Tablets. Laptops. Peanut butter and jelly, right? In fact I’d argue that’s been the case from the start, so much so that I’m as surprised now as I was when the iPad first arrived two years ago that we haven’t seen a vanguard hybrid from a company like Apple.
I’m betting there’d be huge demand for such a device once we topple conventional thinking about keeping these two form factors separate. Wouldn’t you rather not have to choose between your predominantly casual-use tablet and a more work-angled laptop with a full QWERTY keyboard? (Assuming “work” involves typing more than 20 or 30 words a minute, accurately, as well as manipulating pixels precisely in ways stubby-ended fingers never will.)
Intel just demonstrated such a creature at IDF 2012, a prototype hybrid Ultrabook dubbed “Letexo” based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge platform that runs Windows 8 and uses a sliding screen. Tom’s Hardware says it can transform three ways: into a tablet (screen flush to the casing, keyboard completely hidden), into a touch-based all-in-one PC (screen slides up at an angle, keyboard still obscured) and into a full-on Ultrabook (screen slides to the back, keyboard fully accessible).
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The Android-based Asus Eee Pad Slider comparisons are obvious, but the latter’s screen only slides halfway up the chassis, thus it uses a cramped keyboard. The Letexo prototype’s screen, by contrast, can slide almost to the case’s edge, offering access to a full-sized QWERTY keyboard with palm rests. And unlike other hybrids, there’s no awkward screen rotation. It’s also said to include an HDMI port and at least two USB ports.
As Tom’s Hardware rightly notes, consumers aren’t flocking to the Asus Eee Pad Slider, instead opting for Asus’s Transformer, a tablet that can be used with an optional standalone dock. Apple’s iPad offers a similar standalone keyboard dock, something I’m personally familiar with because my wife and I bought one for her mother this Christmas as a testbed replacement for her parents’ desktop computer — so far, so good.
But some of us using Apple laptops and watching iPads fly off store shelves — I know I’m not the only one — have probably glanced at our MacBook Airs or Pros and wondered why those lovely Apple LCD screens couldn’t be replaced by actual touch-based tablet technology, with either a sliding (like the Letexo) or some sort of detachable mechanism. Who wouldn’t pay a little extra for a MacBook whatever, say, to be able to slide down or detach the screen and boot up iOS?
The only reason I haven’t picked up a tablet yet, is that my smartphone does most of what an iPad would otherwise. Adding a discrete third device to the mix (fourth, if you count my 3DS or PS Vita) starts to feel unwieldy. How many devices I have to carry has been on my mind since the mid 1990s, when mobile phone and computing applications began to merge. I’ve always viewed my operational computing bubble in those terms, not as a gadget laboratory where I’m splitting what I do across four or five or half a dozen devices. And I’m always thinking about what I have to take with me when I’m out, since I’m often on the move.
Tablets are in process of becoming far more than just “the casual computer you use on the couch” or “in bed” or “at family get-togethers.” I’ve been convinced since the iPad 2 debuted in 2011, for instance, that it or any number of competing products could eventually replace game consoles as well as set-top entertainment center boxes and interface, wirelessly, with all your other home devices, transmitting wireless video, say, to your big-screen TV or letting you interact with cutting-edge games using a wireless controller.
In the meantime, in anticipation of that, I’d love to see Apple take a stab at melding the iPad and MacBook families, combining the versatility of OS X with the tote-ability of iOS. I’m oversimplifying things, of course, but when I look at my laptop’s screen these days, I see a potential twofer technology. I don’t really want two separate tablet-sized screens in my mobile work/play life anymore. And with Intel’s Letexo, I’d like to think we’re getting a look at where that concept is headed next.
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