Original URL: http://www.reghardware.com/2008/12/23/lenovo_w700ds/
Lenovo preps dual-display Frankenlaptop
3,353,088 pixels, at your service
Word has leaked out that Lenovo plans to release the world's first dual-display laptop at next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES [1]).
Not since Ray Milland had his head grafted onto Rosey Greer's body in 1972's The Thing with Two Heads [2] has a more unlikely two-headed beast been seen in the wild.
And "beast" is not an inappropriate descriptor. At 16-by-12-by-2.1 inches and 11 pounds, the Lenovo W700ds is a hulking heavyweight - but there's a lot of hardware packed into that prodigious poundage.
First and most obvious are the two LCD displays gracing the W700ds. The main display - placed where you'd expect it to be - is a 17-inch, 1920-by-1200, Widescreen Ultra eXtended Graphics Array (WUXGA) display. So far, normal - if impressively large.
Sliding out from the right side of the main display, however, is a vertically oriented 10.6-inch second display, with a 1366-by-768 Widescreen eXtended Graphics Array (WXGA) resolution. We'll do the math for you: between the two displays there's a total of 3,353,088 pixels.
The W700ds doubles up on these double displays with twin bays for hard drives or Solid-State Drives (SSDs), as well as two built-in input devices: a standard trackpad and a Wacom digitizer built into the right side of the palm rest.
Although Lenovo has yet to list all of the options for the W700ds on its website, one report claimed [3] that it will be available with a quad-core Intel Core 2 processor - possibly the QX9300 [4] - and Nvidia Quadro graphics - possibly the FX 3700M [5]. We add "possibly" because Lenovo hasn't responded to our requests for clarification. Their media-relations staff appears to have begun their holiday breaks a bit early. Possibly.
One display for your work, a second for all those Photoshop palettes
Although pricing for the W700ds has not been officially announced, various web reports place it somewhere between $3,000 and $3,600 - although we'll have to wait until CES to find out what accoutrements come at what price points. One assumes that, pound for pound, it won't be cheap.
While a two-display laptop might be overkill for most users, picture a videographer in the field or a digital photographer on remote assignment, and you can understand the allure of all that extra pixelage. Besides, any content-creating professional who can afford this beast will also be able to afford an assistant to lug it around. ®