iPhone 6 Screen Snafu May Limit Availability

If you’re thinking of picking up a shiny new iPhone 6 on launch day, you may have to reset your expectations. According to a new report, Apple’s suppliers are having trouble producing enough screens for at least one of the two expected devices, which could seriously limit availability.

Based on what two supply chain sources told Reuters, Apple wanted to initially use only one layer of backlight film on the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 in order to make it as thin as possible. But when the panel wasn’t bright enough, the company reversed course. The resulting delay could mean fewer devices on store shelves, at least during the first weeks after launch.

MORE: iPhone 6 Rumors – Specs, Sizes, Camera, and More

The good news for shoppers is that output is reportedly back on track and “suppliers are working flat out to make up for lost time.” Those partners include Japan Display, Sharp and LG Display. Apple is also reportedly debuting a larger 5.5-inch version of the iPhone 6, which was expected to go into mass production after the 4.7-inch model. 

Although there’s no firm on-sale date for the iPhone 6 yet, Apple is expected to launch it at a Sept. 9 event in San Francisco. Based on various rumors, the iPhone 6 should pack a faster A8 processor, a more advanced camera — perhaps with a protruding or replaceable lens — and NFC capability for mobile payments. Plus, the sapphire crystal screen should be super tough.

The iPhone 6 will debut one week after Samsung’s fall Unpacked event, where the company is expected to launch the Galaxy Note 4, the Gear Solo (a smartwatch that can make calls) and a virtual reality headset co-created with Oculus VR.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

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ZTE Grand S II Offers 5.5-inch Screen, Quad-Core CPU and Voice Control

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Lenovo Vibe Z Smartphone Packs 5.5-inch Screen, LTE and Quad-Core CPU

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How to Disable Control Center from the iOS 7 Lock Screen

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Unhand that phone! Texting tools for the big screen

Don't cramp your style texting on that teeny-tiny smartphone. There's no need, especially when you consider how many apps and services make it easy for you to text from the roomy comfort of your computer's monitor and keyboard.

We tested five services to see how well they worked, and whether they were able to reliably bring the convenience of texting on your smartphone to your PC. The good news: Most were impressive, many are free, and all were easy to use.

All of the solutions we tested work with Android phones, as its open nature allows apps more access to your phone's messages. Apple's limits are more restrictive, and as such, most of the services we tested don't work with iOS devices. And, even those that do come with some limitations that make them less than desirable.

Like many of the services we tested, MobiTexter (free) works with Android devices only, and it requires that you install an app on your  Android phone. Once you install the app on your phone, you register your Google account with it, and head over to your PC. From your browser, MobiTexter asks for access to your Google account, including your contacts. Once you grant it permission, the site links you right to the main texting tools.

MobiTexter displays recent text conversations on the left of the screen, while fields for creating new individual or group texts sit on the right.

MobiTexter's Web interface is basic, but serviceable. It automatically pulls in your most recent text message conversations, which are displayed in a list on the left side of the page. On the right, you have fields for entering new individual or group texts.

MobiTexter limits you to 160 characters per message, and displays incoming messages in small pop-up windows. It does let you type more than 160 characters, but it starts a new message each time you reach the limit. And while it does display messages in conversation threads, it doesn't automatically add incoming messages to those threads, which is unfortunate. It makes it harder to reply naturally when the message to which you're replying doesn't show up in the conversation view.

As you compose your message, MobiText counts the number of characters you've typed. While the number counts down, it's not actually a hard and fast limit.

I also wish that MobiTexter supported MMS, so you could send pictures and videos. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Still, MobiTexter is free and is a reliable way to send and receive basic texts on your computer.

Spot the trend: BrowserTexting ($10), too, works with Android devices only. And, also like many of the products included in this round-up, it's a two-part solution, as it's both an app that you install on your phone and a Web app that you use on your computer.

Browsertexting's interface is bland, but easy to understand, and it neatly displays conversations in tabs, making it easly to switch between them.

You first need to install the app on your Android phone, which is a quick and simple process. You then fire up your computer's browser and head to BrowserTexting.com. The setup process here was also simple and streamlined: The website displays QR code that you scan to connect your phone to your browser.

Then you're good to go. BrowserTexting automatically displays a list of your contacts. You can select one from the list or enter a number on the screen to begin texting. Once you start the message, BrowserTexting brings up past conversations with that person right on the screen, so you can view your texting history as a conversation, just as you would on your phone. You can send MMS messages and group texts, too. New messages pop up on your computer screen, and all of your correspondence is synced back to your phone.

The interface is bland, featuring little more than a big blank space for messages, but easy enough to understand. I like that BrowserTexting offers extensions for Firefox and Google Chrome, which allow you to read and compose messages without opening a dedicated browser window or tab. And I like that it opens new text message conversations in tabs, making it easy to switch between them.

BrowserTexting connects to your phone by displaying a QR code on your PC, which you scan with your mobile device.

I did notice a slight delay when clicking around the interface, whether I was entering a contact name or number or trying to compose a message. That's a minor annoyance, though. More troublesome is BrowserTexting's price: at $10 (after a 30-day free trial), this application is expensive. When most of the competitors are free, an application that costs $10 has to offer far more features. And this one doesn't. BrowserTexting is just as good as some of its rivals, but it costs far more.

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How to Adjust Your iPhone 5′s Screen Brightness

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Review: Customize your Windows 8 start screen with Start Screen Animation Tweaker

There are any number of products promising to restore the start menu to Windows 8, but there are not so many to help you customize the tiles that have replaced it. You can give the animations on the Windows 8 grid menu a bit more zip with Start Screen Animations Tweaker. This nice little free portable piece of software allows you to dictate the speed of the animations and the background wallpaper to have it exactly the way you want it.

The portable free Start Screen Animations Tweaker is a neat little tool which adds a bit of liveliness to your Windows 8 animations in the start menu grid.

It may seem like a small insignificant thing to accomplish, but if you are looking the grid and using it all day long, making it go faster will matter. It makes the screen load faster, which enables you to open programs faster. It may only amount to a gain of a few seconds, but add those seconds up over the course of a day or a week, and you will start to see why using this app may prove beneficial. And it's also quite entertaining, pressing the WIN key and watching the tiles fly across the screen.

It's less entertaining when File Explorer crashes after repeated WIN key presses. The developer claims this is not a bug of the software, but a bug from Windows 8.

Since this is a portable app, no installation is required. Just unzip the contents of the downloaded zip file into its own folder. It is worth pointing out that the download link on the website is a bit camouflaged. The gray "download" button sits next to a green "download" button.  The gray one is the one to click.  The green one is a Google Adsense advert. Whether this is an honest error from the developer or an underhanded way to make some Adsense money is unclear. But nevertheless you should be careful and click the correct button: gray, not green.

It is possible to slow down the scrolling of the background wallpaper. This is called the Parallax effect. This setting can either speed it up or slow it down.

Once you have the unzipped portable program in its new folder, open it up and you will see four sliders: two for username and picture animation, and two for tiles animation.  The purpose of the four sliders is to determine how fast or slow you want those elements to go when you activate the grid start menu.  The developer provides recommended settings, and those were good enough for me. If you want, though, you can easily play around with the sliders and see what you prefer. If you don't like it, hit the "reset to defaults" button and what you've just done will be reversed. So nothing is permanent and everything can be put back the way it was. So don't worry, you won't break anything.

The other feature is the "Parallax effect". In a nutshell, this involves either speeding up or slowing down the scrolling effect of the grid menu background wallpaper. Normally, when you have tiles that go off the screen, you need to scroll to get to them. In this instance, you may notice that the wallpaper moves a bit faster than the tiles. With Start Screen Animations Tweaker, you can now slow it down—or speed it up even more if you want.

Simply click "tune up the Parallax effect" and move the slider back and forth (and again, there is a reset button you can use if necessary).  If you try both ends of the slider, you'll see what I am talking about with the speed of the wallpaper scrolling. It's one of those things you need to do yourself to understand exactly what I mean.

As I said, little tweaks like this may just seem like playing and not really "useful". But the speed with which you can open apps is entirely dependent on how fast certain elements of the PC react.  If the grid menu takes time to open up, that affects how long it will take to then open a program.  It is worth giving Start Screen Animations Tweaker a go and seeing if you can tweak your Windows 8 grid menu to go that little bit faster and smoother.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

Expatriate Scotsman now living in Wurzburg, Germany, freelance writer, frustrated future bestselling author, obsessed bibliophile. Other interests include trying to understand The Architect in the Matrix movies, decrypting codes and ciphers, and trying to persuade my landlord and my wife to let me have a Highland Cow for a pet.
More by Mark O'Neill

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HTC First Demoed: Bright Screen, Responsive Facebook UI

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Bentley Gives Flying Spur Upgraded Screen, Backseat Remote

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Too Big? Galaxy Note 3 Screen Size Allegedly Confirmed at 5.9 Inches

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Steep Slate: Gigabyte S1185 Tablet Sports 1080p Screen, $1,000 Price Tag

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Samsung Launches Series 7 Ultra with AMD Graphics, 1080p Touch Screen

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Wexler Tab 7i Hands-On: Bright Screen, Bold Design in Fashion Colors

Wexler’s Tab 7i may function like a normal Android tablet, but this 7-inch slate has a look all its own. With curved sides that give it a subtle oval shape and a backside that comes in a variety of bold colors, you won’t have much trouble picking this device out in a lineup. We got a chance to go hands-on with the Tab 7i at Wexler’s IFA booth and were intrigued by its attractive aesthetic, bright screen and plethora of ports.

On the inside,the Tab 7i has fairly pedestrian specs including a 1.2-GHz Rockchip 2918 CPU, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory Its stock Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system is nothing we haven’t seen before. Most of the apps on the system were default ICS utilities. A Wexler Play app showed a list of recommended programs, but when we clicked on them, we were transported into the Google Play store to buy them.

With the Tab 7i, however, internal specs and special software aren’t the main attraction. Colors on the 7-inch IPS screen really popped for us, particularly when we looked at the multicolored Star Trek-like wallpaper on the desktop and browsed through the apps menu. Even though the display resolution is only a modest 1024 x 600, images looked really crisp and enticing. 

The Tab 7i’s chassis is almost as colorful as its screen, with the bright, glossy back and sides available in lime green, pastel blue, dark purple, back and white. We particularly liked the vibrant purple and green shades. Combining this splash of color with the curved sides and sleek black bezel and you have one of the best looking tablets we’ve seen.

Looking around the system, we also noticed that it as both a microSD card slot,a mini HDMI connector and a full size USB port, something we haven’t seen on too many tablets this size. With the full-size USB connector, users can attach a thumb drive or external hard drive to copy files back and forth.

 We look forward to getting a closer look at the Tab 7i when Wexler releases it in the U.S. sometime in early 2013. 

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Wexler Flex One eReader Hands-On: eInk Screen Bends, Doesn’t Break

We keep hearing about flexible displays, but in reality, the idea of a tablet or phone that you can bend in half or roll up like a newspaper is years away. However, right now today, Russian gadget-maker Wexler is showing off its 6-inch Flex One eReader, which has a screen that bend back ever so slightly  to avoid breakage when you stick it in your pocket or drop it on the ground.

At Wexler’s IFA Berlin booth, we had a chance to go hands-on with the Flex One, which is currently sold in Eastern Europe but will be coming to Europe and the United States within the next few months. Consumers should expect to pay a premium for the flexible design as a Wexler rep said that he expects the device to sell for 199 euros in Western Europe.

We found ourselves impressed with the 6-inch eReader’s light weight, which at just .24 pounds (3.84 ounces) is lighter than most smartphones and its attractive rubberized chassis, which is black on the front but has backs that come in a variety of colors, including dark blue, light blue, pink, gray, purple, black and white.

 The Flex One is just .15 inches thick so you really could slide it into a pocket in your jeans without worrying about cracking the screen if you bend too much. The corners of the device bend back ever so slightly for durability, but a Wexler rep warned us that the device would break if we bent it more than a little bit.

Still, even the ability to flex it a little bit means a lot. In fact, a Wexler rep told us that the company had successfully dropped the Flex One from a height of 12 meters (39 feet) without sustaining any damage to the screen, though other components could get damaged from such an extreme drop.

The 1024 x 768 plastic eInk display looked really sharp and was a pleasure to look at as text popped of the screen like bold letters typed onto paper. However, navigating around the menus and pages of a book wasn’t as much fun as reading them. The rubberized navigation buttons required a fair amount of force to press and the page turns seemed a bit slow.

The Flex One eReader doesn’t come with an eBook store of its own, but users can copy their ePub books, PDF files, doc files and a variety of other file formats onto the device’s internal 8GB of memory or onto a microSD card. Wexler says the device should last about two weeks on a charge.

Overall, we really like the way the Flex One looks and feels. With its completely rubberized chassis, fashion-colored back, sharp screen and durable design, the Flex One has a lot going for it on the hardware side. The question is how much users are willing to pay for those features.

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Rumor: HTC’s Windows 8 Phone to Sport 4.3-inch Screen, 8-MP Camera

An XDA-Developer forum-goer who goes by the Twitter handle @Football4PDA has had a busy morning! He started the day by posting a list of alleged specs for the upcoming HTC One X+, but the tech-related tip-offs didn’t end there: @Football4PDA followed up that juicy tidbit with screenshots detailing the look and specs of HTC’s upcoming Windows Phone 8 handset.

That handset has long been rumored to go by the name HTC Accord, but according to @Football4PDA, the final name for the phone is the Windows Phone 8X. If true, we prefer the original.

The tipster also posted a spec sheet of purported specs for the phone, though it’s worth noting that neither alleged name appears in the image itself. The picture says the HTC Accord/ 8X sports a 4.3-inch screen, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of storage, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel camera capable of taking 1080p HD video and ultra-wide angle pictures. Beats Audio, NFC and a micro-USB port all are onboard.

HTC recently sent out invitations for a big September 19th event, and the styling on the announcement suggests that the company could out a new Windows Phone device that day — but we could be looking too far into things. We’ll just have to wait until then to see if our theory and @Football4PDA’s leaks prove accurate.

Via SlashGear

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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review: Exotic Case, Ho-Hum Screen

Lenovo is justifiably proud of its ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultraportable laptop. The machine is incredibly thin—just 0.7 inch at its thickest point—and the chassis is built with carbon fiber, resulting in an Ultrabook that ships with a 1600-by-900-pixel LCD display and weights slightly less 3 pounds.

In Search of Slim

In its zealous pursuit of ultrathinness, however, Lenovo did make a few compromises. Like the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A and the Vizio C14-A2, the X1 Carbon has no built-in ethernet port, though Lenovo does include a USB-to-ethernet dongle. The X1 Carbon's LCD panel flexes enough to make me a little nervous, though a little flex won't hurt the display—and in fact may improve the laptop's resilience when dropped.

Port Minimus

There are other, stranger shortcomings. For example, Lenovo supplies a USB 3.0 connector on the right side of the X1 Carbon, but a USB 2.0 port—instead of another USB 3.0 port—on the left. At least the USB 2.0 port delivers enough current to charge a smartphone or other mobile device. The only video output is a mini-DisplayPort connector, and the lone audio jack is a combination input/output jack.

The Lenovo lacks a dedicated wired ethernet port, instead offering integrated 3G (not 4G) cellular broadband. According to Lenovo, the chipsets needed for PC 4G support would have taken up too much system board space and consumed too much power. You can use the integrated 3G as a mobile hotspot, if you need that capability.

Performance

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon test model we tested includes an Intel Core i7-3667U CPU, with a default clock frequency of 2.0GHz and a maximum Turbo frequency of 3.2GHz. Like most Ultrabooks, this one uses Intel's HD 4000 integrated GPU and ships with 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory. A 256GB SanDisk solid-state drive handles storage chores.

In our performance testing overall, the X1 Carbon essentially tied with Vizio's C14-A2, despite having a faster CPU than the Vizio's Core i7 3517u. The Vizio outpaced the X1 Carbon in PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark test suite, earning a mark of 158 as against the ThinkPad's score of 144.

On the power side, the X1 Carbon uses Lenovo's RapidCharge system, which allows the system to charge to 80 percent in just over 35 minutes. The system's measured battery life was a solid 6 hours, 11 minutes, almost an hour longer than the Vizio C14-A2's 5 hours, 17 minutes.

Not surprisingly, in view of the laptop's Intel HD 4000 GPU, the X1 Carbon's game performance was fairly weak. Even with detail settings at low, the Lenovo struggled to an unplayable 11.4 frames per second in Crysis 2, although its frame rate on the Dirt3 test was a more playable 36 fps.

Overall, Lenovo seems to have emphasized battery life over raw performance, a perfectly reasonable preference in designing an ultramobile PC.

Display and Audio

As usual with ultraportable laptops, audio quality in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is limited. Lenovo did include Dolby Home Theater V4, which enhances the audio somewhat. Overall audio in music was neutral, but I could hear noticeable distortion in the speakers when volume levels were cranked too high. Though the X1 Carbon can't pump out sound at very loud volume, its speakers were definitely good enough for near-field use during travel.

The laptop's 14-inch LCD panel offers an excellent resolution of 1600 by 900 pixels. Text looked crisp, but colors tended to be muted and brightness levels were on the low side. On the other hand, the matte-finish screen picked up almost no glare from background lighting, which your eyes will surely appreciate.

