David Flynn21 October 2008, 2:20 PM
Touch-friendly tablet sports slide-out keyboard and inbuilt WiMAX. Is this the shape of notebooks to come?
Auto makers delight in rolling out concept cars at the world’s major motor shows, and Intel has adopted the same approach at its Intel Developer Forum techfests. The difference is that Intel’s concept PCs aren’t nearly as ‘out there’ as their four-wheeled counterparts – they merely showcase existing if leading-edge technology in new ways, with the aim of exciting the market and spurring PC makers to evolve the platform to commercial availability.
At this week’s IDF in Taiwan, Intel mobility chief Mooly Eden unveiled the latest ‘what if?’ notebook. Dubbed UrbanMax, the 11.1 inch touchscreen tablet runs Windows Vista and Microsoft’s touch-friendly Origami tablet overlay. It’s built around a low-voltage Core 2 Duo processor and Intel’s high-performance
solid state drive module, and as the name indicates it also sports integrated WiMAX and Wi-Fi courtesy of Intel’s combo Echo Peak wireless mega-card.
There’s no 3G HSDPA, because 3G doesn’t fit into Intel’s WiMAX-centric vision, although it’d be easy enough for an OEM to drop in an integrated 3G mini-card.
What’s cool about UrbanMax is the clever keyboard fitted under the touchscreen on a slide-and-tilt hinge. For those times when you really need to type rather than use the stylus, the keyboard slides straight out to sit under screen but on the same plane. It can also be fully extended and swung down to create a pseudo-desktop with the keyboard sitting flat on a desk while the screen stands angled back slightly. The prototype systems currently have around four hours of battery life.
“This is not something we’ll take to the market” says Eden. “We explore opportunities with our partners and say ‘Guys, let’s go and do something fascinating, and it’s up to you’. I believe two years from now I’ll show some systems which will be the grandchild of this product.”
David Flynn visited IDF Taiwan as a guest of Intel