On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 9:36 PM, Jeffrey Kesselman <[email protected]> wrote: > Interestingly enough... e ink screens CAN fold. They are just too slow for > general tablet use.
Nintendo DS has a pretty decent two-screen solution, but it runs an OS and apps designed for two screens -- touché. -walter > > > On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 9:33 PM, John Gilmore <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> [Summary: 2-screen laptops need fairly deep software support because 2 >> screens don't look like 1 screen. I excerpted freely below; see >> the link for the entire story. --gnu] >> >> http://www.afr.com/f/free/technology/digitallife/g_ZWzfPcJsePV9VdQfxY9w1H >> >> Sony's tablet a good idea gone wrong >> PUBLISHED: 30 Mar 2012 >> >> The best thing that can be said about Sony's new $729 Tablet P is that >> it means well. >> >> The central idea that must have led to the construction of the Tablet >> P -- that iPads are too large -- is pretty sound. iPads are too large, >> at least for a lot of users (the staff here at the Digital Life Labs >> included), and at least for a lot of applications. >> >> So, yes, Sony was trying to solve a genuine problem when it came up >> with the Tablet P, a tablet that folds in half so you can slip it into >> your pocket or purse, that's light enough to read e-books on >> for hours without your hand cramping, and small enough that you can >> use it as a camera without looking like a total tool. >> >> The trouble was, they couldn't make it happen, not with >> today's technology. To have a tablet fold in two, you either need one >> screen that folds in two, or you need two screens with absolutely no >> bezel, so that one screen blends seamlessly with the other screen when >> they're placed side by side. Neither of those technologies are >> available today, so all Sony's engineers could come up with was two >> screens, each with a modest 4 mm bezel that, when placed next to the >> other bezel, creates a whopping great 9 mm-wide black bar right in the >> middle of the display. (The other millimetre is the gap between the >> displays, which can be quite irritating if there's light behind the >> display, shining through.) >> >> Now, that wouldn't be completely fatal if the Tablet P were running an >> operating system that knew how to handle two screens with a black bar >> and a sliver of light in the middle of them. But the Tablet P is >> running Android, and neither Android nor most Android apps have a clue >> how to use the dual display. >> >> Some apps on the Tablet P, chiefly the ones Sony has rewritten >> specifically for the device, work quite well. The email app, for >> instance, uses one screen as a virtual keyboard, and the other screen >> as a display, when you're creating emails. When you're viewing emails, >> one screen is used to list the items in the inbox, and the other >> screen is used to preview the highlighted item. >> >> But trouble arises when you use apps other than the ones written to >> cope with the black bar. Most apps will just curl up into a ball and >> display only on one of the two screens. Neither of those screens is >> very large, so you end up with apps displaying little bigger than they >> would on a mobile phone. Worse yet, they're both very long and narrow, >> far more so than many apps seem able to cope with, and as a result >> many apps won't even fully utilise the one small screen they're >> on. Amazon's Kindle app, for instance, an app so well written that it >> can usually cope with any screen you throw at it, uses only 83 per >> cent of one screen, and zero per cent of the other. Almost 60 per cent >> of the Tablet P's display is left blank. >> >> It's such a pity, because a tablet that folds in two is such a good >> idea. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about the Tablet P is >> not that it means well, but that it's simply ahead of its time. >> _______________________________________________ >> Devel mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > > > > > -- > It's always darkest just before you are eaten by a grue. > > _______________________________________________ > Devel mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
