"It would let me set up shop at that posh cafe down the street." That's how you justified your laptop purchase -- but as you sat, gently sipping your macchiato, you realized it would never work without your decidedly non-portable
24-inch Cinema Display's extra real estate. We've been there many a time, and apparently so has a startup named MEDL Technology, which has just finished prototyping the answer to our telecommuting (and portable gaming) woes. Going above and beyond the average, tiny
secondary display, "The Panel" is an honest-to-goodness 13.3-inch LED-backlit monitor that's less than an inch thick, but packs incredible connectivity (DVI, VGA, Component, S-Video, mini-HDMI and USB) in addition to a sweet folding stand and up to five hours of rechargeable battery life. MEDL told us that should they secure funding, the firm's looking to launch The Panel in Q4 2010, and is hoping to first sway business users with a sub-$350 price point. To work surrounded by coffee -- without being employed by
Starbucks -- that's a small price to pay.
posted March 23rd 2010 1:11AM
I don't see people setting up tents in Starbucks with this.. oh wait.
@Almo Haha. Yea probably not. But for travelling with a crappy netbook, this would be a nice alternative.
@Almo
I know this thing is going to make money because I just said to myself... "it's so easy, why didn't I think of that, dammit!!!"
@Motlee
Huh? The whole point of a netbook is to have a small, cheap, portable laptop. Add on a $350 screen like this and you lose the small part. Plus the cheap part. Don't forget the portable part. In fact, what would be the point of that at all? You might as well spend the combined cost of the netbook and screen on a real laptop with large screen.
@tonicboy
your argument is flawed. How does purchasing this monitor take away from the portability of a netbook. If buying this required you to rip off your netbook screen and weld this one on then you would have some one of an argument because then you would be permanently altering the portability of the device. "In fact, what would be the point of that at all? You might as well spend the combined cost of the netbook and screen on a real laptop with large screen." The point is to be able to use your netbook at home as well for extended periods of time, the solution to this is not to buy a laptop with a bigger screen because now u have completely lost out the form factor, so for a person that actually ultimately prefers the portability over anything else your advise if very narrow minded.
@LargeAfrican
What is the point of 'portability' at home? When you're home, your computer just sits in one spot 90% of the time and if you want to bring it down to the kitchen or living a room, a netbook certainly has zero portability advantage over a normal-sized laptop. The portability comes into play when you don't want to stick a full-size laptop in your bag or if you're going on vacation and every pound counts. It's in these exact situations that buying this screen makes no sense because you now have something that is bigger, bulkier, heavier, more difficult to pack in your bag and in many cases even more expensive than a normal laptop. Not to mention that it loses on performance as well. If you're implying that you would rather use this screen at home and take the netbook on the road, then the argument becomes even stronger: you can get a much, much better value in a normal LCD monitor.
I remember when getting my 5 inch gamecube LCD screen was the most exciting thing i bought. it was a little less than the price of this.
@uShak Yes, it was about 1/6th the price of this
This is scrumtrelesent. Make it $200, and I'll buy instantly.
This is perfect for using Dreamweaver or iWork on the go.
@OmegaThirteen
+1 for scrumtrelesent usage
@renegade222 What does the word mean? Haven't found it in any onlyne dictionaries around...
@OmegaThirteen
Seriously? Dreamweaver? I wouldn't go shouting that round. Anyone who actually knows about web design doesn't use it. Ha.
@bitingback
Then clearly you don't do any serious web design. I've been designing and programming websites for over 15 years and I use Dreamweaver as my primary tool. It was good enough to design web sites for Verizon, T-Mobile and Avaya.
@bitingback 1) Is there a need to be an ass? No.
2) I did not claim I knew one single thing about "web design".
3) You, obviously, don't know what you're talking about.
Most people who "work" at starbucks with their fancy MacBook pros are ussually there to show off
for me I just like the coffe and the oh so tasty cookies
@Massive Poop I used to do homework there with a friend after school but I don't understand why people that sit there alone aren't just at home...
@Massive Poop
I totally agree with your statement on its usefulness for coders.
It'd be great for photographers too. Pairing this with a netbook and you can compare photos side by side at a larger resolution as compared to the minuscule screen size of a netbook.
@Massive Poop
Well I've never owned a Macbook Pro but... sheesh, what a bigoted statement. So, you're saying that all MBP owners are egotistical snobs? The irony is, your presumption that you've managed to accurately judge an entire category of people is the most egotistical thing in itself. I do hate an obnoxious Apple fanboy, but obnoxious Windows/Linux fanboys are even worse. Have you ever considered that some people like to get out of the house and enjoy the atmosphere of a nice cafe while having their laptop with them? Not everyone is permanently tethered to the fiber line in their parent's basement while playing WoW.
@Massive Poop
lol. You friend, are an ignoramus. I won't bother explaining how dumb that comment was.
@tonicboy Well you have to be there to show ofrf. Why else would you be at a STARBUCKS when there is much better tasting coffee elsewhere.
I wish them the best. I wonder how many people would end up buying a secondary display. Perhaps graphics professionals on-the-go would benefit.
This is brilliant.
this is another example of those products that are ridiculously obvious and useful, but no one thinks of..
