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Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

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Laptop design doesn’t have to be boring. Although often laptops look exactly as we expect them to look like, there is a number of design solutions and approaches which are completely different — unusual, creative, beautiful and damn useful. In fact, over the last years designers came up with a number of interesting concepts which have somehow stuck between the prototyping stage and the production stage. Nevertheless, much is possible. And this post is supposed to prove this point.

Below we present innovative laptop designs and laptop concepts. Many of the products listed below are prototypes and aren’t available yet, and it’s unknown whether they’ll be released over the next years. However, they give us an idea of what we should expect from laptops over the years to come.

You might want to take a look at our posts

Siafu

The Siafu concept notebook, designed for the blind by Jonathan Lucas, omits a display altogether. Images from applications and Web sites are converted into corresponding 3-D shapes on Siafu’s surface.” [ via PCWorld ]

Braille in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Cario

Cario notebook from Anna Lopez can be carried around by its handle, positioned like an easel or placed on a car’s steering wheel. When the car’s not in motion, the Cario can project maps, video conferences and more onto the windshield. [ via PCWorld ]

Cario1 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Cario2 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

MacTab

MacTab
Being portable, MacTab is the complement to MyBook in the high-end. The thin wireless keyboard is used as a protection cover for transportation. On the back of the computer a hinge allows it to be put in a vertical position so you can use it on your desk.

Mactaba in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Laptop-06 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Sungjut TangoX

Sungjut TangoX Nano UMPC has a DVI output and a detachable, integrated Skype phone. Weight: under 1kg. Unbelievable. [ via Gizmodo ]

Lp in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Dialogue’s Flybook V33

Dialogue is going to release the Flybook V33i series with a laptop screen which can be moved across its axis. A nice alternative to a static laptop screen we’ve seen over the last years.

Dialogue-2 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Dialogue-1 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Vaio Zoom

The Vaio Zoom notebook takes everything we know about holographic technology and squeezes it inside a thin glass form factor. When off, the screen is completely transparent and the keyboard goes opaque. Turn it on and the touchscreen holographic festivities begin. Even the mouse buttons are holographic! [via Gizmodo]

Vaio1 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Vaio2 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Music Stand Laptop

Music Stand Laptop
Use the pedal to turn digital sheet music or just touch the screen. It also throws in some computer functions by allowing on the fly scoring, note taking, and collaborative writing. When you need a real computer, a keyboard slides out from underneath the screen and use the foot pedal as a stereo to enjoy the music you just played. Designed by Sungho Lee.

Clef2 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Clef5 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

LG e-Book Laptop

LG e-Book Laptop Concept
LG introduced e-Book, an ecological laptop concept that uses fuel cell batteries and features organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology. This concept notebook received a Red Dot Award nomination for “Best Concept Design”.

Laptop-11 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Compenion

Felix Schmidberger’s Compenion laptop has a OLED touch screen. The computer itself has an OLED touchscreen, where you can directly work on, much like with a umpc or pda. The whole screen is a slider, as it can be moved forward to reveal a second OLED touchscreen underneath, where you can have a keyboard or working controls, similar to a setup with 2 monitors.

Laptop-23 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Purity Notebook

Purity Notebook: right now the in thing with notebook computers are clean lines, and minimal design features. The Purity Notebook takes that to the extreme but manages to throw in a few of its own unique touches like the high lacquer finish.

Laptop-14 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Zenote3 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

MacBook 0801

MacBook 0801 is a laptop concept by Isamu Sanada. The keyboard is transparent and ultra-thin.

Laptop-05 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

08 Macbook in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Wood Laptop

Laptop Made Of Wood. Yes, that’s right, wood. Nevermind the weight and horrible heat insulation characteristics of the material, it’s supposed to look refined and sexy, at which it does.”

Laptop-21 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

DesCom

Sung-kyu Nam’s DesCom laptop integrates into the desktop surface. And what do you have to do once the laptop is dead or should be repaired?

