Intel crams four displays into one PC Intel has upped the ante concerning the number of displays fitted into a laptop, by powering a machine with four separate screens. Intel_fourscreen_laptop_01 Intel's Tangent Bay concept laptop has three OLED screens Credit: Crave Laptops with small secondary screens integrated into the keyboard half aren’t uncommon. But …
I can't really see much point to this.
I miiiight be useful if you had a load of gadgetry and widgets on the Windows sidebar and wanted to offload them to a separate tiny screen next to your keyboard but I don't know anyone who actually has the sidebar turned on.
Maybe to display stocks and shares or something?
If they can be programmed to display what you want.
Graphic equalisers, scratch pads, racing games, ventrilo, links to websites for MMO players to see if it's worth bashing a particular mobs head in or to stock markets for those more financially informed.
Course it could turn out to be completely pointless. I reserve judgement.
guarantee they'll have some uses in games assuming the developers code for it... flight sims with extra instrument panels, racing games with side/rear mirrors, MMORPG's with statistics and chat windows just to throw a few ideas out.
WoW already does similar with the logitech G15 style keyboards.
You could do some good stuff with this but you would have to be brave enough to rethink some of the user interface - not something that most windowing systems really allow.
f'rinstance, all the the big display is used for active work and all menus, pop-ups and messages on the little'uns. Like function keys only you can see what they do.
Given the coservatism of most application developers it is doomed to highly customised stuff helping UPS drivers and traffic wardens.
those who cry "what's the point in so many screens?" clearly aren't power users.
I have 3 widescreen LCDs on my work machine, and it's still not enough for all the systems I'm managing and monitoring.
At home I have 3 LCDs, and a projector (cloned off the centre screen). Middle screen is used for central activities (movies, games, net etc.) while my two 'wing mirrors' are used for utils such as volume control, music players, task manager, download managers etc.
So, yes, I can see a point to more screen acreage.
As for battery? OLED screes are significantly more efficient than LCDs, and running them constantly would have less impact than accessing a CD/DVD for just a few minutes.
No, where I become sceptical is the touchscreen element. Not entirely sure how well it would work on a screen that small. Even the Iphone has a bigger screen than that, and touch only JUST works.
You would have to be very careful designing the UI.
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