Video playback quality tended to be somewhat disappointing, due in part to the relatively unsaturated colors and in part to the screen's limited viewing angles. Straight on, both high-definition and standard-definition content looked smooth, with little visible jerkiness or frame stuttering.

Usability

Lenovo includes both a TrackPoint stick-based pointing device and a large glass multitouch-enabled touchpad. The latter was a little too sensitive out of the box, but it does have good palm rejection, making for generally good cursor control.

The keyboard layout is good. The keys themselves are slightly indented and offer good tactile feedback, though keystroke travel is short. Lenovo also includes discrete page down and page up keys, a welcome addition to the usual Fn-key options.

Bottom Line

Lenovo put some serious thought into mobile usability with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, including cellular broadband and the RapidCharge feature. The slightly flexible carbon-fiber chassis is an interesting departure from the rigidity of machined metal cases. Though Lnovo's failure to offer dual USB 3.0 ports and HDMI output is a little disappointing, the port selection isn't radically different from what similar superthin Ultrabooks provide. If you're a serious traveler, the X1 Carbon merits closer inspection.

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How to Eliminate the Time-Wasting Lock Screen in Windows 8

When you first boot Windows 8, change users or wake from sleep,  you’re presented with a lock screen that you must drag up and away (or click to close) before you reach the login prompt. While having the weather, time and number of emails displayed on a lock screen makes sense on tablets and phones, it’s a waste of time on PCs where users just want to see a password prompt and log in. 

Disabling this productivity-robbing lock screen is really easy, if you know how to find the right control panel menu.

Hit Window Key + R. A run dialog box appears.Type gpedit.msc into the box and hit Ok. The Local Group Policy Editor appears.
 Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Tools -> Control Panel -> Personalization in the left pane of the window.
 Double click (or tap) on Do not display the lock screen. Another dialog box appears.Select Enabled and click Ok.

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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review: Exotic Case, Ho-Hum Screen

Lenovo is justifiably proud of its ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultraportable laptop. The machine is incredibly thin—just 0.7 inch at its thickest point—and the chassis is built with carbon fiber, resulting in an Ultrabook that ships with a 1600-by-900-pixel LCD display and weights slightly less 3 pounds.

In Search of Slim

In its zealous pursuit of ultrathinness, however, Lenovo did make a few compromises. Like the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A and the Vizio C14-A2, the X1 Carbon has no built-in ethernet port, though Lenovo does include a USB-to-ethernet dongle. The X1 Carbon's LCD panel flexes enough to make me a little nervous, though a little flex won't hurt the display—and in fact may improve the laptop's resilience when dropped.

Port Minimus

There are other, stranger shortcomings. For example, Lenovo supplies a USB 3.0 connector on the right side of the X1 Carbon, but a USB 2.0 port—instead of another USB 3.0 port—on the left. At least the USB 2.0 port delivers enough current to charge a smartphone or other mobile device. The only video output is a mini-DisplayPort connector, and the lone audio jack is a combination input/output jack.

The Lenovo lacks a dedicated wired ethernet port, instead offering integrated 3G (not 4G) cellular broadband. According to Lenovo, the chipsets needed for PC 4G support would have taken up too much system board space and consumed too much power. You can use the integrated 3G as a mobile hotspot, if you need that capability.

Performance

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon test model we tested includes an Intel Core i7-3667U CPU, with a default clock frequency of 2.0GHz and a maximum Turbo frequency of 3.2GHz. Like most Ultrabooks, this one uses Intel's HD 4000 integrated GPU and ships with 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory. A 256GB SanDisk solid-state drive handles storage chores.

In our performance testing overall, the X1 Carbon essentially tied with Vizio's C14-A2, despite having a faster CPU than the Vizio's Core i7 3517u. The Vizio outpaced the X1 Carbon in PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark test suite, earning a mark of 158 as against the ThinkPad's score of 144.

On the power side, the X1 Carbon uses Lenovo's RapidCharge system, which allows the system to charge to 80 percent in just over 35 minutes. The system's measured battery life was a solid 6 hours, 11 minutes, almost an hour longer than the Vizio C14-A2's 5 hours, 17 minutes.

Not surprisingly, in view of the laptop's Intel HD 4000 GPU, the X1 Carbon's game performance was fairly weak. Even with detail settings at low, the Lenovo struggled to an unplayable 11.4 frames per second in Crysis 2, although its frame rate on the Dirt3 test was a more playable 36 fps.

Overall, Lenovo seems to have emphasized battery life over raw performance, a perfectly reasonable preference in designing an ultramobile PC.

