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Bento Book by Rene Lee

By Michael DiTullo - May 9, 2011

in Featured Items

Modern life is full of portable digital devices, each with it's unique interaction, chip-set, and form factor making it uniquely appropriate for it's own set of use cases. Managing all of these devices can be a pain to say the least when it comes to syncing, transporting, charging, and most importantly sharing and creating content. In response to this, RISD ID student and former frog design intern, Rene Lee, has designed the Bento Book.

The Bento Book is a system of devices that work together... kind of like Voltron. The phone, tablet, hard drive, and battery dock into the base of the laptop to essentially form half of it. The phone becomes the track pad, the tablet becomes a touch screen keyboard/input area, somewhat like a Nintendo DS. Content can be surfed on the tablet, and then say you want to modify that content, or interact with it more deeply, you dock the tablet into the screen to continue working with it in a more focussed way. Then you can pop the phone out to take it all on the road.

The Bento Book is a nice manifestation of where the current trend of device convergence could go. Check out all the details on Rene's site HERE

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yf

13 years ago

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What if one wants to go on the computer and talk on the phone at the same time?!
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Jamshed Minhas

13 years ago

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An interesting concept
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CParticle

13 years ago

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Totally awesome. I think if the the mobile phone docked into the tablet you would solve the problem of synchronizing devices there would be only one device. Tablet would have an additional battery and would the laptop giving a boost to power. Very slick.
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Rene Lee

13 years ago

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Brennan/ Thanks! I'm sure that those few things would have to be worked out before anything like this can hit the market.

John/ Thanks for the great points. Just to give you a background, the design was for a 2013 lifebook competition by Fujitsu who currently produce laptops/phones/tablets/hard drives. I did not want to bore most people with technicalities.
- As for hardware synchronization, the laptop is driven by the tablet. With tablets today capable of 1080p output, I anticipate they can drive a full PC experience given the screen. Fujitsu would make all the hardware.
- The conpetition called for a design for 2013, which is why specs don't exist today
- The reason why trackpad is not incorporated on the tablet is 2 things: overall tablet size and palm rejection. 9 inch tablets today are too narrow and too tall to make suitable keyboards. It's better to dedicate it to content viewing at 21:9 and make a better keyboard.
- Things will be more cloud based in 2013. The SSD is meant for backing up your devices whenever you dock them, and not really for discrete data. The SSD and Battery share form factor so you could have two batteries for example.
- The solar cell will not generate enough power on its own. But it will be continuously providing charge to extend the battery life the more you travel with it.
- All the devices don't have to be tethered and are totally independent except for the BentoBook case. BentoBook is just a screen with empty trays and can be upgraded easily.
- They must be the same manufacturer: Fujitsu

Stefano Ricci/ Thanks. I carry a laptop a phone and a tablet everyday and have to constantly restart my work session. I hope they can become more meshed together someday.

Marketing Quotes/ Thanks!
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Marketing Quotes

13 years ago

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An interesting concept - and certainly something that could be required by those that have many devices.
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ELMANCO / Stefano Ricci

13 years ago

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I'm not sure this one will be the future, but theorically is sure the right concept.

Maybe Apple one day...?
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john

13 years ago

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Slick presentation with very little thought concerning the actual design and hardware synchronization. For example, how do all the platforms work together? If it is proprietary, who's tablet is that? The specs don't exist in the marketplace currently. Why not use part of the tablet as a trackpad for the mouse? Are all the components needed to make it work or can just the phone be used to recall data from the storage drive?

Realistically speaking, will that solar cell generate enough power for even charging the phone? Do all the devices have to be tethered together? Must they be from the same manufacturer?
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Brennan

13 years ago

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Neat concept.

There's a few drawbacks, but it seems like a logical evolution of device linking.
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