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What Ideas are Likely to Reach the Market?
Posted by gabriel torres in Notebook PC | Feb. 11, 2009 10:00 AM
In the past couple of months lots of ideas were brought here on WePC.com by both authors and regular users. Here are some of the ideas I personally think have a good chance of reaching the market and becoming a standard feature:
• Webcams with higher quality. This is kind of obvious, as prices of components are always dropping.
• Detachable webcam to be used as a regular digital camera. Today integrated webcams cannot be used as a regular camera because they are permanently attached to the laptop.
• Better cooling system. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I don’t know what solution exactly manufacturers will adopt, but it is clear that something must be done to lower laptop temperature in order to improve the experience of working with them on our laps.
• Sensors to turn the display on or off based on whether you are close to the laptop or not. This would help save battery life.
• An industry standard slot for adding, removing or replacing a video card. The major drawback with laptops is that you can’t change its graphics chip. NVIDIA tried to address this issue releasing MXM, but it didn’t caught on, and also this option was only available for OEMs, i.e. laptop manufacturers, not for general public (even if you have a laptop with an MXM slot you can’t replace the internal video card because you won’t find MXM video cards for selling).
• Laptops with two displays. Maybe they will be confined to a niche market, but I do see a market for this innovation.
• A laptop with two touch-screen displays and no keyboard, with the second display working as a virtual keyboard when needed. Same as above.
• Laptop with detachable display, so you can separate the computer/keyboard from the display for better usage when working on a desk.
What are the ideas you personally think have a strong chance of reaching the market?
None of those personally sound that impressive to me. What I think was a concept many submitted in various forms is a handheld touch type keyboard pocket netbook,pocket UMPC, or pocket laptop. There are a lot of mobile users that want a pocket size computer but not a small palm size computer but more of a modern version of the handhelds of the 1990's like the Psion 5mx or HP Jornada 720's; something long enough to provide room for an integrated touch type keyboard NOT a thumb keyboard yet still small enough to fit in a large inside jacket pocket.
That is an idea that should be created and sold to the market place.
Points 1 and 2 (detachable high quality webcams) would be the easiest to achieve. Points 3 to 5 are a different matter.
The cooling system is a bit tricky but what if we freed up the mobo, CPU and GPU by separating them from the regular display and keyboard of a laptop? That would make it possible for even conventional cooling methods like heat pipes and air cooling to maintain working temperatures.
Proximity sensors riged to turn the display off are really not as practical as having the device detect an idle keyboard.
For point #5 if we're talking about a gaming notebook, i wouldn't mind it if it's huge or heavy just as long as it can run beefy graphics. If the GPU can be upgraded then I'd be in heaven. Maybe we don't need to change industry standards or provide MXM modules. Why not use current standards and modify the architecture of the laptop itself so that it can accomodate expansion or upgrades? Here's one solution i've been thinking of:
http://www.wepc.com/vote/view/dream/5812/Portable_Desktop_II___The_Gee_PC_Gaming_Rig
The rest(dual, detachable screen and keyeboards) would just be icing ong the cake.
I am anxiously awaiting the laser projection LED displays, where you could display your screen on a wall.