Dual-Screen SpaceBook Laptop Up for Pre-Order

Just when we had decided that a single-screen 17-inch laptop was too big and heavy, along comes this GScreen SpaceBook with two 17.3-inch displays.
You might have seen this behemoth before (or others like it — seemed to be a fad in 2009), but now it’s up for preorder at prices starting at $2,395. Unfortunately, the company’s being coy about the size and weight of this thing, both of which turn out to be the key numbers.


Look at the spec list for the two models featured on the GScreen website, and notice what’s missing:


While GScreen is apparently trying to hide those size/weight specs, we dug up some info from the Mashablearchives when this product was first rolled out as a fascinating piece of vaporware back in August, 2009. Here’s one number: It’ll weigh approximately 12 pounds. Come to think of it, I used to tote around an anvil-like “mobile workstation” that weighed about two pounds less than that, and it served me well for hundreds of thousands of miles with nary a backache.
Mind you, we don’t even know if this is exactly how much this laptop will weigh, and we’re still wondering if it will fit into the typical laptop bag. Those two screens slide together to form a package that has to be relatively thick, but nobody’s telling us exactly how thick that’ll be.


Is 12 lb going to be too heavy for you? Think about it: How much weight are you willing to bear to get yourself two spacious monitors on which to do your complicated work? We do a lot of graphics and need multiple screens in our work here, so we’ve grown accustomed to using three and sometimes four monitors at a time. Whenever we’re using a single 14-inch screen on a laptop, it feels positively cramped.


We’ll have to try one of these SpaceBooks before making a final judgment, but because of our multi-screen addiction, the extra size and weight just might be worth it. Meanwhile, we’ve contacted Alaska-based GScreen, asking for specific dimensions and more than just this one picture and a couple of old ones an early prototype. Until we can see multiple views — and get assurance that this long-announced but never-before-seen product actually exists — we’ll remain skeptical.