Portable Monitor

Even though 4K screens have become a norm in offices and homes, and laptops offering increasingly higher resolutions, a second screen is often handy. I have been using the iPad (with the Duet app) to serve me as a second screen on the road. But at home I've found it cumbersome to keep connecting the iPad. Also very often I run some multi-hour monitoring / diagnostic processes and keeping iPad hooked all the time is not the best idea. On top of that every now and then there is a need to check (or work with) and equipment that requires HDMI screen. Such as the Raspberry Pi.

Searching for a solution I found this gorgeous UPERFECT 15-inch portable screen. It is touch enabled, and has a (mini) HDMI input and two universal Type-C ports. And it is super slick. On top of that it works exactly as advertised.

In my setups the two configurations I use it most often with are:
  1. A secondary (or tertiary, if you count the laptop's display) monitor. All it requires is a proper USB-C connection. One cable does it all: power and data. Provided you have the right cable.

  2. A primary screen for Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi does not output video over the Type-C connector, so you need to use a HDMI cable. For Pi-4 that would be micro-HDMI to mini-HDMI. This one is very thin, short and flexible. Now the interesting part is the monitor, when connected to a power supply (over USB-C) outputs power over the second USB-C, so with a single usb charger you can have both the monitor and the Pi powered, which makes a very clean setup: one cable (power in) to the monitor, one cable (power out) to the Pi and the third one to carry display signal (from the Pi to the monitor). This probably makes for the slickest Raspberry Pi "workstation".
It also works with the iPad (tested with 10.5" Pro, just by connecting USB-C cable) and phones that output video over USB-C, making all sorts of combinations possible. Wit the iPad you can use it to run a personal presentation sitting face-to-face to someone and having the monitor facing the other person, while operating an application on the iPad yourself.

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