• Compact colorful laptop concept designed by Microsoft employee offers fresh ideas for portability
• Experimental a_77 laptop shows how compact layouts and playful design can work together
• Microsoft designer’s laptop concept isn’t real, but we wish someone would make it

In his spare time, Braz de Pina, Principal Product Designer at Microsoft, comes up with some amazing hardware concepts that we wish were real, and shares these on his website, and Behance and Instagram pages.

Although he came up with the a_77 compact laptop concept over a year ago, I’ve only just stumbled across it and wanted to share the device with anyone else who might have missed it.

The a_77 started life as a simple 3D model of a small keyboard. De Pina then added a screen and ports, eventually shaping the model into a fully realized laptop.

Copilot key

The process gave the device an unusual form that looks very different from traditional designs.

The keyboard itself is the defining element. It features a 65% layout with function keys along the top, an oversized escape key, and a bright orange power button.

A Copilot key sits beside the spacebar (even though this isn’t an official Microsoft product, he works there, so a Copilot key was always going to be part of the design), while a ThinkPad-style nub below the Enter key offers cursor control.

Speakers sit along the bottom edge, making the most of the compact frame.

The screen, which de Pina says is touch-enabled, doesn’t stick to standard aspect ratios such as 16:9. Instead, it resembles an enlarged smartphone display, giving the device an unconventional but still practical format.

This choice, paired with the small footprint, makes the laptop feel both portable and approachable.

The a_77’s appearance is where it breaks most from current design trends.

Instead of metallic finishes, it uses plastic in bold colors including yellow, blue, and white.

Fan vents line the sides and back, and four USB-C ports are split evenly across both edges.

Its compact size makes it easy to imagine carrying in a jacket pocket, and USB-C charging would do away with the need for a bulky external charger.

Even though it is only a concept, the a_77 shows how laptops can be reimagined to carry personality as well as function, something that I’d personally love to see a lot more of.

Via Yanko Design

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Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.