Product Review: Toshiba 14” USB Mobile LCD Monitor is Excellent

Using multiple monitors on a day to day basis has become the norm for most computer users today.

For laptop users that dock their laptops it was not too much of a step to get into a couple of monitors plugged into the docking station. But, once they headed out on the road they were stuck with the one screen on the laptop which may be a low resolution HD (1366x768) panel.

Some laptop models have an HD+ LCD panel with a 1600x900 resolution. These may be a bit more bearable to work with but in the end working with only one monitor is almost always a step backwards in productivity.

Enter the Toshiba 14” USB Mobile LCD Monitor.

• Canada: PA3923C-1LC3 (CA site link)
• USA: PA3923U-1LC3 (US site link)

The unit itself is exactly the same size as a leather billfold that holds 8.5” x 11” paper:

The unit is not that heavy and packs away quite easily in the laptop bag.

The Toshiba Tecra S10 that we use here in the shop has four USB ports on it. So, we can connect two of these Toshiba USB LCD monitors without any issue. If we had a powered USB hub we could plug in more of the monitors.

The maximum number of monitors that one can plug into a laptop using powered USB is 6.

We see this product as extremely useful for those that do spot presentations with a couple or three people at a time.

We also see this product as being very useful for our accounting firm clients for on-site audits and other off-site type work where they would be a lot more productive with at least one extra monitor.

Now that we have started to use it here in the shop and while on-site there is no going back. We carry at least one or two of them with us wherever we go.

One more thing. There is an external A/C adapter available for the product to bring up the brightness of the panel. So far, we have not found a need to go beyond the brightness that the monitor provides while being powered via USB port.

If sales are really good hopefully we will be seeing larger versions of the monitor! It is a big hit wherever we go with it. And at $200 it is a phenomenal deal!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

LG Flatron 22” LCD L226WTX–BF --> Fail

Last March we did a review of the 22” LG Flatron L226WTX – BF (previous blog post) and gave it a not so good review.

By then, we had been using the 22” pair of monitors for over 7 months.

Lately, one of the pair of monitors would give off a loud buzzing noise. The noise would happen randomly and last a varying amount of time.

This morning, the buzzing monitor gave a mouse like squeak when the system it was attached to woke up. The power light came on, but the monitor did not.

Power cycle the monitor and a picture will briefly flash by and disappear.

Thus ends our foray back into LG’s monitor products. We did not care for them after allowing them to sit on one of our desks for a while, and with the death of one of the pair, we will not purchase another LG for ourselves or our clients.

The still good monitor will be put into the shop at one of the bench stations.

They will be replaced with a set of Viewsonic LCDs or we may have a look at some other possibilities depending on what our local guys have in stock.

Testing a product before purchasing them for our clients is something we do for all of our product lines. No product goes out the door without us first having tested it, burned it in, load tested it, and in the case of server products having used it in our labs or production environment for at least a good month under load.

We don’t use our clients as product testers or their production networks as labs for our tinkering.

If this dead monitor was sitting on a client’s desk someone would be at least 50% less productive in the case of those that have two monitors, or not working at all if it was their only one.

That down time costs them money as well as a service call.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Display Flicker - Change the Refresh

With the advent of LCD monitors, image flicker has become a thing of the past ... at least relatively speaking.

For the most part, a screen set to refresh at 60 Hz will provide a clear and flicker free image.

Some LCD monitors are a little more sensitive to outside electromagnetic interference (EM) than others. It used to be that one could change the refresh rate in the video card driver to 70 Hz or even 75 Hz to eliminate any EM interference.

On the newer and larger LCD monitors this does not seem to be the case.

Electricity cycles at 60 Hz. Sometimes, when the monitor is set to refresh at 60 Hz, the image will flicker.

Some may never notice it, but for those of us with relatively sensitive eyes we pick it up immediately. In the case of CRT monitors, the refresh rate was the first thing to get adjusted due to the annoying characteristics of the CRT's image flickering.

In this case, the monitor in question is a new Acer X243w. When the ATI driver was set to refresh at 60 Hz, there was no end to the amount of flickering in the monitor's image.

But, there was no option on that monitor to bump up the refresh rate to 70+ Hz.

There was however an option to bump it down:

Acer X243W Refresh at 59 Hz

Once the setting change was made and applied, the flickering was gone.

Having the refresh rate on the monitor set to 60 Hz along with the A/C being at 60 Hz when having EM issues is a bit like having two fans, one directly behind the other, spinning at the same rate but not synchronized. One will notice the lack of synchronization in the way of a flicker.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

22" LG Flatron Wide L226WTX - BF - not so good

We were looking to try out some new product lines for our LCD monitors here in the shop.

We do that before selling any LCD products to our clients so that we are not pulling something out of the box and ending up with a product we and our client do not like.

The 22" LG wide L226WTX - BF LCDs were purchased to run on each side of an Acer AL2416W LCD monitor.

We have been very happy with both the Acer and BenQ monitors we have been using and supplying to our clients so far.

However, as soon as the LGs were hooked up and the ATI Catalyst Control Center was used to turn the monitors on, we were not really impressed.

Out of the box, the LG's tint/warmth were way out of line with the Acer's colour qualities. We played with the colour management features in the ATI software to see if we could get things close. We could not.

We went into the LG's on board menu to try and work the image's colour to come closer to the Acer with no success either.

We left them at the workstation even though they were not recreating the colours to our liking to see how they stand up over time. It has now been a couple of months, and both monitors are starting to have pixels flake out on them.

All in all, our initial venture into these particular LG products, at the 22" wide LCD level, was a disappointment. As result, none of these products will be ending up on our client's desks.

For Reference

These monitors have been on 24/7 since they were installed with sleep mode happening when the machine was idle for over 2 hours. They are peripheral monitors, so they would display Outlook, Adobe palettes, image directories, secondary Explorer Windows, the Windows Vista Sidebar, and other such content. They are being driven via a pair of ATI X1900XTX/CrossFire video cards with up to date ATI Catalyst drivers.

A fourth monitor is pedestal mounted above the Acer 24" LCD. It is a BenQ FP931 19" standard LCD monitor that has been around for a long time. It has no problems with matching the colour tones and warmth of the Acer AL2416W below it.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.