Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on

Jun 2nd 2010
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Kno promised to launch a double-screened Linux-based e-reader designed for students at D8, and the undercover startup didn’t disappoint — believe us when we say it came out in a big way. That’s big as in freaking big: the Kno reader features dual 14.1-inch capacitive IPS displays (1440 x 900 each), weighs 5.5 pounds, and offers six to eight hours of battery life, all in a package that’s so comically large we thought it was a joke when we first saw the press shots. Kno says it’ll offer both pen and touch support, and it’ll come with a stylus out of the box. Under the hood, it’s running a Tegra 2 chip with 16GB of storage, and the entire experience is essentially a WebKit instance. Yes, it’s sort of like the Courier, but larger — much, much larger.

We had a chance to go hands-on with the device as well as speak to some members of the team developing the Kno, and while it’s clear that there are major bumps in the UI and user experience, it seems like the company is aware of them. What we saw today was clearly unfinished, with a lot of laggy, stuttery behavior in the interface, a crash or two, and some very inaccurate finger tracking, but Kno says it’s hard at work on eradicating those issues. Even with the UI fixes, it’s a hard sell at “under $1000,” but Kno is putting together partnerships with publishers to make that a little easier to swallow, as they say ultimately it will be less expensive than buying regular old text books. It’s an audacious idea, for sure… and we’re still completely confused by one of the company’s press pics featuring a bunch of dudes running around in their underwear, but we digress. Check out some shots from the demo, PR pics, and our hands-on with the device below.

Gallery: Kno hands-on