Laptop design doesn’t have to be boring. Although often laptops look exactly as we expect them to look like, there is a number of design solutions and approaches which are completely different — unusual, creative, beautiful and damn useful. In fact, over the last years designers came up with a number of interesting concepts which have somehow stuck between the prototyping stage and the production stage. Nevertheless, much is possible. And this post is supposed to prove this point.

Below we present innovative laptop designs and laptop concepts of 2010. Many of the products listed below are prototypes and aren’t available yet, and it’s unknown whether they’ll be released over the next years. However, they give us an idea of what we should expect from laptops over the years to come.

Every time I attend a meeting, I have to carry a heavy laptop and a heavier projector to the venue, it is quite familiar to me how it really feels. I dream about having a MITRA micro PC that features a battery torch shaped and compact look with great functional capabilities. This small PC has a roll out LCD that in fact is a range of solar panels that produces energy from the sunlight and stores the surplus energy in the onboard battery for emergency use. Apart from that, it includes a hand crank charging facility which gives 30 minutes of use through rotating crank for 30 times.

Another peculiarity of the PC concept is the embedded LED projector that gives convenient presentation alternatives. This PC was specially made for Indian rural areas where online teaching, online help or online medical treatment for rural farmers can have an essential influence on the country’s development and taking into account the country’s overall aspects MITRA is the most efficient alternative.

The “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) initiative is being developed as an unbreakable device made out of plastic, which is affordable for any child. According to Nicholas Negroponte, the project’s main representative, this is the 2012 version of the device, while the 2011 one is the one which is displayed in the video below and will probably be released at CES 2011.

Mark Hurd, the head of HP confirmed that a WebOS tablet will be available soon made by his company, we’ve come across the following render of the device, posted on the interwebs. It would be great to know the author of this, but till then we remind you about the HP-Palm buyout from several weeks ago.

We have been displayed a couple of images by designer Frank Tobias that portray his Sony Ericsson tablet, known as Maino. This time, Frank Tobias has created a Windows 7 version of the device, shown below and detailed after the break. Sony Ericsson Maino is equipped with a multitouch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1360 x 900 pixels.

Let’s have a look at the amazing creation of Timur Pinar- HTC Evolve concept tablet, leaving the Nokia and Sony Ericsson designs aside for some time. HTC Evolve concept is based on Android operating system, is equipped with an extra OLED touchscreen and a stylus pen, side pre-programmable buttons for additional functions.

The iWeb concept which was designed by Yang Yongchang offers a folding keyboard for a notebook. You must have seen few netbook users typing carefully on their small keyboard. Or perhaps few laptop users preferring to use wireless keyboard as an extension to gain comfort of typing and speed.

Among some pretty interesting tablet designs we’ve recently come across there’s also the Asus Net Fusion, created by Juan Manuel Bustos. This device combines the features of a laptop with those of a netbook and tablet. The thickness of Asus tablet is 13mm, it comes with 2 speakers, shortcuts shown on screen and a very original and interesting virtual QWERTY keyboard. The virtual mouse wheel is shown on screen and the specs of the Asus Net Fusion include 2 USB ports, LAN, 3G, WiFi, a webcam and Windows operating system.

The idea is like the Fujitsu Frame Zero concept which does away with bezels which are to be a thing of the past. The Fujitsu concept is shown above. Of course, it is still unknown how powerful such device could be. At the moment the company representatives have not released any information on what can be successfully squished between a couple of sheets of glass. Ii is expected that a low powered device will be seen at first which as time goes by, bumps up a little in terms of performance to what we are more familiar with today. Despite the fact that it looks good I’d certainly want to test how usable a touch-screen keyboard is before purchasing a replacement all-glass laptop.

I am ready to go to Geek Heaven! One of the reasons why devices like iPad and other tablets exist is to satisfy this urge in us to be connected with the web world. The latest touchscreen phones also carry the same incentive, but both devices have the same flaw: phones lack the screen real estate and tablets lack an external keyboard. In order to bridge the gap we have the really innovative Smartbook; a Smartphone that flips open to become a QWRTY keyboard and syncs with its personalized PC Tablet.

Thanks to the new biodegradable computer concept from DELL, there will be no need to carry your laptop, notebook, netbook or tablet pc with you in near future. The DELL has recently presented an eco-computer concept named Froot Biodegradable Computer Concept. The concept has no keyboard or screen monitor. DELL Froot Computer comes with projection technology, which creates a virtual keyboard and monitor visuals on a nearby surface. All the user will need to use the concept is a flat desk for the virtual keyboard and a clean wall to project the display.

Designer Geoffrey Cooper, who is working at Coroflot, has introduced a new concept tablet intended to be used in the health care industry. Named Toshiba Rx Medical Tablet, this concept was presented at CES 2010. The concept features curvaceous form-factor and wipe-clean chassis, as well as an integrated hand-strap on the rear side. Toshiba has not reported if the company is working on this concept or if the tablet will ever be produced.

We have recently found out that in the near future the Symbian platform will be used on netbooks and tablets. This was officially announced by Symbian Foundation CEO Lee Williams and one such “device of the future” is pictured below. This new gadget is part of Nokia “Vision of 2015″ video. This clip comprises a bunch of concepts and prototypes designed by the Finnish company, probably meant to feature Tegra 2 and OMAP4 solutions. Word has it that Symbian was already ported to the Intel Atom processor, in a project called Wild Duck.

The Sony Ericsson Irikino (Yanq XL) tablet concept is not made by the handset maker, but rather by the Esato board member Jozef Kocúr. This device uses Internet Explorer, productivity tools and a cool interface and also runs Skype. It is really interesting whether it runs Vista or Windows 7, although we’d also think of it using Android OS or Chrome OS.

Samsung Electronics reveals its first laptop featuring clear active matrix OLED display. Such laptops which sport Samsung’s clear AMOLED allow the user to work and see objects placed behind the screen at the same time. The laptop’s display has a transparency that can go as high as 40%. Of course, the technology is still in the beginning stages but it is interesting to see if and how the screen will be capable of “switching off” the transparency, as end-users may not always want to see directly through it when playing media, reading documents or even playing games.