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One of the reasons some folks avoid netbooks is the smallish keyboard. I wonder why no manufacturer ever made a diagonal framed keyboard, moving some of the non-core keys to the top or bottom of the core keys. A diagonal chassis orientation allows more space for keys although the screen hinge would have to be replaced with a semi-detachable screen on a fold-down swivel rod mount of some sort.
With a 9"x9" square chassis shape, the screen resolution could also increase to a more typical 1024x768 size instead of the non-standard 1024x600.
Uh, where would the screen be, exactly? That looks like it would be heavier, clunkier, more fragile, and most importantly, more expensive.
The screen would lie flat over the keyboard area when closed. When in use, the screen would be tethered/semi-detached and swivel-mounted in the hole shown above the keys area. With well-designed cable wrap, it should be no more or less fragile. With smaller case vs keyboard size dimensions, width would decrease while length would increase. With similar netbook contents, any weight increase would likely be minor. With increased length, the screen could have better resolution (1024x768) than current netbooks (1024x600) and batteries could be flatter, reducing overall height.
The Mac TriBook concept netbook looks impressive. On the downside: (1) price (2) weight and (3) with a 10" wide standard notebook style chassis, the keyboard will inevitably be small and too cramped for comfortable use (for many people).
After playing around with the diagonal design, I decided this one would be more compact and more practical:
Last edited by Tennis702; 01-20-2009 at 07:11 AM..
Click the small pictures to the right to see how small this is when folded. I'm sure some brilliant engineer/designer could come up with a good adaptation.
If your keyboard layout is 20% less wide than a normally-oriented keyboard, how does that address the problem of the keyboard being "smallish?" Personally, I couldn't deal with the backspace key being so far from where it normally is, nor the arrow keys being way up at the top. And where does someone rest their hands while typing? The diagonal layout looks uncomfortable in that regard. And yeah, the screen hinge would be a major problem.
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