Asus ZenBook Pro Duo Is an Extravagant Laptop With Two 4K Screens (theverge.com) 62
Asus always likes to use its hometown trade show of Computex, which also happens to be the world's biggest computer hardware event, to show off a wide and occasionally wild lineup of new products. And it's really outdone itself this time -- the headline announcement is one of the most decadent laptops ever created. From a report: The ZenBook Pro Duo has not one, but two 4K screens. (At least if you're counting horizontal pixels.) There's a 15-inch 16:9 OLED panel where you'd normally find the display on a laptop, then a 32:9 IPS "ScreenPad Plus" screen directly above the keyboard that's the same width and half the height. It's as if Asus looked at the MacBook Pro Touch Bar and thought "what if that, but with 32 times as many pixels?"
Unlike the Touch Bar, though, the ScreenPad Plus doesn't take anything away from the ZenBook Pro Duo, except presumably battery life. Asus still included a full-sized keyboard with a function row, including an escape key, and the trackpad is located directly to the right. The design is very reminiscent of Asus' Zephryus slimline gaming laptops -- you even still get the light-up etching that lets you use the trackpad as a numpad. [...] Asus has built some software for the ScreenPad Plus that makes it more of a secondary control panel, but you can also use it as a full-on monitor, or even two if you want to split it into two smaller 16:9 1080p windows. [...] No word on pricing yet.
Unlike the Touch Bar, though, the ScreenPad Plus doesn't take anything away from the ZenBook Pro Duo, except presumably battery life. Asus still included a full-sized keyboard with a function row, including an escape key, and the trackpad is located directly to the right. The design is very reminiscent of Asus' Zephryus slimline gaming laptops -- you even still get the light-up etching that lets you use the trackpad as a numpad. [...] Asus has built some software for the ScreenPad Plus that makes it more of a secondary control panel, but you can also use it as a full-on monitor, or even two if you want to split it into two smaller 16:9 1080p windows. [...] No word on pricing yet.
Meanwhile (Score:2, Funny)
Crapple MacBook Amateur has a shiny Emoji bar. Use it to create... twitter posts.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Do not need tactile feedback for touch typing (Score:2)
You actually need the tactile feedback of individual keys which move separately in order to touch-type.
I don't find that to be true at all, in using other keyboards that have either been totally flat or virtual, I find I'm able to touch type just fine. What really matters is that you develop muscle memory as to where keys are located, then you can pretty easily hit them without looking based on hand position on a device.
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Also a virtual piano keyboard would have fit right in
Uh would have? I guess you didn't scroll far enough to see the second picture then...
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Uh yeah, that's why I mentioned it!
Then you wrote really confusingly. "would have" is an odd thing to say for something that actually happened.
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The context was the drawing, FWIW, which is why the paragraph continues with comments about what they were digging back then. Sorry if that wasn't clear...
Oh OK. Well, sorry I was dickish about it!
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>"There's no numeric keypad, for starters."
According to the article, the touchpad on the right of the keyboard has a light-up numbers feature that turns it into a keypad, at will. Of course, for some people, this won't be acceptable (flat, no feedback), but it is a pretty nice feature for many. Most people don't use the keypad at all (I am not one of those, by the way- I love me some 10-key).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Disappointing... (Score:2)
Love it (Score:3)
To me, the Apple thing is pretty much gimmick. But THIS is a fantastic use of the "wasted" space that is typically in front and behind the keyboard of most widescreen laptops.
If it would run Linux great, I would be interested, if the other screen really is a second "head." Run it as two monitors that could be easily changed from extended/combined or separate X screens. The lower screen would be great for watching videos, looking at system monitoring controls, or even as a huge/tall taskbar (panel) for KDE, so no space on the top screen are wasted... think of the neat widgets that could be placed on it.
And since this 15" model is huge/heavy, the article mentions Asus will make a smaller/lighter/less expensive 14" model, too! Great job!
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Ya, but that wasted space was where I put my post-it notes!
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The lower screen would be great for watching videos, looking at system monitoring controls, or even as a huge/tall taskbar (panel) for KDE, so no space on the top screen are wasted... think of the neat widgets that could be placed on it.
I could place the world's largest pager on it to have 40x10 virtual 4k screens.
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The lower screen would be great for watching videos, looking at system monitoring controls, or even as a huge/tall taskbar (panel) for KDE, so no space on the top screen are wasted... think of the neat widgets that could be placed on it.
Totally with you on this. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted one. With the 8 core it'll probably still be way cheaper than a MBP. This actually looks useful for me as a dev.
How is Apple's thing not as useful??? (Score:2)
To me, the Apple thing is pretty much gimmick. But THIS is a fantastic use of the "wasted" space
On my laptop the "wasted" space is used by the trackpad that sits in front of the keyboard., which I think works pretty well compared to setting it elsewhere...
I think Apple's solution here is really more practical, how much space do you need on a screen that is not primary? The touch-bar on a Mac laptop can be configured with pretty much any controls, and fits pretty naturally in with keyboard controls - with t
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that could be
Yes there are a lot of wonderful possibilities, but every time I see a design like this with a very idiosyncratic feature, no matter how good that feature is, I say to myself, "How the hell am I going to find a Linux distro which will support this in an LTS release?"
A feature like this means Windows, and using the manufacturer's proprietary software on top of that. Probably very bad proprietary software, which will be feature-poor and supported only for the short lifetime of the product. And, because we
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>"I say to myself, "How the hell am I going to find a Linux distro which will support this in an LTS release?""
In this case, if they implemented it as just a separate video head (which is very probable), then no special software should be needed. That is one reason I think it is neat. Multihead in Linux/X has been a "thing" way longer than in MS-Windows.
Chop off the upper screen altogether. (Score:2)
Add the two screens together and we are back to 5:4 screen ratios.
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Honestly, it reminds me of the TRS-80 Model 100 [wikipedia.org] from the early '80s. The Model 100 had a 30:8 (3.75:1) aspect ratio screen and the Asus has a 32:9 (3.56:1) so it's actually quite similar.
dom
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Even better, make the top screen dockable/removable. That would be slick. TRS-80 Model 100 when you want it, more normal laptop experience for sitting at a conference table or whatnot.
Hell, while we're dreaming, make the detached screen usable as a standard tablet with its own ARM processor/storage/battery... it could even communicate wirelessly with the base for storage sync while detached.
The screen on the keyboard part could have a nice digitizer as well.
Why not detachable side monitors/tablets? (Score:1)
Making physically attached multiple monitors on a laptop never made sense to me. It always seemed better to make a single simple design and allow the user to attach a screen as needed.
I thought it'd be great if an iPad could be attached and turned into a second display. It might need a connector, but WiFi might have the bandwidth for it.
Other than, a folding portable monitor could be useful for traveling workers.
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Bellboy! (Score:2)
I was hoping for something like the mirrors on a mod scooter.
AMD? (Score:2)
Does it come with Zen2 + Navi? If not, then don"t care.
Pretty cool (Score:2)
While the far-right trackpad would drive me nuts, the setup is otherwise pretty neat! Aside from the piano keyboard they showed, I imagine you could have a wide number of interesting input techniques for character-based languages, math/formulas, and maybe even a WP 5.1 keyboard shortcut map...