Mimo LCD Monitor - The Power Of USB

The Mimo 710 USB monitor (see http://www.mimomonitors.com/) arrived a couple of days ago. I have to confess I was somehow skeptical on how it would actually work. Plenty of well advertised gadgets these days, but not all of them working as expected. The Mimo is different. Works flawlessly. Of course the main selling point was the single USB cable it uses for power and video signal. Using USB to carry video has been news to me... But it looks like a USB interface is quite capable of carrying video, at least with lower resolutions, like the 800x480. At the moment I am not sure of the final application for the Mimo in my environment. So far I have been using it to display a number of side tasks. I configured it to extend my Windows desktop, so I can basically grab any window and drag it over to the Mimo. It can play Media Player videos. It can be used to display real time performance of selected stocks (I have been using Google Finance in full screen browser for that). I can drag progress dialogs for long tasks, like DVD authoring or large file copying to it.


I also started toying with an idea to use it as a primary control monitor for a media center PC. I have one built around a Mini-ITX fanless VIA platform, with composite output to a TV set. It runs an instance of SlimServer too. There has always been an issue with media servers built with PCs and used just for audio streaming. There was no easy way to control them without powering a full display. Now this setup is much nicer with a small USB LCD, especially with a "touch" skin of the SlimServer (http://slim-server-ip:9000/touch). Yes there is still a mouse needed for the 710 model, but according to Mimo, there is the touch - enabled 740 model hitting the shelves. That one should be able to visualize, power and control a media server application like the SlimServer.

In parallel I have been discussing with a group of friends the current prospects of Microvision, the company behind the PicoP projector, mentioned here an number of times. Microvision tries to get the first version of PicoP out to the market. Comparing the preliminary specs for the PicoP and for the Mimo, I can see they both offer 800x480 resolution. The difference is the PicoP accepts analog input, probably requiring a messy cable combination to attach it to a PC or laptop. I think Microvision should go the Mimo way - make a USB - powered, self contained projector, using the very same USB cable for video signal. This way we should get a gadget the size of a box of matches (no battery required...) with a single thin USB connector, able to project really large image. While I have some doubts on what exact scenario I would use the current PicoP for, I would definitely buy a USB variant, just to let it sit beside my laptop and throw a gallery of my pictures to a nearby wall...