Well, it seems the cores aren’t the only thing going dual on notebooks.  Asus is continuing in its efforts to grab more of the mobile market with it’s newest W5Fe addition to their notebook line. The new series of laptops, codenamed Newport, sports a small color LCD in the lid, sorta like the little external screen on today’s flip-phone, but this is much cooler!

The display uses a new Vista-only technology PortalPlayer Preface, known officially as Windows SideShow.  This technology allows the LCD to operate and do all its necessary functions while the rest of the laptop is on, off or hibernating. Using the nifty little control pad, SideShow will let you access flight departure information, movie show times, alerts, play games, movies, images and MP3s without draining your battery!  PortalPlayer estimates you will be able to see “hundreds” of hours of life out of a single charge.

Price and release date have not been announced, but since the device relies so heavily on Vista technology, I wouldn’t expect to see this guy released until somewhere around Vista’s release in January.