Toshiba proved once again it’s the kind of company that sets trends, don’t follow them, with the official announcement of the Libretto W100 dual screen touch tablet with two 7 inch multi touch enabled displays. We know now that the Libretto W100 is not a concept, but a consumer product you’ll be able to actually buy starting August, from Amazon, for around 1000$. That’s a little bit too much for a laptop with an ULV CPU and a second screen, but that’s the price to pay for being an early adopter.

    Toshiba reckons that its dual screen Libretto W100 is a niche product, one that will sell in very small numbers, but you might never know if the trend catches up. My take is that it will eventually catch up with a significant number of consumers, but for this to happen the software needs to evolve enough to really add functionality that wouldn’t have been accessible without a second screen. As Engadget pointed out, after playing with the Libretto W100, Toshiba made sure they offered a nice experience out of the box, providing every window with controls for moving on the other screen and maximizing on both screens.

    Moreover, a button found on the right of the screen brings up on the screen a custom app launcher and not less than 6 on-screen keyboards, one with a touch-pad on the middle, that you’ll use just like a laptop touch-pad. Those bits of software seem optimized enough to not stress the CPU too much, which heats up a bit on the top part of the Libretto, something Toshiba says is looking into with great care. Hope they do better than Apple with the iPhone 4.

    Till we get the chance to play ourselves with the Toshiba Libretto W100 dual screen tablet take a look below at a video preview made by Engadget: