Intel Demos Notebook with 4 Screens

While multimonitor setups have been common in the desktop world for years now, very few notebook manufacturers have attempted to build second screens onto their systems. Thus far, the best examples of a dual-screen notebook are the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds, the Averatec PT1400 that we just saw demoed at the Intel Developer Forum, and the Fujitsu LifeBook U820.

Today at IDF, we saw a new concept design from Intel that actually sports 3 small touchscreens in addition to its primary display. Like the Fujitsu U820 before it, these displays are small and meant to hold more gadget or widet-like apps. But unlike Fujitsu who intended their second screen to be a navigation tool only, Intel showed a number of exciting custom apps including a touch-based music manager, a UI with links to media sites like Hulu, and an RSS widget. If this secondary-screen platform makes it to production, Intel has an SDK that devleopers can use to create custom programs for it.

An Intel rep told us that the three mini screens are actually seen by Windows as one, long secondary display. He predicted that, if a vendor were to license this technology, they might decide to include one long LCD rather than three short ones. The reason Intel went with three short secondary displays, he said, is that it was easy for demo purposes to repurpose standard cell phone screens.

Check out our hands-on video below for a closer look at Intel’s four-screen notebook: