The developers of this miracle of technology, creating a prototype, clearly said to themselves: "It will not be enough!", Referring to the number of screens. Two displays? It is banal and relatively common. Three? Well no. Here are seven - just right, that's great.
This laptop was mentioned a couple of times on Habré, including the news from CES, but somehow it was all abstract. And now that the company has launched sales of the system, many technical details have become known.
So what's there besides the seven screens?
The laptop is based on the AMD Ryzen 9 3950x processor. It is a 16-core chip with 32 threads, base clock 3.5 GHz to 4.7 GHz peak, and 14MB L3 cache. TDP 105 W, the processor itself is not new - AMD introduced it back in the fall of 2019. It is produced according to the TSMC manufacturer's seven-meter process technology.
If you don't like AMD, then no problem, there is also an Intel-based platform. This is the Core i9-10900k processor, which came out a few months after Ryzen 9 - in the second quarter of 2020. It has 10 cores at once, which operate at a frequency of 3.7 to 5.3 GHz and support 20 threads. The processor is made using a 14 nm process technology, its TDP is slightly higher than that of AMD - 135 W instead of 105 W.
The situation with graphic adapters is worse - the user cannot choose them. The developers install Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, and the GeForce 1060 was originally announced. True, the amount of video memory is still unknown.
What about RAM and storage?
The manufacturer reports support for 128 GB of DDR4-2993 RAM. True, this amount is available only for a platform with a processor from Intel. But buyers of the AMD-based platform are limited to 64 GB of RAM.
In terms of drives, the laptop is equipped with two SATA drives and two M2 drives. M2 features Samsung 970 EVO Plus in capacities up to 2TB. In addition, the developers announced the transition to the SSD 980 series after these drives become available. Supports SSD capacities up to 2TB each, so you can end up with up to 8TB of storage.
And again, all this is for the platform with Intel. AMD notebooks will get two M2s and one SATA drive, so the maximum storage capacity is 6 TB.
Battery
It is clear that such a powerful platform, and even with seven displays, cannot work for many hours on battery power. And so it is - from two batteries the system can work in autonomous mode for about 2 hours and 20 minutes. As far as can be understood, this is the maximum battery life.
Additionally, the device is equipped with a two-megapixel camera, speakers and subwoofers.
And now - displays
As reported, the laptop has 7 displays. Of these, four are main and three are subsidiary. As for the main displays, these are 17.3-inch panels with a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels each (Ultra HD or 4K format). Subsidiaries support Full HD or 1920x1080 pixels with a 7-inch diagonal.
The placement of the displays seems to have not changed since the announcement. The developers have placed two main screens on top of each other, plus two more on the sides. As for the auxiliary ones, these are two seven-inch screens that can be pulled out above the vertical main ones, plus one more, which is located under the keyboard.
Who is this monster for?
Many of us use multi-screen systems. Someone has two monitors, someone has 3, someone also installs laptops with tablets, adding the necessary screens with information relevant for work (or entertainment).
Aurora 7, according to the developers, is intended for all kinds of security centers, data scientists, creators of video content, games, etc. Probably, such a device can also be useful for programmers.
There is no device on the free sale yet, in order to get a laptop with 7 displays, you need to directlycontact the company by ordering the required configuration. And here is an interesting point - the manufacturer will disclose the price only to a potential buyer. We have already sent a request, so as soon as the company responds (if it does), we will update the post with the price. But it seems that it cannot be low. And if we take into account the originality of the design, then we can talk about 4-5-6 thousand US dollars.
Not Aurora alone
Yes, besides the Aurora 7 there are other laptops with multiple screens. To be fair, let's say that Aurora is the leader among the competitors. But there is a similar creativity and the company Razer, which presented a prototype laptop Project Valerie with three displays. Moreover, the side screens open automatically.
This device was demonstrated at CeS 2017, and, unfortunately, did not get into production. And this system, in our opinion, is more viable and much less monstrous than in the case of a laptop with 7 screens at once.
From what is on sale, we can mention the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo. It has the usual form factor, the only thing is that the second display is built into the top case. The main screen got a size of 15.6 inches and a resolution of 4K, the additional one - a diagonal of 14 inches with a resolution of 4K.
But at the end of 2019, Intel showed a very unusual system with two screens, where an additional display can be tilted at any angle. Switching from screen to screen is done with a glance, no matter how unusual it sounds. The camera tracks the position of a person's eyes, but how quickly the switching is performed is unknown.
Unfortunately, this is also only a prototype, as the Pro Duo did not go on sale.
