You probably have better options than the candy bar-shaped monitor

Another Day Another interesting gadget is coming to the Internet – it’s a huge portable monitor (at least as far as aspect ratio goes) with an 8.8-inch screen running at a resolution of 1920 by 420

It’s called the Elsonic EK-MD088, and while its size, shape, and built-in stand make it intriguing, it also raises the question: What would you use such a narrow monitor for? And are there better ways to spend your 14,800 yen (about US$130)?

Gizmodo points to the most obvious use case for such a large screen: It seems tailor-made for keeping you scrolling Twitter or Instagram, taking into account the gloominess of the Internet next to your work. Honestly, this sounds like a great way to blow your mind – when I first saw it I immediately thought it would be nice to have chat apps like Telegram and iMessage open on the side so I could keep tabs on my friends and family.

I can Was there for the whole day. You can also use it as a dashboard to monitor your IoT devices, or for more fancy uses like enjoying the full Longcat experience without scrolling down or viewing lengthy tweets.

However, there are some noteworthy things about Elsonic. As for A, Ars Technica notes that it doesn’t look like it will be readily available outside Japan (and even there it won’t ship until February 2022). Even worse, it uses USB-C for power… but not video. Instead, the monitor has a relatively obscure mini-HDMI port to handle input, which is a huge downside for the convenience.

If you forget your display cable somewhere, you probably won’t find anyone who can give you a full-size HDMI to mini-HDMI cable. It doesn’t seem like it has a built-in battery, so when the screen and smart built-in stand fold down to a compact size, you’ll lose some of that space savings in the battery you want to bring. With.

Elsonic is also fair, and I know it sounds silly, too narrow. While fine for news feeds and timelines, it’ll be tricky for general use — typical second monitor apps like Slack can be very shaky at 420 pixels wide, or even refuse to go that narrow. can do. Although the product page states that you can also use it horizontally, which will solve the app width problem, 420 pixels barely corresponds to a vertical height; You can see three tweets or messages considering the taskbar and window chrome.

Additionally, one of the marketing images shows someone editing code on it. This sounds downright unbearable unless you can write your actions in 50 or less characters. Visual Studio Code will let you resize a window small enough to fit on Elsonic (unlike my code editor of choice, Nova), but at what cost?

While it’s easy to see the appeal of having a vertical screen that you can carry around with you, you definitely have better options. For desktop use, many regular 16:9 and 16:10 computer monitors have brackets that already allow you to orient them vertically, giving you even more screen space.

This LG monitor is about $50 more than the Elsonic currently on sale, but it’s also 24 inches instead of 8.8 and can serve as a low-cost gaming monitor in landscapes with its 144Hz refresh rate. You can also probably get a monitor that can be turned on for a lot less than the asking price of the EK-MD088 by buying some desktop-focused used Dell locally.

If bigger isn’t better for your use case, or you’re looking for a portable solution, you can always buy a used iPad. Apps like Duet Display let you use the tablet as a second monitor via a cable to a Windows PC or Mac (or even wirelessly using the Duet Air or macOS’ built-in SideCar utility). ), and may even support vertical orientation. Pair an iPad mini with a stand and you’ve got a slightly smaller but wider version of the Elsonic. And, of course, it will also be a tablet when you’re using it as a display.

While these solutions may be more convenient for most use cases, I’ll admit that they lack the fun factor of the big boi, and there are some specific use cases where L’Alsonic makes more sense. And hey, maybe I’m completely wrong on that point, and we’ll all have dedicated screens for Twitter around this time next year — though the idea is almost too terrible to consider.