For those used to multi-monitor setup and use a laptop just for portability, Compal Airttach is reason enough to rethink traditional setups.
A laptop offers the promise of portability that drives many users to choose the proven and useful gadget. Sure, you lack the convenience of having many monitors, but if nothing else, you are more agile. Who says you can't have the best of both worlds - the portability of a laptop and the versatility of a multi-monitor setup on the go?
A concept that seems to come out of science fiction
The concept proposed by Compal, a Taiwanese parts manufacturer, is called Airttach: and it not only brings the appearance of compactness into a multi-monitor setup with a laptop, it does more.
This concept effectively reinvents the overall perspective of a multi-monitor setup and offers the freedom for increased productivity. I have no difficulty in imagining a future full of these gadgets (provided that other forms of use do not take hold, such as those based on virtual reality ed increased). This laptop has a 13-inch main screen with angled edges, and the ability to merge two other 13-inch displays for a widescreen screen with an aspect ratio of 48: 9.
One laptop, three tablets
When not needed, the displays on this multi-monitor laptop can be removed for a seamless workflow. The feature I like the most is the ability to use these extra screens as standalone tablets. In the concept, both additional screens are equipped with their own stands, so they can be used both vertically and horizontally: and with quick wireless connection.
Compal Airttach's main laptop screen is borderless, as are the secondary displays. When all three are connected, the system becomes a single, large panoramic screen - not bad, isn't it? At the end of the work, everything is put away in the space of an A4 sheet: more compact than this you die.
For someone who has converted (thanks to Covid) to a multi-monitor laptop system (I have a laptop with two screens), this Airttach seems too good to be true. And in fact it is not true. At least not yet.
The Airtach is still in the concept phase and it will be interesting to see the details when Compal releases a prototype and hopefully a commercially viable product. In case, however, I expect the Airttach to make a hole in my chest: the hardware and technology needed to make such a laptop will be far from cheap.
