Portable information terminal

• US 20040027793A1
• Filed: 03/12/2001
• Published: 02/12/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Haraguchi, Shinya, Ogihara, Akira
• Granted Patent: US 6,813,146 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 361/683
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/162 changing, e.g. reversing, the face orientation of the screen with a two degrees of freedom mechanism, e.g. for folding into tablet PC like position or orienting towards the direction opposite to the user to show to a second user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1671 Special purpose buttons or auxiliary keyboards, e.g. retractable mini keypads, keypads or buttons that remain accessible at closed laptop G06F1/1666 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1677 for detecting open or closed state or particular intermediate positions assumed by movable parts of the enclosure, e.g. detection of display lid position with respect to main body in a laptop, detection of opening of the cover of battery compartment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/169 the I/O peripheral being an integrated pointing device, e.g. trackball in the palm rest area, mini-joystick integrated between keyboard keys, touch pads or touch stripes G06F1/1643 takes precedence; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1614 Image rotation following screen orientation, e.g. switching from landscape to portrait mode

Abstract

In a portable information terminal, a display screen is equipped at one surface side of an upper half portion. Plural keys for inputting characters are provided at a surface of a lower half portion which is overlapped with the upper half portion, and an operating unit for performing the control operation of the display content of the display screen is provided at a portion of the lower half portion which is exposed to the outside even when the upper and lower half portions are overlapped with each other. Further, a controller for performing the display control of the display screen and other control processing is equipped in the lower half portion. The upper half portion and the lower half portion are rotatably joined to each other around a first rotational axis so as to be opened so that one end sides thereof are mutually separated from each other from the overlap state, and also they are joined to each other so as to be rotatable around a second rotational axis perpendicular to the first rotational axis. It is detected whether the display screen of the upper half portion faces the key-arranged surface of the lower half portion on which the plural keys are arranged or the opposite side to the key-arranged surface side, and in accordance with the detection result, the controller of the lower half portion rotates the display image of the display screen by 180 degrees.

Claims

1. A portable information terminal including:

an upper half portion having a display screen of a display device at one surface side thereof;

a lower half portion including an input key array of plural input keys arranged on one surface thereof and a controller which is provided in said lower half portion, analyzes an operating instruction input through said input keys and carries out the control processing corresponding to an analysis result to reflect the analysis result to the display content of said display screen; and

a joint unit for joining the respective one end sides of said upper and lower half portions to each other so that said upper and lower half portions are rotatable around said joint unit and each of a screen-arranged surface of said upper half portion on which said display screen of said upper half portion is disposed and the opposite surface of said upper half portion to the screen-arranged surface can face a key-arranged surface side of said lower half portion on which said plural input keys are disposed.

2. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1, wherein said joint unit joins one end sides of said upper half portion and said lower half portion to each other so that said upper and lower half portions are rotatable around a first rotational axis, and so that said upper half portion is rotatable around a second rotational axis perpendicular to the first rotational axis at the joint portion between said upper and lower half portion.

3. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a detection unit for detecting whether the current stage of said portable information terminal is a first state in which said display screen of said upper half portion faces the key-arranged surface side of said lower half portion or a second state in which said display screen of said upper half portion faces the opposite side to the key-arranged surface side when said upper half portion or said lower half portion is rotated, wherein said controller controls the control processing in accordance with the detection result supplied from said detecting unit.

4. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 3, wherein said detecting unit detects whether under the second state the inverse surface of said upper half portion to the screen-arranged surface is overlapped with the key-arranged surface of said lower half portion on which said plural input keys are provided so that the inverse surface and the key-arranged surface are confronted to each other.

5. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 3, wherein said controller controls the display content of said display screen in accordance with a detection result supplied from said detecting unit so that a display image on said display screen is rotated by 180 degrees.

6. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a detecting unit for detecting whether the inverse surface of said upper half portion to the screen-arranged surface and the key-arranged surface of said lower half portion are overlapped with each other so as to confront each other, wherein said controller controls the control processing in accordance with a detection result from said detecting unit.

7. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 6, wherein said controller controls the display content of said display screen in accordance with a detection result from said detecting unit so that the display image on said display screen is displayed while rotated by 180 degrees.

8. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1, further comprising an operating unit for carrying out the control operation of the display content of said display screen, wherein said operating unit is provided to said upper half portion and/or said lower half portion so as to be exposed to the outside when said upper half portion and said lower half portion are overlapped with each other, and said controller analyzes an operating instruction input through said input keys or said operating unit to perform the control processing corresponding to the analysis result and reflect the control processing result to the display content of said display screen.

9. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1 further including a radio transmission/reception unit for transmitting/receiving a message in a wireless mode, wherein a message to be transmitted is written onto said display screen by using said plural input keys only when the screen-arranged surface of said upper half portion and the key-arranged surface of the lower half portion can be visually recognized by a user who writes the message.

10. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a radio transmission/reception unit for transmitting/receiving a message in a radio mode, wherein under such a state that the screen-arranged surface of said upper half portion faces the opposite side to the key-arranged surface side of said lower half portion, said controller neglects a character input even when there is the character input based on the input key.

11. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a radio transmission/reception unit for transmitting/receiving a message in a wireless mode, and an operating unit for carrying out the control operation of the display content of said display screen, wherein under the state that the key-arranged surface of said lower half portion and the upper half portion are overlapped with each other and said display screen of said upper half portion is exposed to the outside, only the display operation of the received message onto said display screen is carried out by using only said operating unit.

12. The portable information terminal as claimed in claim 3, further comprising a key operating unit which is functionally varied between said first state and said second state.