usb powered small monitor for extra space (Mimo UM-740)

Member Name: gump103

Product:	Mimo UM-740
Date:	28/04/09 (321 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: extra desktop space, usb2.0 powered, easy install

Disadvantages: buttons tempermental, rotation issues, flimsy stand, no good for most games

At work we have recently purchased 4 of these monitors to satisfy a requirement within the IT department in which I work. We needed a small screen for each of the Admins in order to provide a small interactive display for showing server metrics so we could provide fast response to problems.

The screens cost £150 each from our suppliers and can be picked up for around the same price from Amazon currently.

They run in a resolution of 800x480 and are fully powered from the USB port as long as your PC has a suitable full powered usb 2.0 port. The screen is touch enabled meaning you can click on icons/buttons and drag stuff around with a single digit. Sound can be passed through it and it also has a build in webcam and microphone which can be used in most apps such as skype and MSN messenger. The screen comes with a height adjustable stand which allows the screen to be rotated through 90 degrees incase it is needed to be used in portrait mode. There are no sensors in the stand to tell the pc it has been rotated so this is a manual procedure through the bundled apps.

Included in the box with the screen is a CD with drivers, a USB cable and 2 audio jack cables to connect the microphone with the PC as well as the headphone port if you want to pass the sound through the screen to some external speakers.

The screen itself feels well built and has a reasonable weight to it but the stand feels a little flimsy and light so the screen bounces a little when being touched. I generally find myself holding the screen with one had while touching with the other.
On the bevel of the screen there are 3 buttons which control power (on/off) as well as the screen brightness. The buttons use a form of touch control and are completely flat to the bevel of the screen which looks really nice, however in practice I tend to find them to be very temperamental with about one press in five working.

Visually the screen has a good look to it, its reasonably bright (although not as much as a full LCD monitor) and the visual refresh is good. You can play video on it without any ghosting and there is no noticeable flicker. The screen does have some issues though and won't display everything that a normal vga/dvi monitor will and shouldn't be purchased as a gaming screen as most 3d apps fail to display correctly if at all.

The touch screen is responsive and works well except for the previously mentioned stand which is far to light weight to take most presses. It should be noted though that trying to use 2 screens on the same computer breaks the touch side of the screen as the software can't distinguish between the 2 touch panels and as such doesn't register a touch from either.

As for the software the installer is pretty simple, insert the disk and it prompts you to follow the instructions for installing the drivers and the software. Once installed you get 2 icons in the task tray, one controlling the screen view including the ability to select rotation. The other icon is the touch control software where you can configure the touch operations of the screen.

The Screen also has a web cam which is a generic 1.3mp web cam of pretty low quality, but at the same time it is functional for a quick chat on either skype or messenger. It produces a slightly dark image compared to my logitec 3500 webcam in the same locations. The only real problem is that the webcam doesn't rotate if you have rotated the screen so it becomes pretty useless unless using 3rd party software when you have the screen in portrait.

In conclusion the MIMO UM-740 is an interesting product, it works reasonably well considering it works from usb and it gives better results than I was expecting. However it is a limited device, the case while looking nice has problems with the buttons and web cam, the stand is flimsy, and the image is a little dull. However if you need that little more screen real estate without taking up too much desktop space then you could not do much better than this screen. For the use at work it is perfect as it allows me to have a small monitoring screen which allows me to spot problems sooner than, with my email alerts, without taking up some of my other desktop real estate. For home I can't really think of a use for it except for maybe mounting it in the walls around the house to control my media centre but that seems like a little overkill.

As an extra note I do use this screen from an external powered USB hub which is also connected to my keyboard and mouse and at times a usb hard disk. Day to day it works fine but it does go black screen when copying files to the usb hard drive due to lack of bandwidth. This is not a problem really but is worth noting for others who may have them.

Summary: great for specific uses where desk space is tight and requirements are low.

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Picture quality: