Sunday, 28 November 2010
Mimo Usb-lcd Um-720s - mini_monitor, 7 monitor
I received the UM-720S promptly after ordering it, and I had no problem connecting it and starting to use it under Windows XP. It's very nice that only a single USB cable is required (as some USB-powered devices need to be plugged into two USB ports to get enough power). The display is crisp and bright, and the driver allows it to be rotated. The touchscreen functionality works reasonably well - it requires a firm press to register consistently, and the tracking is typical for these kind of screens (i.e. it's nowhere near the responsiveness of tracking on an iphone). It's very nice that you can use a stylus instead of your finger. The screen and stand are incredibly thin and compact when folded up. The USB connector comes straight out of the back of the screen, which may be awkward for some applications (like mine), but a right-angle USB connector can be obtained very cheaply. For the price, and for particular applications (such as building a custom controller), this is a very good product, and is currently quite unique. I'm getting close to ordering a second one, which should tell you how much I like it.
UPDATE: I just discovered that OpenGL operations do not work on a DisplayLink device (such as this monitor). So, if you're doing custom development of software to make use of this monitor, you should be sure to NOT use an OpenGL-based library. The DisplayLink drivers may support OpenGL, someday, but I wouldn't hold my breath. MIMO UM-720S Touch Screen USB Powered 7 Inch Swivel LCD Screen Mini Display
I've had this display for quite a while and I have very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I really like the display, it has decent resolution and I think it looks very good. I love the clamshell feature since it means I can drop it into my laptop bag without having to worry about the screen getting damaged.
The touch screen is another story. When running under WinXP 32 bit I found that about 1 in 4 boots the touch screen would work. The calibration sofware was next to useless though because, as one other reviewer noted, it scales the calibration screen incorrectly so you have to guess where touch targets 2 - 4 are. I was able to get it mostly calibrated but never quite as well as I'd like just by guessing where the target should be. Even worse, the one target it does show is not in the right location - you have to touch between the target and the corner to calibrate it right.
Then I got a Windows 7 64-bit laptop. Much to my delight the calibration screen scaled correctly and I was able to properly calibrate the screen. Unfortunately over time I've found that the touch screen drivers are unreliable under Windows 7 as well. For a while the touch screen would work about 1 in 4 boots then it quit working entirely but I could get it working again by reinstalling the driver - required every time I rebooted. Now it works after every boot but it will only control the cursor on the main screen, I can't get it to let me assign it to the actual touch screen monitor. That means when I touch the screen it moves the mouse on my primary monitor. I suppose that would be handy for some people but my primary monitor is a multi-touch so it's the last feature I need. The drivers won't let me select anything except the primary monitor either so I can't fix it.
I have tried writing the company multiple times and have never once received any response. If you need any sort of support you're out of luck.
My advice is to buy the non-touch-screen model and save yourself some money. The touch screen was nice when it worked but it's incredibly unreliable so it's not worth the extra expense.
I love my MIMO! I have it connected to a laptop running Windows Vista, and the software installed very easily. (I had an error/hang when I tried to install with both checkboxes marked, but it worked beautifully when I did them one at a time).
As soon as the drivers were installed, it immediately became an extension of my laptop screen with one cord (and one USB port, not two - at least with the version I have, 720S). Calibration was quick and easy. I can choose to have it extend my desktop in whichever direction I choose. Then I grab the handle of a window and move it over to the small screen. I have my tasklist and my twitter feed on it currently. If I turn the screen off, those windows just appear back on my main screen. Likewise, the touchscreen works seamlessly also. Touching a window with the stylus will shift the window focus to that window and acts like a mouse click (so I can check off tasks with my stylus once I focus on that window), and focus will shift back when I click my touchpad on a window on the main screen.
After reading other reviews, I was surprised at how simple to get working this was and how intuitive and handy it is. This "toy" will get a lot of use here.
Bought this item for a very specific purpose: rapid prototyping for touch-screen interfaces. I wasn't concerned with the terrible 6 o clock viewing angle or the 262k colors. It just had to work as a touch screen. Which it barely does.
Contrary to the funny translations from the manual, I was able to display full motion video onto this screen without any problems. Yes, the video files I was testing weren't great but then again neither is the native resolution of the display. The display brightness isn't very good. For indoor use and dark computer labs, it's ok. Would not recommend puting it in any kind of direct illumination.
Construction and assembly seem decent but nothing to write home about. The display has 3 buttons concealed on the left edge under its little blue power LED. I'm glad to report the LED is not of the light-house kind and won't need to be masked off. The buttons control power (or stand by) and brightness. You really won't be using the brightness controls though, unless you're prototyping a bed-side clock. The entire screen is powered via a Y cable USB connection (mini USB at the display end).
The software is...beyond words. The manual does a good job of pointing you in the right direction, even with instructions of the type "The calibrated Touch Screen coordinates may vary upon the lapse of usage time." Unfortunately, the drivers are a mess. The display part of the drivers seems ok. I successfully installed the display on a Shuttle PC and a laptop (M2400). The touchscreen on the other hand, installed properly only on the Shuttle. On the laptop it refused to properly scale the calibration screen to the available display area, such that only 1 of the 4 points was actually visible. This rendered the ENTIRE touch screen completely useless. After re-installing the drivers from the CD...twice, I went online and downloaded the same drivers directly from the website. Once again, the display driver worked correctly but the touch screen driver kept on failing to initialize properly even though I rebooted. I chose to ignore the failure and attempted to calibrate once again. It worked! The app properly scaled the calibration display to the screen and I was able to calibrate and use the touch interface. I'm sure I'll keep getting that failure every time I connect the display though.
There isn't much else to be said. At $200, this is at best an alpha candidate for a product. These days you can have a full 19 inch display for less or a very nice photo frame with way more brains than a simple display. So the question you need to ask yourself before taking out your credit card is "How much do you NEED the USB interface?" Mine's already packed and ready to return. - 7 Monitor - Displaylink - Monitors - Mini_monitor'
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