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Comment by djsumdog | Hacker News Reader

Dave 2D had a great video review on this product.

What makes this totally different from the touch bar is with the touch bar, you have to wait for developers to add support in their products (or as a dev, write your own tooling). Apple has the muscle to simply make everyone support their crappy bar.

The ZenBook screen is usable right away by anybody. You can just drag any window there. It can be your Steam chat while playing a game, it can be a browser with a Twitch stream or soccer game running in the background while your program, it can be your color pallet for Resolve while editing video ...

It can be used for a lot of things the end user can take advantage of immediately without waiting for a developer to make explicit use of it.

I wonder if it will work on Linux.

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> I wonder if it will work on Linux.

If it's on one of the built-in Intel graphics outputs, then it will likely work out of the box (though of course none of the desktops will understand where it's supposed to be and probably put it in the wrong place, etc...).

If it's some crazy piece of hardware Asus found, then maybe never.

> (though of course none of the desktops will understand where it's supposed to be and probably put it in the wrong place, etc...).

Changing display layout on modern Linux desktops is really really simple IMO.

You just open display settings and drag them into the layout you want.

xrandr --output $touchpadscreen --below $builtinscreen

Exactly that, proprietary hardware will limit usefulness for anything beyond specially developed Windows functionality.

And, even if the hardware can be hacked for Linux the question becomes, how can it be made functional in a desktop environment independent way?

Been doing R&D for a similar concept for several years, a detached video enabled trackpad. The key functionality which all concepts to date lack, is being OS agnostic and allowing end-user customization of functionality.

It's a good effort, but is likely only the beginning...

> The ZenBook screen is usable right away by anybody. You can just drag any window there. It can be your Steam chat while playing a game, it can be a browser with a Twitch stream or soccer game running in the background while your program, it can be your color pallet for Resolve while editing video ...

Do you mean that I can have a laptop with an integrated secondary display to have a Zabbix monitoring panel on it?

This might be the sysadmins' favorite laptop!

What a time to be alive!

I was here at computex and I could try a preview unit before the announcement. It’s pretty cool bu ASUS has a bit of work to do on the response times. The interface is a bit laggy, but I think it’s totally fixable in software before they’ll come out. Trying it in person, it struck me as a pretty cool concept. I could totally see apple taking a similar approach.

I think Apple may replace the entire bottom half with touch screen. The touchpad is getting bigger and the keyboard flatter.

This is exactly what I'm expecting too. It's more practical than replacing the entire keyboard, and it would allow them to maintain their current strategy of avoiding touchscreens on the screen itself.

I’m expecting that shift to coincide with the adoption of ARM-based A-series CPUs to offset for the double energetic consumption of the screens and to provide an ”obvious to the typical consumer that doesn’t understand techy stuff” advantage from these new laptops. Late 2019 with the next iteration of macOS after Mojave seems about right, so users will be able to load iPad apps from the iTunes App Store on it from the get-go.

That would make for a pretty terrible laptop. iPad pro with keyboard cover would be better at that point.

If they do this, it will be the nail in the coffin for me making any future Mac purchases.

As someone who hates touchpads, a touchscreen in its place is a wonderful idea.

I have a retired smartphone on my desk showing a live feed to my doorbell cam, and I could see myself using that Zenbook's touchpad screen as a Zoneminder window.

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