FM

Laptop-10 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

ThinkPad Reserve Edition

Lenovo/IBM’s Thinkpad is coming back, in a new outfit: Thinkpad reserve edition. The laptop’s components are separated; dual-monitor can be placed on the surface allowing multiple people to observe what’s happening on it.

Sl in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Satellite Navigation Laptop

Satellite Navigation Laptop is Nikita Golovlev’s concept for travelers. Using an e-ink display, the ‘Traveller’ is a GPS enabled navigation system for pedestrians. The design incorporates an internal drive for storing any photos you take along the way and will tag the with GPS data, so you know just where you took them.

Laptop-15 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Solar Notebook

Solar-power laptop is supposed to save you the trouble of charging batteries by plugging them in. The notebook is powered with the help of powerful batteries that are recharged by wide Solar Panel attached to the computer (currently offline).

Laptop-59 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Haier’s Laptop/Tablet PC

Haier has announced a laptop/tablet PC which folds down into a tablet, replete with handwriting recognition and has a 8.6-inch widescreen tablet display. Price: $4,790.

Laptop-42 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Folding Multi-Display

This laptop has a folding multi display which is supposed to be used as a server. Expected to be available in 2008.

Laptop-43 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Axiotron’s Tablet Mac

Axiotron’s Modbook, the MacBook-based, Wacom-modified laptop is the world’s first OS X tablet. Price: $2,290.

Macbook-better-pic in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Gelfrog

For its annual design issue, The New York Times wanted to include a futuristic laptop for teenagers. The project’s main thrust was to re-think the future of education and then construct a laptop that would best deliver that vision. The end result is The Gelfrog, a dynamic, portable device concept that enables new educational experiences without sacrificing the need for individuality.

Laptop-24 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

myBook

myBook might be the lightest portable Mac ever. Small, light and semi-rugged, It roots deeply in Alan Kay Dynabook’s dream. The touch-sensitive screen is readable in bright daylight thanks to the use of a new transflective generation of LCD screen. The screen rotates 180°. In that position, keyboard and trackpad are inoperative and the screen goes in portrait mode.

Laptop-19 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Mybook2 in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Last Click

Handle-it for Black 13″ MacBook…
That’s such a simple design, but so useful and nice. This Mac-handle is constructed of aircraft aluminum, so it will make sure the laptop doesn’t fall down when you carry it around. Price: $49.99.

Appler in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

The Laptop Family
No, that’s not a new concept, but it looks incredible. From Apple Powerbook 180 with Mac OS 8 to iBook g3 with OS X 10.4. “This is an actual photo. Every screen is showing exactly whats behind it – relative to the camera, which was on a tripod. The most difficult task was to convince the old powerbook 180 to show a simple jpeg. Netscape Navigator 3 did it.”

Macs in Slick Laptop Designs and Concepts

Vitaly Friedman, editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine (www.smashingmagazine.com), an online magazine dedicated to designers and developers.

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  1. 1
    Edwin
    March 31st, 2008 3:15 am

    Awesome!

  2. 2
    Nikna
    March 31st, 2008 3:53 am

    Nice post.

    btw. those laptops on last photo are not all from mac family :) at least second one seems to be IBM

  3. 3
    Fredrik
    March 31st, 2008 4:01 am

    Nice!

  4. 4
    Arthur
    March 31st, 2008 4:07 am

    Intel had a pretty sweet laptop concept too, check out http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/intel_mobile_metro_notebook_3.JPG
    There’s more if you google “intel laptop concept”

  5. 5
    Ben Jacob
    March 31st, 2008 4:19 am

    Concepts. Concepts… Concepts.. Only Concepts every where.. But not stuffs alive.
    Any way the capability of its designers must be reputed !

  6. 6
    Pete
    March 31st, 2008 4:42 am

    I love that final picture. The multi screen laptop looks pretty cool all be it a bit ugly compared to the others though.