Display and Audio

As usual with ultraportable laptops, audio quality in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is limited. Lenovo did include Dolby Home Theater V4, which enhances the audio somewhat. Overall audio in music was neutral, but I could hear noticeable distortion in the speakers when volume levels were cranked too high. Though the X1 Carbon can't pump out sound at very loud volume, its speakers were definitely good enough for near-field use during travel.

The laptop's 14-inch LCD panel offers an excellent resolution of 1600 by 900 pixels. Text looked crisp, but colors tended to be muted and brightness levels were on the low side. On the other hand, the matte-finish screen picked up almost no glare from background lighting, which your eyes will surely appreciate.

Video playback quality tended to be somewhat disappointing, due in part to the relatively unsaturated colors and in part to the screen's limited viewing angles. Straight on, both high-definition and standard-definition content looked smooth, with little visible jerkiness or frame stuttering.

Usability

Lenovo includes both a TrackPoint stick-based pointing device and a large glass multitouch-enabled touchpad. The latter was a little too sensitive out of the box, but it does have good palm rejection, making for generally good cursor control.

The keyboard layout is good. The keys themselves are slightly indented and offer good tactile feedback, though keystroke travel is short. Lenovo also includes discrete page down and page up keys, a welcome addition to the usual Fn-key options.

Final Thoughts

Lenovo put some serious thought into mobile usability with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, including cellular broadband and the RapidCharge feature. The slightly flexible carbon-fiber chassis is an interesting departure from the rigidity of machined metal cases. Though Lnovo's failure to offer dual USB 3.0 ports and HDMI output is a little disappointing, the port selection isn't radically different from what similar superthin Ultrabooks provide. If you're a serious traveler, the X1 Carbon merits closer inspection.

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Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 Portable Monitor Review: An Easy-to-Carry Second Screen

The $200 (as of April 4, 2012) Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 monitor provides a simple, one-cable option for adding a second display to your setup. A second monitor is useful for many reasons, and whether you just want more screen real estate on your already-crowded desk, or you need a second display to take on the go with your laptop, the ThinkVision LT1421 fits the bill.

This portable monitor is slim and lightweight, measuring about 0.37 inch thick and weighing 1.8 pounds on its own, or about 0.85 inch and 2.4 pounds with its protective cover attached. The 14-inch screen gives you 1366 by 768 pixels to work with, an acceptable resolution for a display of this size.

On the back of the ThinkVision LT1421 is a small raised box that houses the kickstand, the Micro-USB port for connecting the monitor to your PC, and the brightness controls. The only cable you'll need to take with you is the included USB cable, as the monitor draws all of the power it needs from the USB connection. On the end that plugs into your computer, the cable splits into two USB connectors in case one does not provide enough power.

The included cover protects the display in transport and can act as a base for you to set the monitor on atop a desk or table. The kickstand can slot into grooves in the cover to help hold the monitor securely, but I found the kickstand to be strong and grippy enough to maintain the viewing angle even without the cover underneath it. The one drawback: The cover can be awkward to put on, and difficult to remove.

DisplayLink software and drivers power this USB-connected monitor. It's the same arrangement as on the Mobile Monitor Technology Field Monitor Pro Classic I tested previously, which means it suffers from the same inability to render smooth gradients and the same odd color profile that you can't edit. You’ll need to install the DisplayLink software on any system you plan to use with the monitor. In my tests, Windows 7 could not install the drivers automatically, so you'll have to install from the included CD, or download drivers from DisplayLink's website. Drivers are also available for OS X.

In use, I found that the ThinkVision LT1421 has fairly narrow viewing angles. It'll work if you're giving a presentation to a few people, as the side-to-side viewing angle is decent, but colors shift significantly if you move too high or too low. Colors look a little washed out, and text is not supercrisp due to the lower resolution being stretched out over 14 inches. In my tests, the matte screen was great under office lighting, with no glare and good brightness, even when I had plugged only one of the two ends of the USB cable into my laptop (a five-year-old Lenovo x61t). In fact, all of the test laptops I tried plugging the monitor into were able to supply sufficient power through just one USB port.

Video playback over the USB connection is lag-free and mostly smooth; a test YouTube video dropped a few frames in full-screen mode, but played back smoothly in the browser window.

The Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 portable USB-powered monitor makes for a great addition to your travel bag with its slim profile, included cover, and straightforward, one-cable connection. The monitor performs best as a secondary display for email, text, and reference material, though I wouldn't rule out sneaking in the occasional video while you work on your main screen.

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