After recently debuting in Japan, Toshiba is now selling its dual-screen laptop/tablet in the U.S., the company said Monday.
As previously reported, the Libretto W105 (marketed as the W100 in Japan) is a small, 1.8-pound, 7-inch Windows 7 clamshell device that sports two capacitive LCD screens: one for viewing, and one for typing. The typing screen is much like the virtual keyboard on the Apple iPad, though the Libretto offers a few extra keyboard configuration options. The W105 can also function as a dual-screen tablet.
As of Monday, the W105 is available in the U.S. via preorders at ToshibaDirect.com. It will also be available at select retail stores on Sunday, August 29, for $1,099.99, the company said.
U.S. specs are slightly different from the model in Japan, a Toshiba spokesman said. The U.S. model will only come with one battery--the larger 8-cell battery--bumping the device's weight up to 1.8 pounds compared with the 1.5-pound weight of the model with the smaller battery in Japan. (The Japan model comes with two batteries, a standard smaller-capacity battery and a larger 8-cell battery.) The U.S. model will not include WiMAX wireless broadband, either.
The Libretto W105-L251 model is listed on Toshiba's U.S. Web site with the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system; an Intel Pentium U5400 dual-core processor; 2GB of memory (DDR3 800MHz); a 62GB solid-state drive (SATA); two 7-inch WSVGA multitouch LED backlit displays (1,024x600); Webcam/microphone built into the LCD bezel; Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n); and Bluetooth V2.1, among other features.
Updated at 8:25 p.m. PDT: adding Toshiba video.