There are people who, not content with the traditional formats that laptops have, experiment with curious ideas. This is what Carter Hurd has done, which A curious laptop has been manufactured -without a touchpad, yes- to test what such a team would look like with a screen with an especially ultrawide format.
That laptop has enough power to enjoy gaming sessions thanks to its dedicated graphics included. Hurd has also added a mechanical keyboard and a few other components to make it look amazing… but not particularly practical.
Good as a concept, but little more
Hurd -with many projects behind him- recounted his adventure with this laptop on his YouTube channel, where in the past he has already published other curious creations in which he also experiment transforming and adapting devices to your taste.
The idea of creating something like this came after seeing some intel concepts that never became a reality, although something similar was later seen with the Asus ZenBook Duo.
In this case the idea was only to leave the elongated screen as the main screen. Hurd used the gaming laptop motherboard that he had on hand and that had a dedicated graphics card, and he bought an external display that fit his design.
That screen -available on Amazon- has a diagonal of 12.6 inches and a resolution of 1,920 x 515 pixels, which makes its format ultrawide thanks to a 41:11 aspect ratio.
From there he added a wireless mechanical keyboard – the specific model is also for sale – although had to adapt the chassis so that the laptop board could be located at its bottom. He 3D printed a base to “raise” the keyboard to accommodate the entire design, which had other curiosities.
It’s possible to cut an SSD in half and have it work, but the idea is certainly risky.
For example, to make use of an SSD drive in M.2 format that cut straight in half Because otherwise I would have stood out. It worked out fine, because the circuitry was effectively in the working half of that unit.
also had to adapt the chassis for the Wi-Fi card, which ended up sticking out a bit. In addition, the antenna to improve coverage was placed on one of the sides of the equipment.
The last important modification was especially curious: the support for the screen there was a slot right behind which served precisely to convert that main screen into an auxiliary screen.
How is that? Using the Hurd team he realized that this screen format was not very functional for most scenarios – it’s not even a laptop as such, since you have to use an external mouse – so he created a design in which he could attach a conventional external display with which to work to be able to use the ultra-wide screen as a second screen, in the style of the aforementioned Asus ZenBook Duo.
His experiment made it clear to him that this equipment had a difficult practical application to work or play with that screen format, but he did indicate that with a second screen —either the one in the image or a wirelessly connected Smart TV, for example— the idea has a certain charm. Maybe not so much for investment, although of course the result is showy.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism