Samsung Shows Laptop With Transparent Display

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If this keeps up I’m going to have to pay a lot more attention to the FPD China show. First they wheeled out news about Samsung’s massive new 3D television that didn’t require glasses, and now they’re showing off another exciting little bit from Samsung–a 14 inch laptop with a transparent display.

First things first–it’s actually another prototype, so details are a bit short on the ground right now as to what kind of processor it’s packing, and what kind of RAM it will be loaded with, and if it will carry a hard drive or solid state, and so on. In fact, about the only thing we know so far about this prototype is that it’s got, as I said, a transparent display, and that display will still show at a surprisingly robust 1680 x 1080 resolution. It’s got a white LED unit in each of the panel’s four sides and uses outside light sources as the backlight for the display.

For Samsung’s part, the early word says that this thing is going to be fast-tracked like crazy. In fact, Samsung expects to have these in stores possibly in time for the Christmas shopping frenzy, or failing that, early next year. That means you might well actually see these laptops in stores in a matter of months.

I personally confess to some skepticism: I certainly wouldn’t want people checking out what’s on my monitor from across the room, what programs I’ve got on my desktop and suchlike. And frankly, as cool as that transparent display is, I’m not too convinced that many people will actually want them. That and I like having a monitor generate its own light–I’ve used a laptop in a dark room before and I’m glad the thing puts up its own light.

Though if it were to use ambient light, it would probably use a whole lot less power, which in turn would up battery life significantly and there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

So hopefully we’ll get better word out of Samsung soon, in respect to specs and pricing and the like, but until then, there’s plenty to consider with this approach.