Review: Toshiba 14 Inch USB Monitor – Perfect for Travelling
Toshiba 14″ USB monitor
These days, I spend more time at client sites than I do in my home office. My home office has four monitors for my desktop. When at a client site, I’ve been stuck with just a single screen for my laptop. This can be tough getting used to, and be quite limiting.
Toshiba came out with the perfect solution. Their $200 14″ USB monitor that folds completely flat, and takes up less room than my laptop in my backpack.
The monitor comes with a dual plug USB cable to ensure that it gets enough power to operate. From my Dell Precision M4500, I find that it gets enough from just one port. I keep the original cable in my backpack, and use just the Griffin mini USB to the monitor. This is essentially a 2″ cable that works perfectly. Toshiba does sell an optional power supply, but I’ve yet to find a need for it.
The screen gives me 1366 x 768 resolution, and provides perfect screen real estate to keep my Outlook and other apps open while I use the laptop’s main screen for my current focus, such as documents, etc.
Setup of the monitor each day is trivial. Open the unit like a book, close the flap, and stand it up. Connect the USB cable, and you’re done. Initial setup merely required the CD-ROM for the drivers, and took only seconds. From unboxing to operational took me less than five minutes. Front panel controls include power and brightness controls. There is a little velcro flap in the middle of the case to store the cable.
I absolutely love this monitor. It provides extra working room for me to be more efficient. It takes up very little space and adds very little weight (3.7 pounds) to my overall carry load. Setup is a breeze, and the unit just works.
The only thing I could complain about is that the bezel along the bottom, which includes the control buttons, is a bit large. It would be nice if it were smaller, and provided more screen space instead. But that’s trivial.
I would recommend this unit to anyone who would like to have more working room, but need to travel with it. It’s available from Amazon.
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