Dang. This goes beyond just Computer connectivity, it's a 5 hour display for ANYTHING. I like. I want.
This would be nice for home use. Stats screen.
this wants a touch screen on it so badly. that would be amazing.
@bolezhinkov
Exactly what I thought, I don't really see the point otherwise, considering my laptop's screen is already 15 inches
looks great and very useful. but i'm confused, is the 5 hour battery life with the lcd plugged into the usb? or is it also battery powered and wouldn't need the use of a usb as a charging station?
@25i which one? lol. if i could have the macbook or any laptop plugged in to the wall charging and then the lcd plugged into one (or 2) of the usb's being fully charged, that would be great.
This is way more useful than an iPad.
@Atkins I forgot, the internet doesn't properly decode sarcasm or playful jabs at popular Apple products. My bad, dog.
A great quality screen, yes, but brilliant ? "less than an inch" thick ? For traveling plus a netbook? What is the price benefit or comfort benefit that offsets the volume to carry this as extra?
Perhaps, if traveling with a UMPC or very powerful smartphone.
This will be surpassed in a couple of heartbeats by a tablet with or without an i
@me2ici I am also greatly missing the point on this. Most people say netbooks don't replace laptops. This plus a netbook could replace a laptop, but what's the point? Travel with a laptop, same size, more than 5 hours of battery life in most cases, plus you only get 5 full hours out of this if you have a fully charged battery plus a battery on the netbook that runs over 5 hours. I'm lost on this device, especially since it isn't massive, but so many people thus far are in love.
@me2ici no you didn't get the meaning of this device, to use two screens together will improve around 50% work efficiency for business works, and imaging you are a business man and you are going to do a small presentation on a small table with out a projector.
@Xuming Good try to sell the business case, but I don't buy it. Plus 50% efficiency because 2 screens? Apart from some niche cases, the rest of us with only one screen is inefficient? For some presentations on the go, some people might like to haul this around, however, these would work as well from their laptop screen. If one wants to be more fancy, what about up and coming pico projectors? In next half year, the tablets & pads coming on the market will allow to be used as a portable second screen and with touch... if required, launching interactive presentations on top of it.
@Jason V
I think you are really confused.
@Jason V Didn't get the sarcasm. Not native english.
My 13" ThinkPad Edge was hardly more expensive - so why dont buy a second Notebook at that price point?
i'd like this to be a default feature of ANY of those tablets announced that year.
I'm suprised not to see more imagination in the comments about this thing. Great idea - even if it's a little fugly. Apple could do this for $800 to match my MBP and I'd buy it - if it matched the specs of my laptop screen display, and could be calibrated to match it for colour.
It would be great for collaborative work - showing a presentation or images/video to a colleague or client.
As a video editor often working with a laptop, I'd like the extra space for little extra bulk trade-off. I could also use it as an adhoc video monitor for clients with the extra connectivity - mini HDMI is killer.
My two cents to the manufacturers? Make a 15" and 17" version to match the bigger MBPs as well - these are the machines used by pros who need more screen area. It would easily fit into existing laptop bags and add little weight.
Look forward to buying one - even if it's just to play PS3 games on inbetween edits....
I was just thinking about something like this the other day. I wanna use it for DJing... using two different softwares on the same screen can be cumbersome on the fly!
WANT!
I'll definitely buy one if it's
iPad should offer this function.
if it did i might have an excuse for one.
Thats the cheapest, largest possible Follow Focus Monitor you can stick into a DSLR/Camcorder. I think I'll get one when it comes out, and attach it to a DSLR rig I'll be putting together. Hellz yeah!
Nothing about the viewing angles. On their website neither. Too bad if it works reasonable only in landscape position.
And baah, probably it's glossy too.
I'd like to mount one in my Jeep for navigation, and engine performance metrics. Not to mention surfing the web in the 5:00pm parking lot that the highway turns into. You could do it with a netbook on a mount post but I'd rather have the netbook stowed in a bracket with this thing on the dash with a mobile keyboard/mouse.
Want it now? Search for Samsung LD220 or LD190. "Only" USB and no battery, but Starbucks has plenty of outlets anyways...
If you added a wireless video option, this would be absolutely perfect (maybe with the new Intel chipset that wouldn't be too hard). I use my laptop at home most of the time because I don't like having to be in the office to use my desktop. This way, I could have the power of my desktop but the freedom to be anywhere in the house (with an RF keyboard/mouse).
Except I couldn't do much of what I like or want to do without loading windows 7 on it. Not much point really. I suppose I could google and surf the net though. Or I could bootcamp windows in, but again not much point. And if I want to edit videos I'd be at a disadvantage because apple pretty much packs in older intel cpu's at a premium. It's not so bad on laptops, but go to desktops and an $830 PC with i7 desktop will obliterate a $1600 imac any day of the week as they can render video at about double the speed or more. My 3.8ghz i7 is even faster though. And you can pay $1999 for i7 imac, but then it's still slower than what I have. In fact a $2500 mac pro is slower. I think the only point of these are if you mostly want to surf the web while show your ignorance of computers off in a coffee shop to other ignorant people who don't know any better. So therefore they think you're cool. Ah, so there is a point. maybe..