  7. 7
    Farishta
    March 31st, 2008 4:50 am

    wooooooowwww ! thanks for this article, i was wondering where researches were to improve our comfort ! Those prototypes make me now very impatient hahahahaa

  8. 8
    Marius
    March 31st, 2008 5:06 am

    Nice, but ineffective for me.

    How can I code on that ?

  9. 9
    Hill
    March 31st, 2008 5:08 am

    The handle isn’t all that great. After awhile the magnet used to keep the Mac closed becomes very sensitive, so when you grab it by the handle it the laptop flies open. The Mac Tab and Zoom Vaio are sweet though!

  10. 10
    Dannie Jost
    March 31st, 2008 7:53 am

    lots of sweet designs – i can not quite warm up to handles on a notebook… like i can not warm up to the idea of handles in a book… a bag is a bag, a notebook is still in the book category, it goes in the bag.

  11. 11
    Newton Calegari
    March 31st, 2008 8:00 am

    Post muito bom!
    Very Post :)

    I Love Smashing Magazine :D

  12. 12
    VTFootballGrad
    March 31st, 2008 11:10 am

    There allot of awesome new ideas. I know someone with one of the super skin notebooks and hasn’t really liked it so far because it doesn’t function as well as a normal book.

  13. 13
    Naveed
    March 31st, 2008 11:59 am

    GREAT.,,,,,i wish i gud have that MAC one.. awesome

  14. 14
    Steve
    March 31st, 2008 3:29 pm

    Some of those are really impractical. Do you know how hard it is to type on a keyboard where the keys aren’t raised up?

  15. 15
    hanoi
    March 31st, 2008 6:29 pm

    Nice post, see it, and never have it

    I wish …

  16. 16
    Sajid
    March 31st, 2008 11:52 pm

    Hey readers can anybody tell me the URL of that Hosting Site which was advertised in top banners few days before ?? Thanks in Advance…

  17. 17
    dancelady
    April 1st, 2008 2:29 am

    These Laptop designs are awesome

  18. 18
    Shane
    April 1st, 2008 3:44 am

    Amazing stuff. The future is certainly going to be very interesting.

  19. 19
    Saulo
    April 1st, 2008 6:55 am

    :-o Woo!

  20. 20
    Dylan
    April 1st, 2008 7:16 pm

    I don’t think I would trust carrying my 1500 dollar Macbook with a handle.

  21. 21
    Ara P.
    April 3rd, 2008 1:52 am

    cool!! awesome concept!! i wanna get one :)

  22. 22
    sauravh singh
    April 3rd, 2008 6:02 am

    coolllllllllll

  23. 23
    fr33mumia
    April 3rd, 2008 4:05 pm

    holy cow..very very kewlll concept design (applause)

  24. 24
    Robert Marbun
    April 3rd, 2008 5:38 pm

    great!
    smashing mag should give one of those for free

  25. 25
    Loren
    April 3rd, 2008 7:14 pm

    touch screen laptops are so cool, but I bet they would be hard to use.

  26. 26
    Suli
    April 7th, 2008 12:05 am

    Don’t you think “sleek” should be used in the title instead of “slick?”
    Definition:
    - Sleek: (especially of hair, clothes or shapes) smooth, shiny and lying close to the body, and therefore looking well cared for; not untidy and with no parts sticking out

    Anyway, great article! Love the Vaio design!

  27. 27
    jstokes
    April 7th, 2008 2:23 pm

    I will try this out. But I just spent some money on some icons at malltropolitan.com

  28. 28
    John
    April 8th, 2008 6:38 am

    I know Most stores have started carrying them now. I believe I saw something similar to the 2nd laptop and at a great deal too at malltropolitan.com though I can be too sure. One can also buy these things too from the manufacturers if one chooses to.

  29. 29
    stewie griffin
    April 10th, 2008 3:18 am

    About DesCom: Once it’s dead or needs repairing un-integrate it! And once you’ve done it – you’ll enjoy a nice shelf while your machine is being fixed :)

  30. 30
    ovlet
    April 15th, 2008 2:26 pm

    the ‘folding multi display’ laptop isnt even a laptop. Its a rackmount keyboard, mouse and display for a rack mounted server.
    Do you even do any research for these articles or just use google images?

