We've seen a number of laptops sprouting extra screens over the years, including the SpaceBook, Duo and something from Razer, but Expanscape out-displays them all with the Aurora 7, a monster of a mobile workstation that puts seven screens in front of the user.
The A7 is being designed for content creators, data scientists and developers who need lots of display real estate all in the same place at the same time. Very much at the prototype stage of development, the current version boasts four 17.3-inch 4K UHD panels and three 7-inch displays at 1,920 x 1,200 resolution.
Under the hood of the laptop running the show is an Intel i9 9900K 8-core processor, 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, Nvidia GTX 1060 series graphics, and 2.5 TB of SSD and 2 TB of HDD storage. The aim is to get the system to support up to 128 GB of RAM and over 16 TB of SSD storage.
There are wireless network adapters for 802.11ac Wi-Fi and a Bluetooth 4.2 module, three USB ports and one Thunderbolt port, HDMI, integrated stereo speakers, and a built-in subwoofer, a 2-MB webcam and a 104-key backlit keyboard.
Running a laptop and all those screens will take quite a bit of portable juice, and the current configuration has two internal batteries – the primary 82-Wh battery runs the laptop itself, and a 148-Wh pack powers the displays. Battery life for laptop and screens is currently up to an hour per charge.
All of the screens fold or swivel out from the primary chassis, and the whole thing folds down to 51 x 34 x 11 cm (20 x 13.3 x 4.3 in) for transport. The eventual aim is to get the system down to a maximum weight of 10 kg (22 lb), and the developers are also looking at making it possible to swap out components with relative ease, including the battery.
The design team appears to have been working on a third prototype for a few months now, with 16 core AMD and 10 core Intel i9 processor options already penciled in, together with RTX graphics, more memory and more storage. Most of the specs are still to be confirmed but the UK company is taking the unusual step of making the A7 M3 prototype available for purchase under contract, details can be found on the Expanscape website.
Source: Expanscape
