Ain’t nothing like having a second display on a notebook – say hello to my little friend on the ASUS W5Fe

If you’re familiar with the features of the upcoming Windows Vista OS, then you’ve probably heard of Windows SideShow. SideShow is a new technology that Microsoft has added to the OS allowing computer manufacturers to include a secondary display in a laptop form factor. With SideShow in place, you can view critical information from your system without having to actually open up the system and boot things up (or wake from sleep). The secondary display would normally reside on the front facing of the notebook cover. With SideShow in place, you can view meeting schedules, phone numbers, addresses, and recent email messages. On top of SideShow, another company called PortalPlayer has enhanced the technology by creating the PortalPlayer Preface. With Preface, you’ll also be able to view multimedia files from the external display. The ASUS W5Fe that CNET UK managed to get a hold of came from the folks at PortalPlayer (which is why they’re mentioned here to begin with). There really isn’t any word on when this system would come out and how much it would cost but the idea of having an external secondary display is just way too cool. I’ve been in many situations where I had to open my laptop purely because I forgot some information in an email message. With SideShow and the W5Fe, I hope that never happens again!