  31. 31
    zero
    April 18th, 2008 12:28 pm

    excellent

  32. 32
    harinderpal
    April 20th, 2008 10:09 am

    awesome models

  33. 33
    lepi__
    April 28th, 2008 5:03 am

    me likey

  34. 34
    Sarunas Mikelevicius
    May 27th, 2008 5:01 am

    One thinkpad for me! :)

  35. 35
    kirit
    June 4th, 2008 2:34 am

    What amazing designs

  36. 36
    laptop
    June 9th, 2008 4:53 pm

    a good read.

  37. 37
    paresh
    June 14th, 2008 12:38 am

    nice post, what a sexy looks.

  38. 38
    Natovr
    June 15th, 2008 6:56 am

    EXCELLENT! I love the first one the best — if only they can find a way for it to show colour :)

  39. 39
    phanichalla
    October 7th, 2008 6:20 pm

    awesome ….awesome … totally awesome ..

  40. 40
    adit
    October 27th, 2008 3:19 am

    wwwooooaaaaaaaaawww…
    awesome laptop design i have seen.

  41. 41
    Celina Gomes
    October 29th, 2008 2:31 am

    Wow! these designs are beyond imagination.

  42. 42
    kalyan
    November 25th, 2008 9:53 pm

    I am totally impressed with all the designs…
    Hats off to Human Intelligence….
    World Expect much more out of you folks… Keep going..

  43. 43
    morgan
    December 31st, 2008 2:27 pm

    People don;t even know what to invent now. But when they come out I will buy each one of them. I know I’m rich! Actually i’m billionare. So fetch. That means awesome in London. So cool my friends. If your lesbians, it’s much better.

  44. 44
    Abhi
    January 2nd, 2009 2:45 am

    Its amaging lapy pictures ,
    I fall in love with These laptops
    Thx 4r showing these lapy

  45. 45
    Gian
    January 9th, 2009 11:35 pm

    wow!! can’t wait for the future! XD

  46. 46
    gatotwibowo
    January 14th, 2009 3:57 pm

    Nice post and thanks.

  47. 47
    Thompson@Cheap compu
    February 18th, 2009 9:56 pm

    This sure is the laptop of our future generation. The way things are moving you can never know where we will be in times to come.

  48. 48
    Burçlar
    March 14th, 2009 3:43 am

    i’m in love Vaio Zoom its really great design

  49. 49
    Thomson @Cheap computer
    March 22nd, 2009 11:46 pm

    Fast pacing world ,fast pacing technology the out come is limitless.

  50. 50
    Katie
    April 23rd, 2009 10:24 pm

    Mind blowing !!!!!!!
    Awesome collection

  51. 51
    Harry
    May 8th, 2009 11:56 pm

    Harry Mulisch is een waardeloze prul

  52. 52
    dalton gray
    May 11th, 2009 6:01 pm

    these laptops suck i saw a laptop that looks like a pen and it projects the key board on the desk and projects the screan on the wall

  53. 53
    swapna
    May 12th, 2009 2:11 am

    very nice…………
    superb..

  54. 54
    jameil.knott
    May 12th, 2009 5:15 pm

    i think all the laptops are very uniqe in there own ways and i think they al will be a very good use in there owm=n ways but io t depends on how people use them……

  55. 55
    Mikkel
    May 24th, 2009 12:58 am

    Thats awesome, the mactab is really sick! love it!

  56. 56
    ramil o.
    May 30th, 2009 8:16 pm

    where to order macbook 0801?

  57. 57
    ramil o.
    May 30th, 2009 8:22 pm

    i mean mac 0801

  58. 58
    sujeet
    July 9th, 2009 2:49 am

    Good to c the latest designs of laptops

  59. 59
    balbin estrada
    October 11th, 2009 10:55 pm

    i got gelfrog!!! its so nice… grab it now!!!! its really good..enjoy the features…

  1. 00

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