The original Newton MessagePad was released in August of 1993, while the last Newton MessagePad, the 2100, was discontinued in February of 1998. Almost thirteen years have passed and technology has moved forward. The world is more connected. The portable computer descendants of the Newton have become smaller, lighter, and are made from more refined materials. The usage model for a MessagePad type computer still remains, but today’s application explosion has ignited a demand for more capable multipurpose devices. How would Today’s Newton hold up, and what would it look like? If the spirit of the original Newton was revived today in modern hardware how would it compare to present-day smartphones and mobile devices? No one knows for certain, but if I was designing a MessagePad for the year 2011 this is how I would want it to be.

Dimensions

A Newton by its very nature is a compromise between productivity and portability. Too large and Today’s Newton becomes unwieldy. Too small and its advantages diminish when compared to the cell phones we already carry around with us everyday. The iPad has shown us the convenience of having a truly portable computer with a large enough screen to get work done, but it has also shown us the limitations of a device that is too large to fit in even the most spacious of pockets. Today’s Newton must find a middle ground. Large enough to write upon, while small enough to hold in one hand and fit into a large jacket pocket.

Besides being spacious and pocketable Today’s Newton must be thin. If it is going to continue to be an excellent handwriting environment Today’s Newton must be flat enough to write upon while placed on a desk with your hand resting beside it. This was never possible with the first generation of Newtons, and is still unachievable by today’s Tablet PCs.

Sleek and thin are both immediately admirable qualities, but Today’s Newton must appease perception by being impressively light to the touch. Handwriting is never easy while standing and holding a notepad in the opposite hand, but the task is exceedingly more difficult when the notepad weighs close to a pound. The first impression I always hear when lending out my iPad is how heavy Apple’s tablet truly is. Today’s Newton must more closely resemble a pad of paper in weight than a slab of stone.

I envision Today’s Newton as an impossibly thin seven inch slate. No thicker than the thinnest edge of a iPad with a equally minuscule screen bezel to match. Today’s Newton must be light enough to easily hold in one hand while just being wide enough to be comfortably cradled across an extended palm. To get the most from its screen real estate Today’s Newton would be tall, presenting a aspect ratio that closely resembles the screen of a cinema. Of course the challenge of such a design is not dreaming up its inconceivable dimensions, but developing the materials that make those dimensions a reality.

Casing

Being as light as a feather and as thin as a pencil means Today’s Newton requires some extraordinary strength behind its nimble frame. Rigid enough to protect Today’s Newton from snapping, while flexible enough to keep its case from cracking. A miraculous material that is titanium strong, paper thin, and absently lite surely wasn’t feasible in the early nineties when the first bulky plastic Newtons made their debut.

The only miraculous material capable of encasing Today’s impossibly proportioned Newton is non other than carbon fiber-reinforced polymer. The same material prized by the aerospace, automotive and bicycle industries for its strength to weight ratio is perfect for today’s exceptionally thin Newton. In addition to its more obvious qualities carbon fiber also provides a grippable scratch resistant texture that is perfectly suitable for a ruggedized Newton on the go.

Screen

A Newton’s screen is more than just a view port. It is a tactile experience conducted along the length of a stylus to a user’s hand. If writing on a Newton doesn’t feel like paper the illusion of the MessagePad is lost. But Today’s Newton must go beyond the sensation of pencil on paper. In a world where multi-touch gestures are becoming commonplace it must embrace the fingertip just as much as it embraces the business end of a stylus.

The sensation of paper is not enough. What if Today’s Newton could also display text and images with the resolution and outdoor legibility of paper, combine with the dynamic motion and color saturation of a traditional LCD display? A screen technology truly fitting a modern multipurpose device would be a far cry from the 16 bit display of Newtons gone by.

On top of having the tactile sensation of paper, the multi-touch capabilities of an iPad, and the legibility of a dedicated eBook reader Today’s Newton must also make the most of the limited battery life available in its sleek chassis. Only the most advanced forward looking technology will be acceptable window into the world of Today’s Newton.

Like standard backlit LCD displays, [Pixel Qi](http://www.pixelqi.com/) displays renders quality full-color images, full-motion video, and high screen brightness. However, in environments with high ambient light levels, the 3Qi's reflective mode contributes to the image, allowing the backlight to be turned down or off. This unique capability delivers significant power savings, an attractive screen and a comfortable reading experience, with very high resolution. Outdoors, Pixel Qi's Transflective 2.0 technology comes into play - each pixel is mainly reflective, but has about the same transmissive efficiency as a standard LCD, enabling the user to experience a crisp image with excellent contrast and *brightness* in any light. This highly "green" LCD consumes 80 percent less power in reflective mode, yet delivers a better contrast ratio and equivalent reflectance typical of the best electrophoretic displays.

Full color motion graphics combined with the legibility of E Ink. All that’s left is a startlingly sensitive capacitive multi-touch layer combined with the familiar matte texture of paper and Today’s Newton will have the display it deserves.

Hardware

Today’s Newton must be more than a glorified electronic notepad. In order to compete it will have to run the latest mobile applications and games while differentiating itself from the competition with an enthuses towards productivity and long lasting battery life. Compatible performance might be a modern Newton’s chance at market acceptance, but its real selling point is not how it performs, but what you can do with it.

Proprietary ports have long been the joke of mobile devices. Designed with restriction in mind these ports have required the need of costly adapters which mange to fill the manufacturer’s pockets with revenue, while filling the user’s pockets with dongles.

The original series of Newton MessagePads shipped with the most advanced wireless communication at the time, infrared. Today’s Newton has to do much better than your average television remote if it hopes to compete with mobile phones equipped with multi-band cellular, wifi, Bluetooth, and GPS radios.

If this year’s 3D game playing 4th generation iPod Touch can squeeze a screaming fast Apple A4 processor into a case just 0.28 inches deep then why can’t Today’s Newton do the same? There is no need for proprietary connections when Today’s Newton can accommodate two low-power full-size USB ports along the pencil thin profile of its carbon fiber chassis. And if cell phones can have up to four wireless communication radios why can’t Today’s Newton? Even if you are never going to hold it to the side of your head Today’s Newton should be perfectly capable of making call through a conveniently discrete Bluetooth headset. The future is now and if we want a truly mobile computing experience with the functionality of a traditional computer combined with the ease of use of a mobile OS we need to give Today’s Newton the capabilities to be more than just another smartphone.

An impossibly thin, carbon fiber clad, miracle screened, A4 powered MessagePad would be a monumental leap forward for a Newton, but maybe only an evolutionary step ahead of the mobile devices we have today. That’s okay, the difference between a Newton and its competitors has never been about hardware. It has always been about the potential of the platform and the tight group of user’s that celebrate that potential while carrying Newton forward.

Photo Credit Grant Hutchinson.