Coming soon will be the first installment of Ironed Out, our hands-on hardware review series. We'll be checking out the MiMo UM-710 and UM-740, a USB-driven LCD monitor. Intended as a secondary display (to park IM clients while gaming, or Photoshop palettes while doing full-screen image work, and whatever other stuff that comes to mind), it's a seven-inch, 800x480 chunk of real estate you can park pretty much anywhere the cable will reach. Both models offer portrait and landscape layout, depending on your space and display predilections.
One of the biggest and most interesting selling points for it is the USB-only interface, which means that folks already using multi-display setups can integrate one with their desktop, and people who only have a single DVI or VGA output can do likewise. It's advertized as a three-step, five-minute install, compatible with OSX and both 32 and 64 bit flavors of Windows.
The UM-710 is merely a small secondary display; the UM-740 adds the interesting bells and whistles -- webcam, audio pass-through jacks, a second USB port (for systems that can't deliver enough juice via a single USB 2.0 jack for whatever reason), and the biggie, touch-screen capability. Both units spec out at a 400:1 contrast ratio with 350 lumens of brightness. This may be an issue if you have it tucked beside a main screen that is substantially brighter, as it could look dim or muddy by comparison.
Well, that's all great, BI, but are you gonna tell us how these suckers work? Are they worth a hundred and thirty or two hundred bucks?
That is precisely the question we hope to answer for everyone once we've put in some desk time with them. Once, you know, we actually have room on our desk. Tax season is here, which means every horizontal surface within reach is covered with IRS-centric paperwork; clearing a swath for something with even the modest footprint of the MIMO is going to take a delicate hand and a large file folder.
Stay tuned for Ironed Out's experience with these units, coming soon. (Thanks to Dave C. at MIMO for hooking us up with review samples.)
Rafe Brox spends his days wielding a phone in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. When not causing friends and enemies alike to /facepalm electronically, he can be found extolling the virtues of the weird peripherals in his life, from kettlebells to the Trackman Marble. Those of you wishing to inflict or solicit hardware and gaming geekery in person can catch him volunteering at Dragon*Con. If you also share an unhealthy passion for PC hardware or know a good place he can get help for this addiction, the target coordinates are rafe.brox AT weblogsinc DOT com.
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