops trends, namely big screens and small screens. Now put them together and what do you get? Yep, the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds with one big screen and one small screen. Is this genius or simply the maddest laptop ever?

Last year the laptop market became very polarised, you either went large or small. Some people were buying into the big-screen desktop replacement dream with their 17 inch displays or larger.

Huge numbers were doing the precise opposite and taking the under 10 inch netbook route to lappy nirvana as well.

Of course, we then discovered that we are not meant to call these small and cheap sub-notebooks netbooks, because Psion claims to own that particular trademark and has started issuing cease and desist notices.

Now Chinese laptop manufacturer Lenovo has gone and announced what will either go down in the technology history books as one of the greatest acts of design genius, or possibly one of the daftest.

You see the newly launched Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds takes the worry out of deciding which size screen to opt for by providing both, on the one laptop. Yep, a 17 inch screen plus a 10.6 inch screen side by side.

Of course, leaked images and even sneak preview videos have been appearing online for a few weeks now, but at long last the dual-screen ThinkPad is official. Lenovo would like you to think of it as the first truly mobile and truly serious workstation.

The company has a point, as dual screens are commonplace for serious workstation users so maybe bringing the idea into the mobile market isn't so daft after all. 

What are the specs for the W700ds? More on page 2