Lenovo LT1421 Wide Mobile Monitor Review: Extra Space For Mobile Pros Discussion

When it comes to getting work done on the road, it's hard to beat a great laptop - but with the latest trend of ultralight ultraportables, many road warriors are aching for a solution to limited screen real estate. Can Lenovo's LT1421 fill that niche?

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Pretty cool device, David Hill wrote about the design here.

Unfortunately, in the era where LED-backlit FHD displays are as cheap as $99, the $199 asking price is far too high, even given the portability and lack of an AC adapter. Another major pitfall of the display is the low resolution; it should be at least 1600x900 to be very useful for what it is designed for. At this low resolution, it has little benefit over a virtual desktop solution such as Dexpot (link in signature).

 

That's largely true, but those $99 monitors don't travel with you - keep in mind that this isn't for people who'd use this device at home; it's explicitly for people who need a secondary display while travelling.

I do think the price is about $50 too high to sell a lot of units, though.

One issue I do have with your take is that this is a completely different solution to using a virtual desktop program - I use a MacBook Air currently, and OS X's Spaces is about the best integration of using a virtual desktop there is - just swipe back and forth. But the LT1421 offers something else...virtual desktops aren't nearly as helpful as having another display right in front of you for doing something like moving Photoshop toolbars around, or comparing two documents side-by-side, etc.

You could even watch video on your laptop, and use the extra display for browsing the web...though that seems like a silly purchase reason for most people.

 

Does the stand work for propping it up in a portrait orientation also? That would make it more attractive for document-type jobs and give you something you can't easily get out of a regular laptop screen.

 

No, it doesn't, unfortunately - that's a great point, though, and you should point it out to Lenovo.

There is a hilarious demo image printed on the inside of the cover, however, that shows you how the stand works. Unfortunately, someone failed Photoshop and it got printed on in a completely wrong aspect ratio...making it LOOK like it does a portrait mode.

 

Agreed, but then, at this price, it may even be better to simply buy two monitors, one for work and one for home

That said, a road warrior who needs a secondary display may still find a use for this.

Agreed, although my point was that with a 1366x768 external monitor, the benefit to productivity wouldn't be all too great compared to a virtual desktop. Comparing documents side by side could be useful, though, if you have a laptop with a screen resolution below 1600x900.

 

You hit the nail on the head, so to speak, for my typical usage! I have a Precision M6600 that I have attached to an external 19" while at home for dual display use, and I really miss this feature when I'm on campus. The 1440x900 on the external LCD is perfect for watching videos or displaying websites/PDF's with text that is too small for me to read or that are not my priority or focus. Before I read your comment, I actually posted about this monitor on Facebook with a comment that basically said it would be prefect for me on campus to do work and watch tv/movies at the same time. I agree with the price, though. I won't be jumping on one until a few more are out and perhaps a higher quality LCD (viewing angles, mostly) is used.

Still, my anniversary is coming up in April. I would like to be the first kid on the block with one!

 

That's who it's for, not really someone taking it to work.

I get that you're a resolution junkie - and trust me, so am I - but I think you're missing the point. Just because it's less than 1600x900 doesn't mean it's barely useful; this resolution has 73% of the pixel space that the higher-resolution one does. Toolbars, webpages, PDFs, books, whatever. They're all made easier with this thing, even at this resolution. Yes, it's barely HD, but consider how much work people can get done on tablets these days (swear to god if someone starts talking about how tablets are just toys, I will ban them out of spite).

Yeah, I think this is probably an ideal situation. I will say that if you'll be doing this without any A/C whatsoever, be ready to charge your laptop after class.

 

Like the Toshiba USB monitor that we previously reviewed, this Lenovo monitor is largely meant for sales execs who are constantly traveling and want to show presentations to clients but either don't want to setup a projector or are meeting in small rooms/offices where projectors can't be setup.

I'm sure there will be "some" traveling techies who will buy this because they love multitasking on multiple monitors, but I think there is a VERY targeted sales audience in mind for this product.

 

When I got to the

my interest waned. Someone with, say, a 12" 1366 x 768 might have a use for a portable screen that offered 1600 x 900.

John

 

What is with all you resolution junkies? Seriously! This screen is specifically made for people who need "multiple monitors for simultaneous viewing" to help increase the total real estate of their workspace. It is a freaking big deal for some professionals, like me, and this is a very good solution to meet that requirement. 2 screens = more workspace than 1 screen, no matter what your "technical expectations" were of the extra screen.

By the way, I would love to see a SuperAMOLED 15.6" superbright display with 1080p resolution; but, until you can get that beast to run off of your low-power USB port without frying your motherboard or sucking your laptop's power juice in 10 minutes, just suck up and use this screen. But again, it is obvious you both have no clue why people would need an extra screen when they are traveling (on work) and hence, you are not even the target customer base.

 

There might be a market for portable USB monitors with the upcoming market deluge of ultrabooks. Lenovo and Toshiba have both entered the market with fairly pricey offerings. I think that the 15.6" AOC E1649FWU has a much more realistic pricetag and offers greater utility, although I have deep misgiving about driver support with all of these offerings, Lenovo and Toshiba included. Does any current portable USB monitor support Linux?

I also have to wonder if the USB powered monitor concept shouldn't have waited until the shift to higher powered, native USB 3.0 in the coming year.

Don't get me wrong, it seems like a good concept, but it might be too soon. This category might just disappear for lack of demand. Of course, if Apple had a similar high quality, high resolution display, even at a much higher pricepoint, I think that he future of the portable display would be assured.

 

Not disputing the fact that I'm not the target market for the LT1421; I'm not. Also agreed that you can get a better screen elsewhere. But that wasn't my point, so let me reiterate.

There clearly are 14" 1600x900 panels out there (in the T420, for example), so why not make a truly well-rounded, quality product by using a screen that will provide even more productivity? If such a panel were in the LT1421, I think that would justify the current high price tag.

 

This will be the future. Soon there will not be any reason to have a big case. The only reason for a case size will be the screen real state that is always necessary for good graphics and vision. So companies can start to sell laptops cases where the screen is detachable temporarily and replaceable by one bigger like this if necessary. So i get a 14" and put a 19" screen in it.
This screen for example should work with a smartphone.

 

No, this screen most definitely won't "work with a smartphone." There apparently are Windows and OS X drivers, but not drivers for iOS, Android or Windows Phone 7, which is entirely distinct from Windows 7. This is not meant for ARM mobile devices.