Asus Taichi Windows 8 laptop tablet ships with two displays

Convertible notebooks are cool, but the hinge designs that allow you to flip or rotate into tablet mode always seem to be a bit of a sticking point. Asus has a solution: slap a secondary display onto the back of the primary one.

From the keyboard side, the Taichi looks like a pretty standard laptop. It’s got a 13.3-inch Super IPS+ display with a native resolution of 1920×1080 which is topped by a webcam, a generous trackpad, and a chicklet-style keyboard complete with the updated, angular Windows logo key. Asus is packing in Intel’s Ivy Bridge Core i7 processors, 4GB of RAM, speedy SSDs for internal storage, USB 3.0 ports, and micro DVI and mini VGA outputs.

Close the lid of the Asus Taichi and you can fire up Windows 8 in Metro mode on the 13.3-inch tablet display on the back side. It offers the same resolution, and a second webcam is provided so that you can still make Skype video calls without having to revert to notebook mode.

Asus is also preparing an 11.6-inch model of the Taichi, and you’re not going to sacrifice screen real estate if you go with the more diminutive version. Both of its panels offer 1920×1080 pixels, too.

Asus says that despite cramming in two displays the Taichi weighs no more than the Asus Zenbook, which weighs about three pounds. That’s great for a laptop, but a three-pound tablet isn’t going to be ideal for extended periods of handheld use. It’s an intriguing design, however… Now we just need to wait for Asus to announce pricing for the two Taichi notebooks to see if their versatility is going to come at a steep premium.

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