gScreen SpaceBook dual-screen laptop is up for pre-order

It's been nearly two years since the first photos of the dual-screen gScreen SpaceBook laptop were unveiled. It looks like the waiting for its release is nearing an end, however, with the 17-inch SpaceBook now available for pre-order on gScreen's website. The SpaceBook is a large laptop equipped with a pair of slide out 17-inch full HD displays, offering a huge panoramic workspace.

Unlike the Lenovo W700ds workstation, the SpaceBook's second display is not just a smaller-sized extension of the main screen. Its displays are equal in size and work simultaneously, just like the pair of 10.1-inch screens in Kohjinsha's DZ laptop.

The gScreen SpaceBook 17-inch laptop comes in two versions in terms of hardware. One version features a dual-core Intel Core i5-560M 2.66GHz CPU and 4GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1333MHZ, whereas the second one is powered via a quad-core Intel Core i7-740QM 1.73GHz CPU along with 8GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1333MHz. The rest of specs are the same for both versions, and include two LED-backlit screens working at 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M 1GB discrete GPU and 500GB HDD, as well as a magnesium alloy lid-frame. There's no Blu-ray or SSD option at the moment. Of course, such a huge screen makes the device significantly less portable, with the weight as high as 10 pounds (4.5 kg).

The Core i5 version is priced at US$2,395 while the Core i7 version costs US$2,795. Both are available to U.S. and Canada-based customers only. The gScreen website says that pre-orders require a 50 percent deposit for the order to be secured, with the rest payable once the SpaceBook is shipped.