Intel's UrbanMax slider laptop concept unveiled at IDF
Intel appears to be firing on all cylinders at IDF. Besides whatever surprised they have planned for tomorrow, the chip-maker rolled out a prototype of a convertible laptop / tablet / MID / UMPC / netbook / super-gadget called the UrbanMax. There's not much in the way of specs on the device, but as you can see from the photos, it utilizes a combination sliding / tilting screen to transform into any variety of configurations. The display is a resistive touchscreen, though it's not clear what the guts are made up of here. The whole thing reminds us of a giant Tilt, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. One more pic after the break.
[Via jkkmobile]
[Via jkkmobile]




















Looks good and I like the concept of a laptop/umpc-slider/tablet. Of course I'd like to see the internal hardware to see if it's a real winner.
Holy guacamole Batman an oversize OQO PC!
Looks good, now we just need the specs, the price and whether or not it will be released in the US.
Of course after looking at the Gateway, I have to keep saving since the "just a reader" is getting more stuff to drool over
That thing is beautiful... Brought a tear to my eye *sniff*
whoah, that's pretty sexy (especially compared to that xo competitor they made a while ago). I'm assuming it has WiMAX?
Why is it that Intel comes up with excellent industrial design concepts and then the OEMs output ugly junk?
I'm glad they also made it tilt. It would be very difficult to read while touch typing if it only slid.
indeed. except for lazy couch sessions. its perfect for that with or without tilt :) i still need to master thumb-typing though...
Wouldn't it be really uncomfortable to type on that keyboard while holding it?
Well only if you walked around while you were typing, which would make you look like a complete fool.
Oh my god! It's super sexy. It appears to be running Vista, from the bottom picture.
Yep....
Well I dunno who or what "unvieled" is but this one's looking good.
I would be worried about destroying the screen when storing the gadget.
This thing looks really nice.
Clearly, it needs a second person to hold it up while the first types, considering the ridiculous size of it.
Personally, I don't want to be standing on the bus asking a stranger to hold on to it so I can quick shoot off an email to someone.
Nice concept
um...i'd say it's more like a shift then a tilt....though maybe more useful/popular
can u tilt the screen .. like laptop ? if yes then this is superb ..
but hopefully its price wont be above 1500$....
Looks gorgeous, although hideously impractical. Besides, I've yet to see an app that actually has practical benefit from a touchscreen. Even on the iPhone, it's more of a space-saving feature than an application-enhancing interface.
It's a shame Intel don't actually release any of these things. They could be a hit in the consumer electronics market (but then, I suppose it would hurt Intel's relationships with OEMs. As it is now, Intel makes way too much money from OEMs to risk that sort of behaviour).
Too true. WANT
Haha, that thing looks ridiculous.
Sexy! But.... Still a bit big 4 me...
Yeah, that's what she said.
Sorry, I really had to say it.
looks awesome.
C'mon Engadget, keep the Tablets coming.. no whamies no whamies.. STOP!
I like the form factor, and it looks cool but...
I am not a fan of resistive touch screens, touch is now seeing it's second (third?) wave of poularity, because in certain implementations (I don't need to say it do I?) it is quick and intuitive.
Resistive touch is sluggish, cumbersome and unresponsive!
there are so many other ways to implement touch, I fear intel chose this because it is cheap, but will sucker in the fad hoppers.
What is the point of this? Buy a Tablet PC? Seriously, a slide out keyboard?
$
Is that the HTC Touch Pro XL?
OMG its an giant iPhone *¬*
The iPhone uses a dual core ARM processor.
Windows isn't portable enough to run on ARM.
This is not an iPhone.
...Quick addendum-- Windows mobile obviously runs on ARM-- but on the desktop, Windows relies on binary third party drivers for pretty much everything, and Vista is a desktop operating system. Vista does not run on ARM. I also suspect that there are many source level bugs throughout desktop windows drivers, such as endian-ness assumptions, that would keep them from working on ARM, which no one ever catches because no one's /trying/ to run them on ARM.
It's an obscure technical merit of----
Oh wait, you weren't thinking nearly that hard when you left your dumb comment, were you?
This is nothing like the iPhone.
Get off the internet.
(I hate how text doesn't tell you if someone's joking or not. Please use sarcasm tags.)
looks allot like the HP 1100 from a few years ago. Even though the HP didn't slide, it was a tablet like that.
Seriously, I hate to say this without any explanation, but this is the stupidest design I've ever seen in my life.*
-Carl
* Yes, this is hyperbole, but that doesn't make it any less true.
Hey, no fair! I wanted to make the "Giant Tilt" comment!
I wish I had a system monitor for my brain that told me when I needed sleep. I don't get tired until long after I need to go to bed.
That is to say that I think my frontal lobe just committed a massive fail and i'll see you fine folks in the morning.
(It was totally obvious that the dude /was/ joking, and I don't know how the heck I didn't catch that.)
More on topic, Intel, that looks great, keep moving forward. I especially love how all these lines between different kinds of devices are just getting blurred all over the place. Used to be phone, laptop, desktop, etc. and now it's like phone, smart phone, really smart phone, MID, not-so-M-ID, ultraportable, veryportable, notebook, mini desktop, kinda-mini-desktop.....
It's a testament to the pervasiveness of computing I guess.
Looks like a slightly redesigned HTC Shift. In fact the keys look like a complete rip off of the Shift keys, which are ok but certainly not great.
looks like a giant ppc
[borat]Is verry nice[/borat]
If it has the power to run CS3 Suite and 3D Max and Autocad as well as the Orange Box (with the ability to plug in a mouse) it would be sweeeeet.
If it were a wacom based screen I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Fantastic for using graphics apps beyond the artrage and sketchbook pro. Everything else I use (maya, zbrush, photoshop) relies heavily on access to the keyboard at all times, and on a regular convertable tablet pc this is just to difficult. You either have it in laptop mode and its a pain to draw on, or in slate mode where you map the 5-way button as best you can, but you always need a bunch more keys.
Cmon intel, active digitiser and slidey slidey keyboard for the animators please!
How is this innovation?
This is nothing more than an enlarged slider cell phone...
I can see the sliding screen getting snapped off. Still neat looking.
To all the idiots calling it an oversized slider phone. Look at these extra pics and shut the hell up. http://www.itechnews.net/2008/08/19/intel-urbanmax-concept/
Hopefully they'll actually release this concept instead of making it just to say they can.
To all the idiots calling it an oversized slider phone. Look at these
extra pics and shut the hell up.
http://www.itechnews.net/2008/08/19/intel-urbanmax-concept/
Resistive touch only? Did you guys miss the N-trig pen & multitouch versions???
very nice design, hopefully it will be affordable
This would be perfect as a Home Automation, finger touch activated, input device depending on how it would stay powered and what stand -is/would be- available for semi-permanent table top use. It would run our HomeRunner application perfectly.
I like it. Wonder what the price would be?