Accessory Portable LCD monitors for work and gaming, recommendations?

esca

Efficiency Noob
May 9, 2020
5
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That's an interesting panel!

However does downscaling the resolution to 2k make the image blurry and not sharp anymore?

What did you use to drive this panel? I can't find any driver board related to it on AliExpress.

Not at all! 2k is still plenty sharp on a 15.6 inch display.

The driver board was sourced from taobao, there are many sellers selling the same board design but here's a link to one of it:
Taobao link
 

_ONE_

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 1, 2017
111
115
Not at all! 2k is still plenty sharp on a 15.6 inch display.

The driver board was sourced from taobao, there are many sellers selling the same board design but here's a link to one of it:
Taobao link


I know that, But you didn't understand my question.

Of course that 2k/4k is sharp on 15.6" screen.

But If you go 1080p with a 4k panel (example: for game performance) The screen become blurry, because to make 1 pixel of 1080p, it use 4 pixel of 4k.

Here's an example of it:

 
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hereforthefeast

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Oct 25, 2019
129
133
Are you overall satisfied with your purchased? I'm thinking of going a similar route but monitors are very hard to judge from specs alone
Due to covid restrictions I haven't gone on an extended trip using this monitor yet but from testing at home I am pleased with my purchase. Runs at 144hz as advertised and the colors/brightness of the panel are good (I only use it for gaming so I can't judge based off professional photo/graphics editing standards). It's also nice that you can run it off 1 single usb-c cable if your GPU supports it.
 

Nero

Average Stuffer
May 28, 2020
61
68
Great, I would also use it only as gaming display so color accuracy isn't too important.

But now that I think about it monitors are such a lottery, it would suck spending $250, get something with dead pixels but no return possible because it's aliexpress... I'll have to weigh pros and cons. If maybe some make their way to amazon it might be worth the premium for the peace of mind.
 

hereforthefeast

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Oct 25, 2019
129
133
Yes that's a good point. Aliexpress has a 90 day money back guarantee, that's probably the only protection you would have against dead pixels. For what it's worth, I choose the free shipping option and it arrived very quickly in a FedEx box.
 
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Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
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Looks like another high end option is going to be available from Asus towards the end of the year.

15.6 inch IPS with 144Hz. I’m hoping this comes in under $300. I do like the kickstand and tripod mount.

That looks really interesting. Given the price tag of the significantly higher end sibling, this one ought to be cheaper. €300 for this would be quite nice. The size suits me better than a 17" too (though I'd likely prefer 13-14"). And 144Hz is plenty. Hope it keeps the battery though.
 
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AlexTSG

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Jun 17, 2018
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That looks really interesting. Given the price tag of the significantly higher end sibling, this one ought to be cheaper. €300 for this would be quite nice. The size suits me better than a 17" too (though I'd likely prefer 13-14"). And 144Hz is plenty. Hope it keeps the battery though.

This one would be perfect for me. Although I'm looking at portable options, I'll actually have the extra screen setup above my primary monitor 80% of the time, and the tripod mount makes that easy to do with the existing camera support gear I have.

A portable screen with a reasonable stand would be handy though, as I need to work on other PCs that I have for a few days for upgrades, or repair. At the moment those often get setup on my coffee table, or kitchen counter with a 24 inch monitor, which I really don't need to watch a Windows installation, benchmarks, or virus scans.

When I do carry it around, a 15.6 inch would be better as most of my laptop bags will fit that size, but not a larger 17.3 inch screen.
 

_ONE_

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 1, 2017
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This one would be perfect for me. Although I'm looking at portable options, I'll actually have the extra screen setup above my primary monitor 80% of the time, and the tripod mount makes that easy to do with the existing camera support gear I have.

A portable screen with a reasonable stand would be handy though, as I need to work on other PCs that I have for a few days for upgrades, or repair. At the moment those often get setup on my coffee table, or kitchen counter with a 24 inch monitor, which I really don't need to watch a Windows installation, benchmarks, or virus scans.

When I do carry it around, a 15.6 inch would be better as most of my laptop bags will fit that size, but not a larger 17.3 inch screen.

Have you considered turning a laptop panel to an LCD monitor with a driver board?
 

AlexTSG

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Have you considered turning a laptop panel to an LCD monitor with a driver board?

I have. We use a lot of industrial frameless monitors at work when we build kiosks, and replace laptop screens quite frequently, so I can source various options.

I’d just prefer a prebuilt monitor with the inputs I need, and good mounting options. If I can’t wait for one of the Asus models to come down to a more reasonable price, then I’ll probably go for the Cocopar I mentioned earlier in the thread. I think with the current discount of $25, it’s not badly priced for what you’re getting.
 

_ONE_

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 1, 2017
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I have. We use a lot of industrial frameless monitors at work when we build kiosks, and replace laptop screens quite frequently, so I can source various options.

I’d just prefer a prebuilt monitor with the inputs I need, and good mounting options. If I can’t wait for one of the Asus models to come down to a more reasonable price, then I’ll probably go for the Cocopar I mentioned earlier in the thread. I think with the current discount of $25, it’s not badly priced for what you’re getting.

Yeah sure it's always better to have a product made for that purpose.

Well This thread gave me some exciting idea
There's really a need for afordable portable monitor and I'm already excited about manufacturing a clean frame that use Laptop panel...

Though the problem with that is to make a controller board that's well built and can do a good job at post processing the image, It might not be an easy task...
 

AlexTSG

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I think a nicely built frame/case that allows mounting of various laptop panels and controllers could do well. Something that would allow someone to pick a panel that meets their requirements in terms of resolution, colour gamut, and so on, and install it into the frame themselves with mounting points for a suitable controller.

The challenge would be much the same as that which SFF cases face: Balancing volume with expandability. You could design something slim, and portable, but then people may want options for a larger panel, or speakers, a battery, or different inputs, or different mounts...
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
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Yeah sure it's always better to have a product made for that purpose.

Well This thread gave me some exciting idea
There's really a need for afordable portable monitor and I'm already excited about manufacturing a clean frame that use Laptop panel...

Though the problem with that is to make a controller board that's well built and can do a good job at post processing the image, It might not be an easy task...
For a monitor, the last thing you want is post processing in the controller - that just degrades image quality while adding significant input lag. Monitor controllers should be quite barebones: decoding the signal and sending it to the panel with adjustments for the output in terms of color balance, contrast, brightness, and ideally gamma and 3D LUT support for advanced calibration. None of that is post processing though, just adjustments to how the controller interprets the display signal, and typically handled in real time or as close as makes no difference. Post processing would typically entail things like noise reduction, various filters, motion smoothing, AA, fake HDR effects, advanced upscaling, etc. - the type of things TVs do that make them poor monitors.

A nice, slim, semi-universal monitor casing without overly fat bezels would be nice, though I imagine it would be difficult to pull off due to differing mounting points and different panel thicknesses, different locations for cables coming out of the panel, and so on. Nonetheless I think the available solutions are both too bulky and expensive, so I look forward to any efforts to improve upon them.
 

_ONE_

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 1, 2017
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115
I think a nicely built frame/case that allows mounting of various laptop panels and controllers could do well. Something that would allow someone to pick a panel that meets their requirements in terms of resolution, colour gamut, and so on, and install it into the frame themselves with mounting points for a suitable controller.

The challenge would be much the same as that which SFF cases face: Balancing volume with expandability. You could design something slim, and portable, but then people may want options for a larger panel, or speakers, a battery, or different inputs, or different mounts...


Well I have my own way to think about all of this.

let's answer to what you think people will generally ask for:


- 15.6" mainly and 17.3" format variant for larger need (maybe also 14.1" for super SFF build) with universal mounting point for any panel

- Vesa compatible (stand will be included, but you will be able to use any aftermarket vesa stand/arm and even a custom hinge like surface pro tablet) - That solve mount



Now for the battery and the speaker,


Personally I don't think a battery is a must, because I use it for A SFF pc and an outlet is for sure available when I power up my PC.

Same for the Speaker, Any decent gamer use a headphone or at least some earphone. that said, for the other user there's a solution:

The way I design my product is to always put modularity first to let people free to add any module. (On the Tiny Boy, every mounting will be an extension for the future mod, A handle on top is coming for the next revision)

So for that there will be some mounting point behind the panel, in it's corner or whatever.
You'll be able to screw a battery and plug it into the board.
Same goes for the speaker, except I'll think about having a way to extend a "bottom bar speaker" under the panel's frame.

I'm taking inspiration from that:



And finally for the different input, I'm counting on my future community to vote for which input they need.

For me, It'll be USB C - Hdmi - dispay port. And no i'm not gonna put DVI and VGA lol, There's adapter for that.


Edit: Can someOne tell me why there's sometime 2 Hdmi on a monitor? does people plug 2 Pc to it?
 
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_ONE_

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 1, 2017
111
115
For a monitor, the last thing you want is post processing in the controller - that just degrades image quality while adding significant input lag. Monitor controllers should be quite barebones: decoding the signal and sending it to the panel with adjustments for the output in terms of color balance, contrast, brightness, and ideally gamma and 3D LUT support for advanced calibration. None of that is post processing though, just adjustments to how the controller interprets the display signal, and typically handled in real time or as close as makes no difference. Post processing would typically entail things like noise reduction, various filters, motion smoothing, AA, fake HDR effects, advanced upscaling, etc. - the type of things TVs do that make them poor monitors.

A nice, slim, semi-universal monitor casing without overly fat bezels would be nice, though I imagine it would be difficult to pull off due to differing mounting points and different panel thicknesses, different locations for cables coming out of the panel, and so on. Nonetheless I think the available solutions are both too bulky and expensive, so I look forward to any efforts to improve upon them.


I'm super Happy to hear that!!

To be honest I don't know a lot about driving monitor, I didn't though about it this way.

When I was talking about post processing, I'm actually thinking from my Viewsonic XG2405 (awesome)

I can increase the sharpness, increase the shadow, the saturation, contrast etc etc....

What about freesync also? refresh rate? Response time(I have this option)? Overdrive, Different profile mode? blue light filter? Cheating tool to have a cross for aiming in fps (lol)? DCR etc etc

And Also a decent theme, I hate this OSD menu that look like an ugly BIOS.
 

AlexTSG

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Jun 17, 2018
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Edit: Can someOne tell me why there's sometime 2 Hdmi on a monitor? does people plug 2 Pc to it?

The reason for having 2 HDMI ports is to allow 2 devices to be connected to the same monitor. So, you could have your gaming rig connected to one, and then have another HDMI cable connected to plug into your work laptop when you need a second screen.

I'm interested to see where your "Panel Case" project goes. Maybe it's worth starting a thread in Concepts and Custom Projects, to see what people think and get some feedback.
 
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AlexTSG

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Just thought I'd add these videos I found for the ASUS ROG Strix XG16 that should be available near the end of the year. The first one is unlisted for some reason, so I'm not sure if it will disappear from the channel at some point.


 
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Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
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Just thought I'd add these videos I found for the ASUS ROG Strix XG16 that should be available near the end of the year. The first one is unlisted for some reason, so I'm not sure if it will disappear from the channel at some point.


Those videos were a bit cringey, but the display looks really good. Hoping for a good price too!