PRIORITY CLAIM

The present application claims benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. §§ 120, 365 to the previously filed Japanese Patent Application No. JP2019-136097 with a priority date of Jul. 24, 2019, which is incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to potable information apparatuses in general, and in particular to a potable information apparatus having two chassis that are foldable via a hinge device.

BACKGROUND

Portable information apparatuses having a touch panel type liquid crystal display while without any physical keyboard, such as tablet-type PCs, smart phones, etc., are becoming popular. It is desirable that the portable information apparatus of this type be large when used and be small when not used. Accordingly, a portable information apparatus having two chassis that can be foldable by a hinge device is preferred.

For example, the chassis of the apparatus are mutually folded via the hinge devices that are disposed on both ends of a bending part between the chassis respectively. Incidentally, with this configuration, when mutually folding the chassis, a gap is left between the chassis and thus hinges and parts in the chassis are exposed to the outside through the gap. Accordingly, an installation of a spine member for hiding the gap is necessary, which complicates the design go and increases part costs.

Consequently, it would be desirable to provide an improved portable information apparatus having two chassis that are foldable via a hinge device.

SUMMARY

In accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, a portable information apparatus includes a first chassis having an upper face, a lower face and side faces, a second chassis having an upper face, a lower face and side faces, and a hinge device disposed between the mutually adjacent side faces of the first chassis and the second chassis for coupling the first chassis and the second chassis together to be foldable, in which the hinge device has a set of outer shell members disposed side-by-side along an arrangement direction of the first chassis and the second chassis and is respectively equipped with hollow parts that pass through the outer shell members in the arrangement direction, a set of inner shell members each of which is disposed so as to stride over a boundary at least between lower faces of the mutually adjacent outer shell members in the hollow parts of the mutually adjacent outer shell members, a first coupling section that couples each inner shell member and one of the mutually adjacent outer shell members together to be relatively rotatable and relatively movable and a second coupling section that couples each inner shell member and the other of the mutually adjacent outer shell members together to be relatively rotatable and relatively movable, and couples the first chassis and the second chassis together to be foldable in such a manner that each outer shell member and each inner shell member rotationally move relatively via the first coupling section and the second coupling section and thereby the upper faces of the first chassis and the second chassis mutually face.

All features and advantages of the present disclosure will become apparent in the following detailed written description.

