ASUS puts out the Taichi, a two-screened laptop

Dan Seitz Contributing Writer, Tech

Follow @Theta1138 More from Dan Seitz >

Tablets have been what analysts call a “disrupting force” in the PC industry, namely because they’re the one place where people are actually, uh, buying lots of PCs.

Unfortunately, most of those tablets are iPads, and most computer manufacturers are better at making laptops, so we’ve seen all sorts of goofy laptop/tablet hybrids with twisty screens and detachable ones, and other weird ideas.

ASUS’s latest, though, might just take the cake.

The Taichi is essentially ASUS announcing that it’s done goofing around and it’s just going to straight up slap a screen on either side of a laptop panel. Close the Taichi, it’s a tablet. Open the Taichi, it’s a laptop.

It has the, uh, advantage? Advantage is a good word. It has the advantage of having not been tried, when PC makers have been doing just about everything else to get you to buy anything, for the love of God, that isn’t an iPad. The good news is that it’s light and thin, based on ASUS’s Zenbooks, and if you need a fast tablet, this will be a fast tablet: it runs Intel’s Ivy Bridge.

On the other hand, the Zenbooks run between $1000 and $1500, and we can’t imagine adding a second screen will lower that price, so we’ll see what happens once the Taichi launches.

ASUS Unveils Taichi [Ubergizmo]