Using a Touchscreen on a MacBook Pro! - espresso Display V1
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
1,586 words · ~7 min read
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- Look at this Andy I'm using a touch screen on macOS.
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Monitors are pretty cool. In my opinion, you know, phones, you got phones,
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but they have really small screens. Monitors on the other hand, they got big old screens
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big as you want almost, but not all the time thick with two Cs.
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(Laughter) But the big problem with monitors, is the fact you can't move them around.
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I mean, you can move them around, but they gotta be plugged into the wall. Most monitors, you can't bring everywhere, but guess what?
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Guess what, this is? It's a portable monitor.
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You can drink it because it's called espresso.
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Espresso. (Laughing) This is a portable monitor.
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And I mean, as you point, as Jonno pointed out
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I do have sort of a thing for portable doohickeys. I liked the next doc a lot and that's technically-
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I'll give it to you Jonno. It's technically a portable monitor with a
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keyboard and track pad and ports and stuff.
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It's the espresso, 15 inch portable monitor,
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this almost like doesn't seem like a device. It just seems like a,
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like a mock-up or something. So, I picked up the box and I was like, this is heavy,
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but i now holding in my hands, I'm like for a monitor or even a tablet, this is quite light for its size.
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That's for the laptop, which we have over here, we got a Mac book that we're going to hook things up to
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because it works well with Macs? - It has A software for Macs.
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- It has software for Macs, but not for Windows? It seems like it's geared towards Mac.
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- Yeah. - I mean, it's a monitor, so you should be able to plug it
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in to anything that has HDMI. But I mean, well who knows,
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I won't say that yet. I got to try it out. If you use a Windows PC, you don't deserve this.
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Look at this, this is better than you.
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(Laughter) Wow, it's so thin. Okay so we got,
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looks like a micro HDMI or mini HDMI some sort
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of smaller HDMI port two USB-C connectors.
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And then over here we got a headphone Jack looks like
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and two buttons of some kind. Speakers on the bottom.
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Two speaker grills, just like an iPad, one of those USB-C's is for power,
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and the other one is for power and display in I don't know which one is which though
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because it is not labeled, but hey, that's the fun of ShortCircuit.
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We'll find out. (Laugh) It's a mini, HDMI not a micro HDMI.
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We got a USB, a to C cords,
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I'm guessing that's the power. Windows devices with USB-C ports that
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support Thunderbolt three or display board, alternate mode. You want to plug the thing into that,
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so this is the full size HDMI to mini HDMI.
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So, we also have these two boxes, a stand I'm guessing this is the stand
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of some kind? Is that the stand? Wait, before I find it before I actually figure it out,
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I'm going to open this one. What is this? This is a vesa mount adapter.
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It's magnetic. That goes down, and then you do that.
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There we go, now we're talking. Okay. So, so it lightly, there's some lights suction here.
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Magnetic suction, I think is the scientific term.
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Oh, he's suck. It scares me a little bit,
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just because the only way that it's mounted on there is with a magnet. It's pretty pretty, huh?
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Looks like an iMac. look like very wobbly iMac. (Laugh)
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Look at that. Let's turn it on. Let's plug it into the laptop, but before we do that, sponsor time.
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3:37
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using the link in the description. Let's turn it on.
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Turn me on, turn me on.
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Look at this Andy, I'm using touch. I'm, using a touch screen on macOS.
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It wouldn't be that hard for Apple to just throw this in, if espresso can figure it out.
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I mean, this is pretty nice just to, you know it's nice to have that extra screen real estate and macOS,
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but it's also nice to basically hack away for you to use your fingers, to control macOS.
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(Voice Checking)
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Well, those speakers are not good. (Laugh) I mean, especially compared to the Mac book speakers like,
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it's nice that it has speakers, if you like really need, you know
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if you just need to kind of play something to to hear what the audio sounds like for a, for a hot second,
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but it's definitely not something that you are gonna uses as your main.
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- That sounds really bad. - Can you hear that? - Yeah.
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(Checking Speakers)
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- Oooff, big oooff Go back to the other one.
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Oh, that's very better.
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- Stephanie Warmer. - Yeah.
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I mean, as it is, it's not horrible, it's just like a little bit warmer than this one.
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My main complaint is that it's like, dimmer and this is like the max brightness,
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it can go. But I mean, when you're looking at it straight on,
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it's not so bad. Oh yeah, this is fine.
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So I guess the idea is that you can power it and use USB-C for both power and display,
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if I just do that, it's powered. That's all you need.
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Look at that. That's basically, I mean, that's a workstation.
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Okay. So now I got power and HDMI separately from my Mac book.
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So you could do that if you don't have Thunderbolt on your laptop, let's see if it fits in there.
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Bam, don't forget this when you're going to the coffee shop.
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Boom, I'm going to the coffee shop to write my next screenplay
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while I'm paying for my bills as a barista,
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at the that same coffee shop and no one's any wiser, then I'm walking around
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with a dual monitor workstation in this fricking backpack.
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Like that's amazing. It's not the first portable monitor on the market.
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Obviously, you know, as we said ASUS has at least one model, there might be more
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there are also options like the next dock which I've already covered on ShortCircuit and
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we did an LTT on one of them as well, but that's kind of more like a
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like a really specific example of something that you would plug like a phone into
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to you use as your computer. But this, you could use this as just a regular monitor too
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because it does have the separated power and HDMI ports, as well as an integrated Thunderbolt port.
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You could use it however you want. And it's so light. Obviously we haven't used it a ton,
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so like maybe there's some like secret secret problems that I'm not seeing,
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but for now I'm pretty happy with it.
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We also hope it gives you a new way to interact with your favorite device, whether that be
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through your Mac or Nintendo switch. That's another use that i didn't talk
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about that I did also talk about with the next doc. This is a great little portable Nintendo switch thing.
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So, the 13 inch version is $329 US,
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and the 15 inch version is $379 US.
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You know that's not bad. Oh, there's also specs here that I didn't say at all at the beginning, 60 Hertz, 99% SRGB,
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300 nits max brightness. So like, as I said, you know that's not super bright, but it's bright enough.
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Well, I guess at the end of the day, a portable monitor is a little better
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than a stationary monitor if you want to go places.
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And that's really the only conclusion we can draw here.
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This is super light, it's super portable obviously,
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it's got this really cool stand. I know the ASUES kind of different stand as well
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where it was like a pole and it had three legs that kind of made like a tripod situation.
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James reviewed that one I think. I'm a little concerned about,
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how the hinges are gonna hold up long term, but overall, I mean it's super easy to mount, boom.
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And there you go, you got a portable monitor. Anyways, that's the espresso portable monitor.
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Thanks for watching guys and check it out, If you want
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if you need a monitor that moves around just as much as you do.
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Thanks for watching ShortCircuit subscribe to TechLinked,
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- and carpool critics. - and carpool critics. (with commotion)