Fortysomething Geek

What you see above is a 11.6" Lapdock being used as a secondary, portable extended display for my 15" Macbook Pro Retina.

A few months back, I reviewed a cool gadget, a 15" MHL HDMI portable monitor from GeChic which can be read here. Yes, it was a cool gadget but a bit bulky and pretty pricey for something that may not be used on regular occasions. I then turned my attention to the Motorola LapDocks because they have been great in the gadget scene. First, I got myself a newer LapDock 100 and that didn't turn out so well. The newer docks have been made more difficult to use as a dummy monitor. Well, after a few weeks, I ended up with the original Motorola Atrix Lap Dock. And I have to say, I am very pleased. These are still selling for 60ドル-80 which, in my book, is a STEAL of a bargain!

To use this as a portable HDMI monitor, all you need are some cables, couplers and adapters. The device has two ports: Micro-USB male and Micro HDMI-D male for video. To use as video, you need to get a female Micro HDMI-D coupler. Then you connect to anything that can use HDMI which includes displayport, mini-displayport, and Thunderbolt.

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I had to shuffle my current desktop;re-arrange monitors and I was reminded of an old subject : displayport/thunderbolt vs HDMI. This subject has been heated debate among tech friends.

This week, I am running full HD/1080p (1920x1080), WQHD (2560x1440) , and WQXGA (2560x1600) off an 27" iMac. I could run another WQHD(Apple 27" Cinema display) through daisy chaining if my desk had enough room to support it.

In short, I have a desktop of 7,040 x 4,120 pixels.


I posted earlier an image of the Retina Macbook Pro displaying 14 million pixels off four displays . That is pretty insane and not possible with HDMI.

HDMI connection is never a selling point for me. I don't know why it is ever a bragging point on new equipment. Sure, you can plug into your HDTV at home and in some conference rooms LCD TVs.However "most" laptops/computers with HDMI can only output a maximum resolution of 1920x1080 (HD). If you do more than watch videos in HD 16x9, HDMI in its shipping form is very limited.

When I shop for a new computer/graphics card, I always choose DisplayPort and mini-DisplayPort/mDP over HDMI. Thunderbolt use the same connector as mDP (mini-DisplayPort).

I hear if you advocate mDP or thunderbolt over HDMI that you are an Apple fanboy. The main argument is that mDP/Thunderbolt is considered proprietary or some silly notion that Apple has to do something different than the rest of the industry. This has been one of the major talking point against getting an Apple Macbook/Air.

Well, if it is considered proprietary, it allows me to drive multiple WQHD (2560x1440) or WQXGA (2560x1600) high resolution monitors. Heck, it allows me to at least drive one WQXGA 30" monitor.

Apple announced mDP in 2008 and has since licensed it for others to use (e.g. Lenovo Thinkpads X1/X230). Thunderbolt is an Intel invention and it is licensed to whoever (Lenovo/Acer/Dell) whats to use it. mDP/Thunderbolt is simply better for the needs of a computer user versus a person who is only interested in hooking up their notebooks to their living room TVs.

Sure, HDMI 1.4 promises to fix the resolution deficiency but the fact remains many monitors with WQHD (2560x1440) or WQXGA (2560x1600) handicap their HDMI input; meaning you will only get 1080p res on that nice Dell U2711 or U3011.

When more WQHD monitors support higher res through HDMI and when laptop manufactures clearly specify the max output resolution of their HDMI output, I might change my mind.

With companies now making ultrabooks, they should all embrace mDP/Thunderbolt.
I don't understand why companies like Asus ship laptops like the UX31E with mini-hdmi and mini-vga. You still need to carry an adapter/dongle for mini-hdmi/mini-vga so the argument about carrying an extra cable is moot. I'm more inclined to think Asus didn't want to spend any extra money on licensing which would even make their ultra portable even smaller with less ports.

With Displayport/mDP/Thunderbolt, you have dongles for VGA (those old conference room projectors), HDMI (for plasma/LCD TVs), and DVI/Dual-DVI for standard monitors. Heck, most cables only cost 3ドル-10ドル. Displayport even routes digital audio (just like HDMI) in revision 1.2. If you are going to be making presentations at client's conference room, you would most likely be carrying a HDMI cable already so the extra dongle adds little bulk for the few times you use it.

