In the laptop world, we’ve previously seen innovations on the multiple display front like Packed Pixels – essentially a system that allows you to bolt iPad Air wing mirrors onto your MacBook Pro – but how about a notebook which actually has three displays built-in? Enter Razer’s Project Valerie.
Revealed at CES 2017, Project Valerie is a concept laptop with one main screen and two further displays which mechanically slide out on either side, with multi-display support fully integrated (obviously enough).
Each of the three displays is a 17.3-inch IGZO panel with a 4K resolution (so technically this is a 12K notebook!), and the benefits for gamers are obvious, particularly seeing as Nvidia’s “surround view” tech is on board along with G-Sync to keep frame rates smooth and stuttering to a minimum.
Although that said, driving this amount of pixels obviously won’t be an easy task for a notebook, and Razer hasn’t detailed any specs at this point – only mentioning that Valerie will come equipped with a GeForce GTX 1080 (or indeed, we’d guess there might possibly be an option on a pair of them).
The laptop isn’t just aimed at gamers, though, but also creative professionals given that the displays offer 100% Adobe RGB color accuracy, and obviously having three screens is a massive boon in terms of productivity, multi-tasking and working on the go.
Expect Project Valerie to have an all-aluminum chassis and to be around 38mm thick, weighing about 5.5kg (obviously packing in three screens isn’t an easy task).
The device’s keyboard will benefit from Razer’s ultra-low-profile mechanical switches, and nifty custom cooling which includes a fan plus dynamic heat exchangers and a vapor chamber.
At this point, as mentioned this one is still a concept, but a hugely intriguing one – although sadly it’s unlikely to be landing any time soon.
Project Ariana
Project Valerie’s keyboard, trackpad and extra monitors also support Razer Chroma and its diverse array of lighting effects, which brings us neatly onto a second project the company announced at CES.
Project Ariana is effectively an extension of Chroma, bringing RGB lighting not just to surrounding peripherals, but to the actual room you’re gaming in.
Ariana is a high-definition video projector with an ultra-wide fisheye lens that projects real-time lighting and also video effects into the entire room, extending in-game graphics and colors onto the walls around the monitor.
It utilizes two 3D depth sensing cameras and tailored calibration software to ensure that the projected images fit with the lighting of the room, any items of furniture around and so forth.
This is the future of Chroma, according to Razer, and it represents “total gaming immersion.” Indeed, if the company pulls it off, this could have quite breathtaking possibilities – but it’s not going to be easy to make it work, at least not if we look at previous attempts.
Such as Microsoft’s ‘IllumiRoom’ concept for the Xbox (with Kinect), which never made it past the tech demo/concept stage and now appears to have completely fizzled out. (Although certain TV manufacturers have dabbled with lighter versions of this concept and had some success).
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