Dual-screen foldable laptops feel like the future, but the future needs a little more time in the oven. The main question mark around them is that of ergonomics — the signature keyboard and touchpad of any laptop is basically a necessity for getting stuff done. So what happens when you get rid of them in favor of a giant screen?
Well, Digital Chat Station has shared a new leak that a company (heavily hinted to be Huawei) is working on a new idea in this area — ditching the bundled keyboard that comes with foldables today and replacing it with a virtual on-display keyboard with linear motor haptics.
Integrated into the bottom half of the device, this motor would (on paper) replicate the tactile feel of pressing keyboard keys, and allow for an ultra-thin laptop shell like the Huawei Matebook X Pro. It will also run on custom silicon, which would mean Kirin if we follow the subtle signs that point to this company building it.
My take: a damn cool idea, but does it work in practice?
So let’s cut to the chase. I’m confident that the foldable tech you see in phones like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 6 will become the next thing for laptops. At the moment, we’re very much in that discovery phase — from big foldable displays like the HP Spectre Fold that are cool but questionable in durability and price, to far more functional dual-screen laptops like the Asus Zenbook Duo that don’t necessarily have the same wow factor.
But one thing all of these different ideas agree on is the need for the real tactility of a physical keyboard and touchpad. You can get away with typing on a screen on something like a smartphone because the length of time which you do so is usually a lot shorter. For a laptop, however, you could be spending hours typing away, and that’s why the ergonomics of this are so important.
And that leads me to red flag number 1: will the haptic keyboard provide enough of that feeling of depth to make this actually usable for long periods of time? I’m not so sure. And what about the touchpad? The touchscreen interface is good and all, but flipping between typing and tapping is just not as fast as having your thumb on the touchpad ready to navigate.
Then, there’s red flag number 2. You may remember I tested (and fell in love) with the — quickly turning into the best laptop that most of you can’t buy because of Intel and Qualcomm being banned from shipping chips to the Chinese tech giant.
That means if Digital Chat Station’s heavy hinting towards this being Huawei’s handy work is correct, we’re looking at an in-house solution and by extension, possibly the company’s own interpretation of a desktop OS to finagle around the restrictions placed upon it.
And while the company does make some great phones like the tri-fold Mate XT, their fatal flaw has always been the neutered OS not having access to all of Android’s services. Now imagine that on the scale of a laptop…doesn’t sound good.
But a lot of this is me taking a hard turn into Speculation Station. On paper, it’s clear that laptops are moving in this direction, and this is another more innovative method to get there. Let’s just hope the company sticks the landing.
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