Can We Get Past the Traditional Laptop Already?
I watched Microsoft’s Surface Neo & Duo announcements with fascination this week. I knew that the world was inching away from the dreadful clamshell form factor that is laptop computers but Microsoft just shifted that movement into high gear.
It is often said that Apple is in touch with the creative. And judging by artists of all stripes who use Apple products I’m inclined to agree. But I also think that at the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft is equally in touch with corporate professionals. When it comes to office workers all around the world, Windows still rules. And office workers are the forgotten man. To tech journalists and podcasters the world of corporate administration is an alien environment that they have very little understanding of. Those tech bloggers think that office workers are like computer programmers and video editors.
I’m surrounded by corporate finance professionals and most of us travel almost monthly. So I’m sick and tired of traditional laptops. I never use the keyboard and yet I have to lug this heavy Dell beast to meetings or through airports. Adding insult to injury, that freakin’ laptop keyboard that I never use occupies prime desk real estate. I use two 24” monitors at work but I like to have a 3rd smaller screen for stuff like e-mail. That means unfolding the laptop and letting the keyboard intrude it’s nice big 12x12” footprint in front of the real keyboard that I actually like to use.
The permanently attached keyboard is a dealbreaker for me. I want to travel light so I’d rather use a tablet. When the movie, The Circle tried to portray tech in the near future, there wasn’t a single laptop in the movie. You docked your tablet at your desk so that you could use it as an additional screen and when you got up and went to meetings you could use it as your notebook.
I’m surrounded by corporate finance professionals and most of us travel almost monthly. So I’m sick and tired of traditional laptops. I never use the keyboard and yet I have to lug this heavy Dell beast to meetings or through airports. Adding insult to injury, that freakin’ laptop keyboard that I never use occupies prime desk real estate. I use two 24” monitors at work but I like to have a 3rd smaller screen for stuff like e-mail. That means unfolding the laptop and letting the keyboard intrude it’s nice big 12x12” footprint in front of the real keyboard that I actually like to use.
The permanently attached keyboard is a dealbreaker for me. I want to travel light so I’d rather use a tablet. When the movie, The Circle tried to portray tech in the near future, there wasn’t a single laptop in the movie. You docked your tablet at your desk so that you could use it as an additional screen and when you got up and went to meetings you could use it as your notebook.
Microsofts dual-screened tablets looked amazing to me. I felt like the girl in Jerry McGuire who said “You had me at hello”. For the first time, I feel like a tech company gets me. When I travel and end up working out of my hotel, I often try to size my windows so that I can see two applications at once. It looked to me like having dual screens would make this much simpler and be really handy. There are so many advantages to Microsoft’s new hardware that I could write a blog article every day for the next week on why I want a Surface Neo and how it would help me in some aspect of my job.
It’s been reported that during the design of the new Mac Pro that Apple had their designers working in tandem with Pixar movie video editors. When I saw Microsoft’s Surface Neo I thought that perhaps Microsoft did something similar. Because based on what I saw, it’s as if their engineers were working in tandem with some corporate finance department. It’s like Microsoft is really trying understand the way people work today. People who walk around the building, travel, write lots of handwritten notes, need to see multiple apps at once, prefer their own keyboard, or no keyboard, and etc.
My problem with the traditional laptop isn’t necessarily that it’s a clamshell, it’s that one side is a keyboard. A clamshell where both sides are a screen changes everything. You could spread it open on a stand so it’s like two side-by-side monitors. There would be no keyboard jutting out taking up precious desk space. If you want to use it in a car or while standing, you could flip it back as a tablet that is half the size.
Also, I often have multiple sessions of SAP on my computer going at once. It would great to be able to use a dual-screened tablet at my desk almost as two more monitors each with a separate SAP session. I would set it up right next to my full-sized monitors for applications that don’t need a lot of space. Stuff like e-mail or SAP is better in a portrait mode aspect ratio anyway.
And I absolutely loved the flip up keyboard that is there when you need it and out of the way when you don’t. Another way the dual screened tablet would so great is for when you’re sharing your main screen during a Skype session. I have to conduct meetings in this way multiple times during the week and I often wish I could see an application on another screen that won’t be visible to my online attendees. Show me someone who sneers at a dual-screened tablet and I’ll show you someone who never conducts Skype meetings with remote attendees.
I have to hand it to Microsoft, they are seeing where things are going. I wholeheartedly endorse their movement away from the traditional clamshell. I’m seeing more and more grumbling from office workers wondering why we are stuck with these old fashioned tools (laptops). The grumbling started about two years ago and it’s been getting steadily louder. That Surface Neo has me impressed.
It’s like Microsoft said “Let Apple target the 1% group and we’ll take the much larger group of office professionals”. Which makes sense since this has traditionally been Microsoft’s home turf. A turf which Apple has been making inroads as of late. Just like Apple has made a display of shock and awe to show the world that they still care about the creative. Microsoft just staged their own display of shock and awe, to office workers.
Related:
The movie The Circle Kills the Laptop in favor of the Tablet
For Writers, Laptops Make No Sense
It’s been reported that during the design of the new Mac Pro that Apple had their designers working in tandem with Pixar movie video editors. When I saw Microsoft’s Surface Neo I thought that perhaps Microsoft did something similar. Because based on what I saw, it’s as if their engineers were working in tandem with some corporate finance department. It’s like Microsoft is really trying understand the way people work today. People who walk around the building, travel, write lots of handwritten notes, need to see multiple apps at once, prefer their own keyboard, or no keyboard, and etc.
My problem with the traditional laptop isn’t necessarily that it’s a clamshell, it’s that one side is a keyboard. A clamshell where both sides are a screen changes everything. You could spread it open on a stand so it’s like two side-by-side monitors. There would be no keyboard jutting out taking up precious desk space. If you want to use it in a car or while standing, you could flip it back as a tablet that is half the size.
Also, I often have multiple sessions of SAP on my computer going at once. It would great to be able to use a dual-screened tablet at my desk almost as two more monitors each with a separate SAP session. I would set it up right next to my full-sized monitors for applications that don’t need a lot of space. Stuff like e-mail or SAP is better in a portrait mode aspect ratio anyway.
And I absolutely loved the flip up keyboard that is there when you need it and out of the way when you don’t. Another way the dual screened tablet would so great is for when you’re sharing your main screen during a Skype session. I have to conduct meetings in this way multiple times during the week and I often wish I could see an application on another screen that won’t be visible to my online attendees. Show me someone who sneers at a dual-screened tablet and I’ll show you someone who never conducts Skype meetings with remote attendees.
I have to hand it to Microsoft, they are seeing where things are going. I wholeheartedly endorse their movement away from the traditional clamshell. I’m seeing more and more grumbling from office workers wondering why we are stuck with these old fashioned tools (laptops). The grumbling started about two years ago and it’s been getting steadily louder. That Surface Neo has me impressed.
It’s like Microsoft said “Let Apple target the 1% group and we’ll take the much larger group of office professionals”. Which makes sense since this has traditionally been Microsoft’s home turf. A turf which Apple has been making inroads as of late. Just like Apple has made a display of shock and awe to show the world that they still care about the creative. Microsoft just staged their own display of shock and awe, to office workers.
Related:
The movie The Circle Kills the Laptop in favor of the Tablet
For Writers, Laptops Make No Sense
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