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ViewSonic AirPanel v150 Review at Ars Technica

Posted by michael on from the straight-dope dept.

Haxby writes "Ars Technica has a pretty thorough review of the ViewSonic AirPanel (15 inch model). You might recall that this device/design won 'Best of Comdex' in 2002, but as the review clearly shows, it's not really all that great, and it's way overpriced. The biggest problem is video performance: it sucks. Poor resolution and hideous rendering times (partly Microsoft's RDC's fault) make it next to useless. Is more bandwidth the key to making these things more palatable?"

5 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. LCD Quality (yes, an OT rant) by questamor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've only just started looking at LCDs and need to know if anyone else sees them ALL looking like trash? I'm rarely up on new hardware tech, 3D stuff doesn't impress me and the ancient 17" CRT I have has done me well. However looking at several brands of LCDs I'm wondering whether I just see them different to other people, or if they truly only have one advantage, clarity. I've taken a look at the screens on Dell, Acer and Apple laptops, 15 & 17" screens from Dell Samsung and BenQ, and a few Apple Cinema Displays. I can only say I see the BEST of them as under a quarter the quality of even an average CRT. I couldn't see any reason to pay even HALF the price of a CRT for one, let alone MORE. Anyone else see LCDs like this, or are my eyes just plaine fucked?

    1. Re:LCD Quality (yes, an OT rant) by FueledByRamen · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've gone through some really nice CRTs and some really nice LCDs, and I think that the LCDs are better overall.

      My two best CRTs right now are a Dell (Sony rebranded) 19" Flat Trinitron, and it's absolutely beautiful (very bright and clear) in 1280x1024x85hz. My other great CRT is a Sony 21" (not sure of the exact model, but it was very expensive), and it looks great in 1600x1200.

      The last two LCDs I've had, though, have clearly outclassed both of them, both in functionality and style. I had (sold to a friend) a Dell Ultrasharp 1900FP LCD. Best desktop monitor I've ever owned, especially when using the DVI connector. (The VGA interpolation didn't look as good as straight DVI, but I rarely used it.) It ran at 1280x1024x70hz, and did a great job for every game I threw at it - Battlefield 1942, Quake 3, JK2, MoH:AA, and a few others. I only got rid of it because I bought a laptop.

      The other LCD is permanently attached to my laptop - a Powerbook G4 17". Its brightness and clarity are far better than that of most CRTs that I've seen (and match or exceed that of both of my higher-end CRTs). I like the 1440x900 resolution, too; it seems to me to be a good resolution for that size of panel, unlike Dell's laptops, many of which try to cram 1600x1200 into a 15" panel (unreadable). DVDs look great on it, along with Quake 3 and MoH:Spearhead.

      --
      Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
  2. Optimal Tablet PC by patdabiker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is where tablet pc's should be heading. You get all the power of your desktop, in a thin and light form factor you can carry around anywhere within a decent range. I hope R&D continues on these things. Maybe even build a very basic laptop into it so you can use it to take notes when outside of the range, and get full power and sync all your data automatically when you get back within range.

  3. Killer feature: Detachable Monitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The strength of these Smart Displays is that they can have the capability to be a detachable monitor: when docked, they can act just like a normal DVI display, with full video speed, acceleration, etc etc, but when you want to get up, you just pick it up and it automatically goes into "remote" mode. Bring it back and put it in the dock, and *poof* you're back in normal monitor mode.

    The problem is most manufacturers haven't implemented that capability. I'm pretty sure that Viewsonic hasn't, but others (such as the Philips DesXcape) have.

    Not that I've seen it in action, so who knows how well it actually works.

  4. Use an iBook with RDC by Danneskjold · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use an iBook with RDC to my WinXP desktop. I get a good-sized keyboard, very good battery life, and acceptable WiFi performance. Granted, video plays poorly via RDC, but cut-and-paste works betweent RDC (I use RDC in a window) and Mac OS X, so if I have to pull up a video URL, I don't have too many problems.

    The iBook is very reasonably priced for this purpose; at $1100-$1200 to set up, it makes working wirelessly on a desktop a lot more fun (and then you can start thinking about getting rid of your desktop monitor and keyboard, and sticking the CPU in a more unobtrusive place . . . and opening port 3389 on your firewall at home, so you can use your home fixed IP to access the machine via RDC . . . )