Who Wants an Anker Portable Monitor?

#1

Portable monitors are a new niche device category that could really use a company like Anker.

As is, you have major companies like Asus, who’re charging crazy high prices for dim portable monitors designed strictly for business presentations, and random hobbled together Chinese brands with Russian roulette screen and build qualities.

I’d love a portable monitor with a huge battery, and Mini or Micro HDMI inputs that ARN’T going to break after 6 months of use. I want AT LEAST 300 nits brightness, and a stated response time. Also an auto shutoff if the internal battery dies, so you have to manually turn it back on to run off of a connected USB C device. If it doesn’t have an auto shutoff it might try to draw power from a Type C device outputting a display signal, and possibly fry it. I had a Razer Phone 2 break because of that (Luckily it was within warranty).

If it’s made extra thick due to a large internal battery, why not include a regular sizes HDMI input? That’d set it apart. No portable monitor I know of has that, and MIcro and Mini HDMI are VERY delicate and break often.

Anker already makes projectors, so this isn’t so far off. I honestly don’t care if it has an OS on it. I’d rather plug my modern smartphone in it than whatever might wind up being built into it.

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Who wants an Anker Touchscreen Lapdock
#2

I guess it could be handy for Samsung DeX as well

#3

And not just Samsung; Android 10 has a hidden Desktop mode, and I hope 11 makes it more available to regular users. I have a random portable touchscreen, and my Razer Phone 2 outputs to it AND the touch works! The touch even works when connected to my Desktop. Windows 10 has great touch support nowadays. But I hate a lot of things about the portable monitor I have.

Also for laptops, you could easily bring along a second monitor. If they make the battery inside it big enough, you might even be able to charge your laptop with it. You could set your laptop to your side and use your laptop like it’s a tablet. How about that?

Plug in a Chromecast and plug its USB into the monitor’s USB and you could cast to it.

And then there’s the Nintendo Switch. Big screen gaming. Skull 'n Co even makes a tiny dock that’s proven safe.

There are countless uses for it.

#4

Desktop mode in Android 10?
Is that the ‘force desktop’ thing in developer mode you mean?

#5

I think it also requires a launcher that supports it.
I read about a pretty good one somebody made.

My Razer Phone 2 is still on Android 9, and my Pixel C is on Lineage, which is 8.1.
I look forward to trying it some day.

#6

I’d not be keen on Android as its multitasking is bad, it’s a waste on multiple displays and windows.

I have a 10.8" Huawei with the EMUI which owners who have Huawei and Samsung tell me is identical to DeX.

Android does aggressive memory management which makes keeping multiple apps running, to benefit best from a 2nd monitor, not a good fit for the idea.

No, the idea of a large / second display beckons a full OS like ChromeOS, Windows or Mac OS.

Anyone familiar with the Google ecosystem would beggar the counter argument of simply buy a Chromebook, it’s not that more cost and is a separate device for redundancy / platform flexibility.

I don’t know enough about portable monitors to be qualified.

A quick search finds some interesting counter options

It does all the OP asked for?

#7

I use Moonlight to stream my desktop to my android tablet. If I’m out and about, I use my phone’s mobile connection to do it. I hardly touch the Android OS on my tablet.

Hopefully one day Android gets a good, official Desktop environment… But I’m not holding my breath. Even if it did, I’d still prefer Windows 10.

Either way, no laptop, nor Android tablet, will ever compete with a full powered desktop.

#8

I agree you cannot fight physics, you necessarily make heat as a by-product of computing so the more intensive the more it needs a physically larger box to drive cooling through.

What are you connecting from? Windows laptop? Is the wish for a portable 2nd monitor to work without a power cord?

I know you’re asking about 2nd monitor but recently some of us discussed similar topics, like if we’re really needing $1000++ phones and if we’re going to buy such high-end power if we leverage them more (2nd monitor argument). So either we buy lower end phones and use just as phones, or we buy higher end phones and make them our hub and just make all peripherals dumb.

This is discussed here , move to about 7m40s if doesn’t go there automagically.

#9

The uses for a good portable monitor are near limitless. Nintendo Switch, Raspberry Pi, remote access to your desktop via your phone, chromecast. In theory, they don’t have to cost all that much. Games on the Switch in portable mode often look SOOO much worse than in handheld mode. A portable monitor makes a world of difference.

As is, I use my desktop as a server and remote into it on my Pixel C, but with a good portable monitor, I would just plug my Razer Phone 2 into it. I use a Micorosft Bluetooth 5.0 Mouse and Keychron K1 with my Pixel C anyway.

Only reason I got a Pixel C was I THOUGHT the X1 chipset in it could decode h.265 in under 1ms like the nVidia SHIELD TV can… But it turned out it uses the stock Android, IDK, display drivers, or whatever. So It’s decent for desktop streaming but the latency isn’t good enough for any gaming.

I really do believe phones should be your central mobile device, with a desktop at home for demanding tasks. I don’t see much use for laptops, unless money is no concern.

I knew about the first NexDock but it only had Type C in, no HDMI. This one has HDMI in…
Thank you for for bringing this to my attention. Looks pretty cool. Might buy it.

#10

In there is the core question.

The raw unit component hardware cost is low, $2-$40.

The issue is how many units will sell. How popular. Because making a product has to pay many more costs which are not unit costs. Anything which can sell in Millions can be made low unit cost. If it sells in thousands, it has to be expensive. So not it should be cheap, but does it solve a problem many have to thus sell in volume to make unit costs low.

