Nanovision’s MIMO range of USB companion displays are no strangers to the pages of SlashGear, and we’vereviewed our fair share of them over the months. Standing proudly on the test bench today, though, is the company’s biggest to date, the 10-inch touchscreen iMo Mini-Monster. A titan among USB secondary displays (and a Tinkerbell among regular LCDs), the iMo Mini-Monster promises the same ease of connectivity as its smaller siblings but with the same resolution as a 10-inch netbook. Worth the $259.99, then, or has Nanovision overestimated exactly what consumers want from their companion LCDs? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
Physically the iMo Mini-Monster looks a little like a basic tablet, with minimal screen bezel surrounding the 10-inch, 1024 x 600 touchscreen display. On the back there’s a hinged stand that flaps out to prop the screen up, while the ports are recessed at the side. Nanovision quote a 400:1 contrast ratio and 350cd/m2 brightness, and the whole thing measures 9.7 x 6.3 x 1 inches and weigh 1.77lbs.
As with the other MIMO displays we’ve tested, the iMo Mini-Monster relies on DisplayLink’s virtual graphics driver technology. Rather than plugging into a true video output – such as a VGA port or HDMI – the DisplayLink drivers create a virtual monitor connection and the Mini-Monster gets both power and signal over the same USB 2.0 connection. The plus side is that you don’t need another graphics card (or to use your spare video output on a sub-display); the negative is the CPU impact of doing the necessary graphics crunching.
On a desktop PC or a decent notebook, running a single MIMO display isn’t going to bring your system to a halt. However, because you can have several such displays going at the same time, each with their own virtual graphics driver, it’s possible to bring general performance noticeably down. If you’re on a low powered machine to start with, such as a netbook, the impact of the DisplayLink drivers will be even more considerable.
You’ll also need a USB port with sufficient power to drive the display. A double-headed USB cable (two full sized USB plugs on one end, a mini-USB plug on the other) is supplied just in case a single port isn’t enough. There are also two USB ports on the iMo Mini-Monster itself, to use it as a simple hub; Nanovision throw an AC adapter into the box to power these extra sockets. Otherwise the only feature of note is the pull-out stylus for more precise use of the touchscreen.