DisplayPort now allows you to daisy-chain monitors in their spec. Here is an excellent example with 2 displays daisy chained. Have in mind, these are two WQHD display running off a Macbook Air. Not even the top of the line Thinkpad W530 can do this (unless you use a docking station with certain configurations).

(source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage-many-many-monitors/)

So there you have it. I like to conclude with my earlier remark, when I am in the market for a new laptop/computer, I will always choose displayport/mDP/Thunderbolt over HDMI.

Ubuntu needs to fix their multi-monitor capabilities. It is an embarrassment compared to Windows and Mac OSX. I normally dock my Thinkpad T420 to a 30" screen (2560x1600) and there are a few gripes.

First of all, you can't have a different wallpaper on different screens. Okay, this is pretty trivial but the next thing really irks me.

The biggest complaint is the phantom area, the missing void, or the land of no-where.
If you look at my screenshot of my display layout above, the area in red is the phantom zone. Since both monitors are of different sizes (1600x900 and 2560x1600), Ubuntu fails to grasp this. It assumes both have similar workspace sizes so windows and icons float between the two, you can have a browser or terminal window lost in this "phantom zone." More importantly, desktop icons and folders get lost. Since my desktop auto-arranges, all the icons are moved to the top left corner. If you manually move and place the icons, they will get re-shifted back to the phantom zone whenever you dock another screen in.

I don't know who to blame. X11, Canonical, Gnome? It seems to be the same problem with Linux Mint and other distros I've worked with.

In my first multi-monitor display post, I wrote about using the Retina iPad 3 as a high-res portable multi-monitor display for a laptop. Today, I am going to show you the same software running on Android's Ice Cream Sandwich with the wonderful Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 7.0" Android tablet. It also works with other Android devices such as the Nexus.

Avatron makes the same Air Display available for Android on the Google's Play Store. I was looking for something similar to my iOS and I hit jackpot. The desktop client is the same and the app works and feels like the iOS counterpart. The client app works on both Windows and Mac OSX. Below are screenshots of it running in Mac OSX.

Set up is the same as before. You select your device (s) and adjust your secondary display arrangement.



And voila. Wi-Fi palette monitor; using the Galaxy Tab 2 as a secondary portable monitor. You can use the touch-screen as a virtual mouse as well.



A few things to note. With Ice-Cream Sandwich, you don't get the full screen. The virtual soft keys (home/back/menu) and task bar still exists. Hence, you lose some resolution compared to an iOS device.

1024x600 on the Galaxy Nexus
1024x540 on the Galaxy Tab 2
2048x1536 on the iPad 3 in Retina mode. (1024x768 other mode).

The only missing feature from the iOS version is virtual keyboard. Both have virtual mouses but with the iPad, you can pull up the tablet's keyboard to enter text or type within apps inside your Air Display monitor.

Next, the other issue is the inability to power multiple "Air Display" devices; meaning I am unable to use all my devices as 4th or 5th monitors at the same time.
I have some DisplayLink usb powered monitors and I can daisy chain up to 6 DisplayLink monitors to my MacBookPro. It would be nice to have a similar feature with Air Display.

Lastly, the refresh is rather laggy and slow. This is expected since the redraw is taking place over WIFI. The speed of your refresh depends on the speed of your WIFi network and your devices. Both my Samsung devices, in general, have poor WIFI connections. This doesn't bother me because I use these monitors as palette displays to show non-motion material. I use them mostly for displaying error logs, mail, and terminal windows which do not need fast refresh. Depending on your use case, this may not be ideal for you. Considering that the application cost 5,ドル the investment is low compared to buying and lugging extra monitors around.

And a word of advice. If you ever plan to use a WIFI monitor or even some sort of Remote Desktop (VNC/RDP/X11), always choose a solid color like dark grey for your background. It makes it easier on the refresh and redrawing.


Link: Air Display at Google's Play Store

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