I have owned the Mimo 7 inch no-touchscreen monitor for a week. I have used it by plugging into a USB 2.0 port, for over eight hours continuously, on three different days, on a Macbook Pro (2011 model) with 4GB RAM. and whatever processor Apple was using in 2011, plus updated to Mavericks OS.
This little baby works surprisingly well! I was seriously considering either the Lenovo 14 inch or the no-name one (ACO or something), but I'm super glad I got this little one for my purposes, esp. portability. The other ones are just too big (for me and my messenger bag). I keep this Mimo in a neoprene netbook case, and it's in the pocket of my bag, ready to roll.
I feared low resolution -- I find it to be wonderful, and although certainly not HD, its' eminently watchable. No complaints. It's not too small. Let me give you an example.
I can open, for instance, Google Chrome and drag the entire window into the smaller monitor. I have opened four tabs, simultaneously, on the small monitor: youtube (to play a music video), a dictionary tab, a thesaurus tab (I'm a writer) and my email tab, so I can access them instantly without minimizing the main screen on my Macbook, which contains my live writing. I just click on the small screen with my mouse just as I would if it was all on my main screen. It's not too small, it's fine (and my vision stinks, too).
A question I had is whether I could view the small screen without excessive scrolling up and down, plus side-to-side. If I change my view in the header bar at the top to "full page view", it works great, and there is only a small amount of up/down scrolling (no side-to-side scrolling), at least on the web pages I am using. For instance, youtube looks like you know it, with the video, plus suggested videos along the side bar and a youtube search at the top of the page. It's a teensy bit squeezed, maybe, but nothing bad at all. Perfectly usable. I can click and play and enter searches right there on the tiny screen, no problems, no need to get out a magnifying glass or anything.
I also didn't wish to fool with pulling corners and adjusting the webpage to the mini monitor endlessly, but, I see now that when I set the View (along the top screen bar for Apple users) to Full Screen (or some such thing), each page I drag from my main screen onto the tiny monitor just adapts to the monitor; I don't have to adjust anything (for the webpages I use).
I like that the micro-USB cable comes directly out the back, making it easy to use this device on either side of your desk with the supplied approx. three foot cable.
I do notice the flickering that others mention when I first plug this in, or if it's already plugged in, when I first turn on the computer. It will flicker pretty badly for about five minutes. An on/off/on/off appearance on the screen. But, for some reason, then it stops and I have a flicker-less monitor until the next time I turn it off. It does not ever make my main laptop display flicker.
The first time I used the device, I went to the Mimo website and downloaded the MacBook Pro version of the display driver. It downloaded quickly and easily, and once it was on my computer, I never had to fool with doing that again. I also downloaded the Windows 7 driver on my desktop PC and used it there for a bit without issues.
The Mimo website, and Mavericks 10.9 users will be interested in this, has a giant disclaimer that they have been having issues--flickering, I think--with Mavericks (the latest Apple OS), and they have told Apple, but there's nothing more they (Mimo) can do about it. I strongly encourage you to check out their website download section as you will be using this when you get this screen. Needless to say, I was wetting my pants scared when I read that, knowing that I have Mavericks. But, in the end, other than the five minutes of flickering that I mention to you here, I have had no issues with Mavericks and Mimo playing well in the sandbox that is my Macbook. lol
One will ask: can I just unplug it and plug it in to get it going, or do I need to power down the computer each time? Just plug it in. For example, as I work in libraries, my Macbook is locked to the desk leg, but this tiny monitor is not. So, when I need to pee or eat, I unplug the monitor (either from the USB port or from the back of the monitor itself, leaving the USB cable in the computer), and slip[ it in my cargo pants pocket and off I go The computer main monitor flicks once when I unplug the Mimo, but I don;t have to adjust anything or go into settings or anything to use the main monitor. When I get back, I just plug the Mimo back in, it does it's little flickering dance for five minutes (I can still use it--it just flickers every five seconds or so), and then all is good for hours.
As you can see, I don't have a fancy Mac with i7 chips, boatloads of RAM and USB 3.0 and all that jazz. I just have the basic Macbook from 2011, and when I use the accessory Mimo monitor, I can still simultaneously play a youtube video, work in Pages or MS Word for Mac, have my email and other relatively static websites up, and there is no drain or challenge for my laptop. Sometimes I hear the fan whirling for a couple minutes, maybe when I just start buffering a video, for instance, but it's brief (and it might happen even without the Mimo attached, I just never listened for it). So, this little monitor doesn't seem to be a resource hog (I have no idea about its drain on a battery as my MacBook 2011 battery is sort of shot already, so I always plug it in to AC power).
Thanks for reading and that's my take on it and I hope this helped with some common questions. I pray that this little cutie lasts, as it is sort of expensive (hence the one star off, I agree with others in that regard, plus the flickering). If it craps out or goes on the fritz (it has a one year warranty, but the Mimo website has no phone number, just email support), I'll update this review. Bye now.
Update: I have been using this tiny monitor now for about 25 hours weekly for at least four months. It's good! You know that flickering thing that I mentioned above within the first few minutes of use--it doesn't do it at all anymore! I didn't download any new software from Mimo or anything; I do update Mavericks whenever Apple pushes an update to me, so maybe they did something that makes it work better? All I know is that it works well for me, and is the right size for my laptop bag (as opposed to the Lenovo and other 14 inch ones, which are quite large for actual transport--I think I'd smash one of those by flexing the screen in my bag). It doesn't take up a ton of desk real estate (another thing to think about for any potential buyer: where will you use it. For a 14 inch monitor, you will need the width of your laptop (say, 15 inches), plus another 14 inches at least, or 29 inches. Is that bistro table at the coffee shop 29 inches across?).
If one were going to use more than one open webpage Window, or a large Excel spread sheet or something, then the larger monitors, although less portable, may be mandatory. I adore this MImo for single webpages, videos, but I can and do open 4-5 tabs at a time at the top of the screen and bounce between webpages (just cannot open two side-by-side, it's too small for that). This monitor is truly ideal if someone wants to keep a live chat screen open, or youtube playing a video, or some accessory website (like my thesaurus website), while they are working on the main screen. I love the angle of tilt, and I appreciate that the screen is protected by the flipping stand, so nothing will poke the screen in my laptop bag. A winner, for me! Hope you like it, too.
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This monitor has been great so far. The resolution is good enough and having the stand to use it in landscape o portrait mode is definitively a great feature. I use this monitor to display my customized Rainmeter showing all of my PC stats like temperatures, RAM used, fan speeds, even to show the current time. This monitor works great on Windows 7 and 8.Now referring to the title of this review, currently after upgrading to Windows 8.1, the screen doesn't behave as expected. It only displays a black screen and if you click on it, it shows the Start menu. Right now, with other users, this issue is being discussed and investigated by the developers of the Displaylink software. Until a solution is found, I would not recommend it to any Windows 8.1 users. When the issue is solved, I will update this review.UPDATE 1(Nov 11, 2013): So far in Windows 8.1 the problem still persists, if you use the monitor in portrait mode. It will work as long as it is on landscape orientation. If you see the start menu screen, just click on desktop and it will be fixed. The issues still persists while using in portrait orientation.UPDATE 2 (May 14, 2014): Using the latest drivers, still the problem persists. Monitor behaves weirdly while in portrait mode as previously mentioned. In landscape mode, it works correctly and is the way I have been using it for the last few months.
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