A Very Neat Work in Progress
Written: Jan 24 '03 (Updated Feb 11 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Carry from room to room, very bright, light weight, battery, free Nevo upgrade
Cons: Only one remote, local remote mutually exclusive, dock not included, price
The Bottom Line: I recommend this device with reservations, due to its version 1.0 nature.
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| balleger's Full Review: Viewsonic airpanel V110 Smart Display |
It was like Christmas when my new AirPanel V110 arrived the other day (01/22/03). I had been contemplating SmartDisplays ever since I saw the demonstrations at CES and WinHEC 2002. Everybody that knows me calls me a geek, gadget-lover, or tech-head. This explains why, against my better judgment, I had to be one of the first to own a
SmartDisplay.
OK, enough background. Let's get one thing out of the way immediately- this is one hell of a neat device. It's a neat trick to be able to push a button and see your 1280x1024 desktop reduced down to a portable 800x600 10-inch display. I can be in the middle of an IM chat or browsing the net and take the display around the house- to the kitchen to cook a new recipe captured on my portable screen or even to the bathroom (no more "brb in a few - call of nature"). A 3-pound device is more convenient and easier to grasp with one hand and cradle in your arm or lay on your lap than a typical 7-pound laptop.
The AirPanel was relatively easy to set up, but this was probably due to the fact that I already had a wireless network set up. Therefore I did not need to use the Wi-Fi USB NIC that ViewSonic supplied in the box. I was already running Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 installed and therefore I didn't need to use the OS upgrades also included in the box. These two facts explain why this product is a bit pricier than it should be. If you take the $999 price and eliminate these two items, then I'm sure this will result in a more palatable $700 price. This is exactly what ViewSonic has in mind later this quarter (Q1 03). (Disclaimer: the $700 price is only a guess based on some newsgroup chats, it is not an official price).
Due to the high price, I wasn't initially convinced that I was going to buy the V110. However, the thing that swayed my decision is ViewSonic's offer of a free upgrade kit to add Nevo support to the AirPanel V110 (as well as its 15-inch sibling- the V115). Nevo (please see www.mynevo.com for more information) could be the ultimate universal remote control for your home entertainment system. This kit will consist of an IR transceiver that plugs into the AirPanel's PCMCIA card slot and some software. Since this kit isn't supplied in the box, I'll have to amend my review at a later time.
Since I have only had my new toy for two nights so far, I can't attest to the claimed four hours of run-time on the proprietary (but user-replaceable) lithium battery. I can say that I have gotten more than two hours of almost continuous use before the battery meter dropped to 56%.
Unfortunately, the SmartDisplay is very much a work in progress- after all, it is version one and the V110 is the first of a new genre of device that never existed before. The little disappointments fall into several groupings- the panel's hardware, the built-in firmware (Windows CE.NET), and Windows XP Professional itself.
Hardware Disappointments:
Since this device invites you to take it for a stroll around the house, it would be nice if there was a built-in pop-out stand (included in the 15-inch V115) so that the display can rest vertically at an angle. This is almost mandatory if you are going to be cooking your favorite recipes while referring to the panel. And speaking of propping this thing up, the docking station is not included! It is an extra $149.
While we’re talking about cooking, it would also be good to have a display with a wider viewing angle. You don’t want to have to stand directly in front of it while cooking.
The AirPanel includes a single chintzy mono-speaker, so it is practically impossible to listen to your MP3s without plugging in a set of headphones. It would be nice to listen to your favorite trance/techno/dance music while trying out that new batch of chili recipe.
Another shortcoming is stylus input. Since the touch panel display uses a passive stylus (i.e. no battery) it is impossible to rest your hand on the screen while you write text in the input pad or press keys on the built-in software keyboard. This makes it very awkward and fatiguing for any real amount of text.
If you buy this panel thinking that you can stream video on play DVDs anywhere in the house, then you are buying the wrong device. This is mainly due to relying on the built-in Wi-Fi 802.11b adapter. I can't blame ViewSonic for not supplying an 802.11g solution, because this newer wireless technology has not been standardized yet. However, they could have made the Wi-Fi adapter in the form of a mini-PCI plug-in card so that eventually you could replace the adapter with a newer high-speed version when it is standardized. I don't look forward to replacing this pricey display in a year when a newer version with more bandwidth is available.
Update-> after having the V110 docking cradle for a couple of weeks now I'm somewhat ticked off by the fact that the paint is wearing at the front bottom of the display as it slides in and out of the cradle. Come on ViewSonic, didn't you have real people test this stuff before releasing it? ! ? Where's the quality and workmanship in a $1,000 device? I wouldn't 'complain' (insert unallowed explitive here) if this thing only cost me $300!
Firmware Disappointments:
A built-in microphone and a jack for an external microphone are 'inactive' for version 1.0. I believe that this is just a firmware limitation (and therefore upgradeable by flashing) but I haven’t confirmed that yet.
Pressing the dedicated Input Panel button causes an input panel (keyboard or text pad) to pop up over top of the display generated by the connected Windows XP machine. I have experienced a few annoying occurrences where dragging the input panel around the screen didn't cause the underlying display to be refreshed and therefore I couldn't read part the application window. This could only be fixed by minimizing the application and then restoring it. Not a big deal, but very annoying when it happens several times. Because the screen is relatively small, you do wind up dragging the on-screen input panel around so that it does not obscure an application window.
Update-> After a little over a week with my new panel, I had to press the soft reset button. The V110 could no longer see my wireless network. After rebooting the panel, everything was OK once again. I guess like any Microsoft OS, it needs to be rebooted periodically. This has now happened a second time.
XP Professional Disappointments:
Finally we end this review with the host operating system- Microsoft Windows XP. While I love XP very, very much (it is the most stable operating system Microsoft has ever created) I find it hard to forgive Microsoft for a glaring oversight- you can only have one active user at a time. This means that if you are using the remote display, then the local display is disabled (a user sees just the login screen). This means that I can not allow my wife to use the remote display while I'm using the local/main display. Microsoft intends to fix this problem in a future OS (a year or two or three away) by allowing one local user and one remote user.
One last problem. I don’t know if this is normal or something related to my environment. It takes about 1 minute to establish a connection after I initiate a logon from the AirPanel.
Well, that's it for now. I will return to update this review as I find out more information, especially when my Nevo upgrade arrives (sometime in April according to a Customer Support). Again, I don't want to sound negative. This really is a very neat concept. I just wish that the entry price for this consumer product was a bit lower. Let's hope that some of these problems can be fixed via a firmware flash or OS upgrade.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 999
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Epinions.com ID:
balleger
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Reviews written: 4
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