Notebook Computer with Secondary Display
December 25th, 2008
Would you be interested in an 11 pound notebook? That is a LOT of weight to lug around.
Here’s a thought. Why doesn’t someone manufacture a cheap, super-thin, lightweight mobile 15″ LCD display? You can buy a 17″ LCD for $99 on NewEgg. Why aren’t companies manufacturing cheap, thin, “mobile LCDs” that you can easily slide into a notebook bag to take on the road?
A normal notebook plus a mobile secondary display would offer these benefits over the Lenovo computer:
- Cheaper
- Lighter
- Gives you the option to travel with or without the secondary display
- You could choose a big or small secondary display
This seems like a completely untapped market.
The first thing I thought of was the power issue. Ideally a secondary monitor would be powered off the USB… and suddenly LCDs are out, unless you are prepared to carry another power brick. The $99 monitor you point to for example eats 28W and weighs in at 7.5lbs.
Possibly closer, but now discontinued is http://eu.shuttle.com/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-546/554_read-10495/, a 17″ display with a handle, which was at least designed to be carried around, but only as part of a LAN party rig.
With those kind of weights though it would probably be possible to justify another laptop… Imagine having an option on a laptop where if you hold down a key at boot it goes into “USB displaylink monitor” mode. Plug it into your main laptop and *pow* external monitor. (And the extend the idea, the second laptop could also have a “autoclone” mode so you’d also have a backup of your main machine on the hard disk….)…
While I’m all for options, I don’t really think this solution will have a very long shelf life. There comes a point in time where you draw the line between portable and not portable. This seems to be the latter stuffed into the former. If I really needed more real estate on the go, I’d tug along a cheap lcd like you mention.
Wait, why not sew the secondary screen on the laptop bag? Throw in a backup battery as well (sewed into the pocket)
Call me crazy, just because it can be done doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.