Gadgetory

I'm Dan Ackerman and we are here taking a look at the assist Tai Chi 21 this is one of the more inventive Windows 8 laptops that we've seen you may have seen it at CES or previously now we've actually got the final version here and of course from the front this looks like a standard ultra portable laptop it's got an 11 inch display the catch is unlike a lot of other hybrids where the screen flips over or folds or somehow detaches this system simply has an entirely separate display on the back of the screen now the one on the back of the screen over here is a touch screen you can move your finger on it like that and that's pretty essential for Windows 8 one of the real weak spots of this system is that the inside screen is actually not a touchscreen you've got to use this big trackpad here or a separate Mouse of the keyboard in order to control it that becomes a little bit confusing because we should all be used to reaching up and touching our Windows 8 screens by now it's pretty much every new Windows 8 system out there at least they have it on the back but they don't have it on the front as far as I'm concerned that is a big downside to this system that being said later versions of this hopefully later in this year will have touch screens on both sides at least because Intel is gonna require touch screens for future systems that want to use that ultrabook name which this system does this version is in a core i7 version which means it's actually pretty powerful and ran any of the tests and apps that we wanted to run very smoothly very quickly and both screens are 1920 by 1080 screens which is very high resolution so big plus there the connections are mostly ones that you'll need adapters for whether it's a dongle for an Ethernet jack or for the HDMI port of the VGA port so you might be walking around with a pocketful of adapter cables and things like that but you can also fold the lid down and just keep the back screen on and then it becomes basically a Windows 8 tablet although a slightly thick one another fun trick is you can actually put a separate screen on the interior screen and the exterior screen treating the outside one like it's an external monitor the assist Tai Chi is really more of a clever proof-of-concept than anything super practical maybe if you want to you know show a PowerPoint or video to somebody while you're looking at it without turning your machine around that's a good reason to use it or maybe play a video for the kids while you're doing some work that's maybe another reason I can't think of too many people who run into that situation all that often at least soft enough to make this your main machine but I'm definitely looking forward to a future dual touchscreen version of this I'm Dan Ackerman and that is the assist Tai Chi 21