I have an Asus 16 inch portable monitor, the kind that you can carry anywhere like a very large tablet but is intended to be used with a desktop computer or as a second screen for a laptop. I also have an ultra tiny but powerful PC, together this makes a robust but transportable workstation that I can use for travel without some of the drawbacks of using tablets or laptops. So what do you get here and is it worth it?
WHAT DO YOU GET
At a price midway between most others this one wins immediately in terms of simple transportabity. It is ready to use in an instant with any fussy adjustment knobs or setscrews and the monitor/tablet base sits flat on the desktop, there is no other way to assure rock solid stability than a design like this. The support system guarantees there will be no wobble, which is very important for touchscreens, drawing screens, tracing screens or similar devices. There is a simple but excellent way of adjusting the angle through a very useful range. Countering some usual objections, you can’t swivel from side to side (but you can easily just turn the base) and you can’t vary between portrait and landscape (easily done by rotating your tablet).
CONSTRUCTION
This this is extremely well built, easily justifying the price. It is virtually unbreakable yet feather light. And it looks better than 90% of the other ones I looked at.
NO SO GOOD NEWS
Overall this could have been a perfect product, but its not. There are two significant things that I don’t like about it. One is that the cradle that holds the monitor/tablet has an odd forward slope to it rather than being a true tray. I really didn’t want a stand that doesn’t have a positive clamp top and bottom (or side to side) to hold the tablet firmly in place but I hoped this one would have a well designed tray. It doesn’t, the slope of the tray would cause most devices to slide right out if it wasn’t for the fact that they lined it with non-slip silicone. But that’s the only thing that holds the device in place and I don’t want to trust a device that may cost up to a thousand bucks on something that insecure.
The other issue is the critical flaw, the design of the multi-angle locking system should have been brilliant but unfortunately it doesn’t lock, the notches are too shallow so the folding arm barely rests in the grooves. One tap on the monitor and it falls over. If only that had made those notches deeper. As I say this could have been a five star product if not for those two flaws. I tried to correct the problem by putting some adhesive Velcro on the tip of the arm and a strip all the way down the back of the support and it works far better than the way they made it. For that reason I can’t give it anymore than three stars for average. I will keep it but it could have been so much better.
YES NO MAYBE
One thing I didn’t ding them on, although I should have, is that one of their photos makes it look like they included a nice travel/storage case but unfortunately they don’t, all you get is a little piece of Velcro that’s supposed to keep the moving parts from moving. I was ready to give kudos if they had included a case, I think they should think about it, I absolutely would not want to put this thing inside a case pressing against a thousand buck monitor.
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