Kno Says Its New Tablet is the Answer for Students

Digits - WSJ: "Any startup going up against both Apple and Amazon.com is going to face tough questions. Kno thinks its unusual tablet computer answers them all. [The Silicon Valley company's] hardware ... is tailored for a specific purpose–letting students read and annotate electronic versions of textbooks. Among its distinguishing features is a larger screen than the iPad–nearly 14 inches diagonally, versus about 10 inches for Apple’s hit device–and the option to double that with a two-screen model that can be held vertically, like an open book. ... "

Kno Offers a Second, Lighter Tablet Computer For College Market

NYTimes.com:

Most of the companies that hope to take on Apple in the white-hot market for tablets are industry giants like Dell, Google, HP, Microsoft and Samsung. But among the startups looking to become tablet contenders, Kno stands out.

I first wrote about Kno in June, when the company unveiled a dual-screen tablet aimed at college students. The knock against the chunky, 14-inch screen was its heft; it weighs 5.5 pounds, or nearly four times more than Apple’s iPad, and each slab was more than half an inch thick.

It seems as if the criticism was heard. On Monday, months before the first tablet, called the Kno, will ship, the company is unveiling a second model. The new Kno is a single-screen version of the previous device. Both are expected to begin shipping in December.

“From the college perspective, the overwhelming feedback is that the dual panel is great, but some students think a single panel is better for them,” said Osman Rashid, a founder and the chief executive of Kno. ...

Kno Announces A Split-Screen Tablet for the College Market

This type of thing is definitely in our future, but the Kno sounds to me as if it has significant shortcomings, from price to weight to connectivity. Wired has an informative piece. Here's the good news:

The device has two 14-inch LCD touchscreens that fold in like a book. The idea is to make textbook pages fit perfectly across the screen and flow from one digital page to another. Kno made its public debut at the D8 technology conference Wednesday

The tablet will be powered by an Nvidia Tegra processor. It will include a stylus for handwriting recognition, have a full browser, support Flash and offer six to eight hours of battery life. The Kno will offer 16 GB or 32 GB of storage–enough to store 10 semesters’ worth of files, documents and books ...

But ... it'll be a very heavy tablet at 5.5 pounds (the same as the weight of your average notebook PC) priced somewhat but not much below $1,000, according to Kno. You can get an iPad for about $500 and it weighs 1.6 lbs., a Kindle $260 and 0.6 lbs.

Adding insult to injury: 3G connectivity --- not. Just wifi.

Kno is a start-up launched September '09, with much work ahead, evidently.

One last point:

But tablet-like devices from startups have been disappointing so far. Despite its 12-inch screen, the JooJoo has been widely panned for not delivering the kind of zippy, delightful experience that’s made the iPad so appealing.

Kno’s closest rival, the Entourage Edge, is also disappointing. The Edge is a dual-screen device with an E-Ink screen on the left and a 10-inch LCD display on the right. But this Frankenstein-ish monster is hobbled by a slow processor and by its weight.