LG has just come up with the second strangest luggage I’ve ever seen.
That’s, in part, because it’s not really luggage — well, not very practical luggage anyway. You might be able to squeeze in a pair of socks, but that’s about it, considering it contains a 27in 1080p tablet on a stand.
Yes, the StanbyME Go (not “Stand”) lets you easily (well, kind of — it weighs 12.7kg) carry a massive screen with you wherever you go, indulging those who really can’t live without some form of digital content at their fingertips.
Open it up, and the screen pops out on a stand, letting you twist it for landscape or portrait use. You can even leave it flat in the suitcase, so it can double up as a slightly disappointing Chessboard, or a record player that can’t actually play vinyl, as seen in the picture below.
Is a 27-inch tablet really a tablet, or is it a TV? It has certain tablet-like qualities, including a touch screen, the fact it runs in portrait or landscape and its built-in three-hour battery.
But it also runs webOS — LG’s TV operating system — comes with a remote and includes an HDMI port. All of which sounds a lot like a TV.
That’s kind of semantics anyway, because you can use it as either for most things: movies (with sound from the four-channel, 20-watt Dolby Atmos speakers), web browsing, games and more.
The only strange omission is the lack of a camera, which seems weird when it feels like the perfect way of doing portable conference calls. You can still do this, but you need to screen mirror your phone, which feels an unnecessary extra step.
It’s definitely a niche product, but you can see it appealing to businesses that need to move screens between meeting rooms. So why LG has decided a picnic makes for the perfect promo shots is anybody’s guess. They’re not even wearing suits.
The StanbyME Go goes on sale in Korea next month, priced at 1.17 million Won — or around NZ$1,480.
