If you don’t deviate from the norm, you won’t discover the next great thing. As we look back at the laptops of 2023, we see that many are simply redesigned, an approach that already works. But what happens when companies explore designs that may not be the most appealing today, but may lead to new trends tomorrow?
You may end up getting a computer that many, if not most, people are currently not interested in purchasing. But it could also be a glimpse at designs that will influence future laptops.
The laptops we’re about to review buck the trend in some way, and we’ll be interested to see if they impact the laptop industry in 2023 and beyond. We also look at the challenges these ideas may face in the future. How they can improve.
Lenovo laptop with dual 13.3-inch screens
Depending on the number of secondary screens already built Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i looks impressive, but its inclusion in a laptop was a somewhat expected advancement.But lenovo actually We did it on a regular PC with most of the bells and whistles you’d find on a traditional high-end laptop. With an improved form factor and a design that addresses practical use cases, it will not only be imitated. small company already sells such laptops), but it also aims to make the folding screen laptop concept a good value for money.
With dual 13.3-inch OLED screens, the Yoga Book 9i doesn’t make this list just because it’s creative, flashy, or unique. That’s because, as we detailed in our review of the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, it’s proven to be an effective way to increase the amount of multitasking you can reasonably do on a 13-inch-sized laptop. Lenovo’s revisions to how it uses its 13-inch chassis could improve options in the future for many people looking for that golden area between ultra-portability and productivity potential.
The Lenovo laptop’s cumulative 26.6-inch screen allowed me to do some frustrating, if not headache-inducing tasks on a single 13.3-inch panel. Want to take notes on a video call while monitoring your news feed, opening a chat window, or keeping an eye on your email? All of this is incredibly easy to do on a laptop with two full-size screens. It can be processed. And that PC is easier to carry than a laptop or portable monitor.
What’s next?
Dual-screen setups are great for multitasking on small laptops. However, the dichotomous lack of an integrated physical keyboard and touchpad poses challenges to the longevity of this form factor. While easily accessible touchscreen controls are convenient, a touchscreen can’t replicate the reliable tactility and comfort of a keyboard or touchpad. A highly portable laptop can suddenly seem difficult to carry around if you have to remember to carry accessories with you.
Still, I think this design is well-suited to an increasingly mobile world of computing. Reflections are especially distracting on dual-screen laptops, where one screen can cast reflections on the other, so future designs could be improved with less reflective screens.
Moving away from OLED could help improve battery life to some extent. However, as you might expect, a laptop with two 13.3-inch OLED displays isn’t going to win any laptop battery life contests. Furthermore, it is questionable what kind of price improvement can be achieved by discontinuing OLED.
However, many creative laptop designs these days are opting for OLED. The reason is OLED’s high image quality, flexibility, and wide market appeal from mainstream technology implementations such as OLED smartphones and TVs. This poses a continuing price hurdle for already niche-leaning laptop designs.