Pixel C, I owned it, used for a few years, sold it as it had bad Wifi, but loved the form factor and the hinged magnetic keyboard. If they made better Wifi I’d have kept it. But my Huawei has a different Wifi issue, doesn’t like 2.4Ghz+BT.

#11

It is niche, but I wouldn’t say it’s that much more niche than a portable projector.
In a lot of ways it’s more practical than a portable projector.

Look at this thing!

What I do love about the Pixel C is how sleek it is; the magnetic hinge is amazing, even still.
Imagine a ProArt that DIDN’T cost $4,000. With a metal magnetic mounting stand, albeit 1080p and IPS with a 10,000mAh internal battery and full size HDMI in. That’d be awesome.

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#12

Am I missing something? Asus already market a couple of IPS 1080p battery Zenscreens. One model with touch. One model without. They’re around £350 in the UK. Are you saying they are too dim for your use?
I have the MB16AC and love it although I use it exclusively for business to provide dual screens while travelling. Picked it up refurbed on Amazon for £175. It’s significantly brighter than earlier Asus models and works for me. I wouldn’t want the weight of an included battery as I’m always using it bus-powered.
Of course, I ditched the included cable for a decent red-braided Anker version!! :smiley:

#13

They have improved the brightness, but 220-250 nits is still very dim.

Keep in mind even $150 10inch android tablets nowadays push out over 400 nits.
iPads are around 425 nits, my Pixel C is 500 nits. For the price you got it for, that was a good deal, though.

Professor is right, it’s such a niche product that it can’t compete with the screens in other modern devices, but I don’t understand why. If I was buying a monitor for my laptop, why would I not want to pay a little more for a slim one I could bring with me if I wanted? Right now the reason is obvious… These retail for $350+… Have dim displays… Are color inaccurate… And their Micro/Mini HDMI inputs are destined to fail.

They market it as if the only people who could ever use it are business men who need it for presentations, but this could easily become a mass market device, even more mass market than portable projectors.

I think the future we’re heading towards is one of more modular devices.
External GPUs, portable monitors, and people already prefer external keyboards over their laptop’s keyboard, partly because it allows them to place the laptop closer to eye level.

#14

Within the caveat that if I were accurately able to predict the future I’d be a Billionaire so take this with the obvious pinch of salt…

Usually Occam’s Razor applies - the simplest approach is used the most - modular does not feel simple so you’d predict it would not be popular.

Phones popular as they are standalone useful devices, laptops similarly, and most places have screens you can borrow so you don’t need to bring, such as a conference room with projector or large screen, and wireless projecting more popular last few years. I also got working a Chromecast to cast my screen to not need to use a cable connection. That then meant I could ditch my laptop and go to a presentation just with my phone + Chromecast. More travel-friendly.

There are screens all over in the places you need them, used for meetings and rooms bookable in advance in offices. I trawled my memory of working the last 30 years and you’re talking its about 15 years ago I needed to present in a room without its own installed projection system.

If people are going to spend $1000+ on a phone with CPUs, RAM, GPU, storage on laptop capability, I can see carrying also a laptop being seen by some as unnecessary additional expense and so the ideas like the NexDock may appeal.

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#15

Razer had a prototype of this for their phone, and it used the phone’s touchscreen as the trackpad.

It wouldn’t take that much to convince people of how useful modular computing could be.
Imagine seeing one of these on display at a store, and being able to plug YOUR smart phone into the display model and try it out. Then you look at the price tag… $200? $250?
Impulse buy. This all requires Google getting their desktop mode act together first, but still.

Anker could fit a HUGE battery into the case of a laptop if it didn’t need any processing abilities of its own.

#16

A similar idea of a dumb terminal has been tried in the past, the likes of Tektronix X terminals and then Sun Ray thin clients.

They all tended to fizzle out as the cost of a lower end CPU, RAM, storage makes a dumb devices into a standalone more useful device.

History suggests people will say “why not a Chromebook?”.

If you’re going to bother to lug a battery, screen, etc, then the “might as well pay that bit more to make an independent device” argument kicks in.

Plus a degree of independence, they work in their own right, gives a little more resiliance, and not all apps work on all platforms so a degree of platform resiliance.

Modularity has been popular in PCs, but it didn’t get to mass popularity in other areas.

It is not a question of can it be built, nor that it can be built at lower cost, it is if it will sell in enough quantity to sustain at a low cost. So popularity is the deciding factor.

#17

Another review. Interesting concept.

I have been using both phone and fully standalone tablet with keyboard for years, the reason being if the phone goes kaput I can limp along with the tablet lacking just walking / pocket use, if the tablet goes I limp along with cramped phone.

This idea means if my phone goes kaput I am hosed having carried as much weight and volume as what I carry now. But I gain… What? Cost savings?

Typed on my Anker keyboard. Which is another of the ways I would get by with a tablet, as the keyboard can be used with anything even a phone if I were to focus on typing speed on a small phone.

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The very words “phone is your hub” immediately makes me think “what if your phone stops working?”. For $250…

#18

I like that NexDock because I have a Galaxy Note 10 Plus already so I nearly stuck the 100 quid deposit on one today.
I would love it as a touchscreen tablet/laptop hybrid version.

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#19

I am also very intrigued. But paused on the deposit to order. It will end up more expensive after customs and VAT in UK / Eire in July.

It is certainly one to watch.

I am wondering if someone made it have a Chromebook mode, so it would work standalone, albeit slowly, it would have more useful life? So you buy a Chromebook and when you plug in your phone, it becomes this Nexdock idea?

Lugging all the weight of screen and battery just to have it reliant on some other device…