I usually buy mostly everything on Amazon, but I bought this model elsewhere since Amazon didn't have it when I checked a few weeks ago. It now shows up and the page says it was available since Oct 2nd, 2018. So strange. Anyway, while there are numerous Zenscreen models, this one is the first one with an internal battery and goes by the name Zenscreen Go.
So lets start with the Pros..
01-Perfect size and Portable. Thinner than my laptop and about the same size. Fits in my laptop travel/messenger bag (barely).
02-Fit and finish is amazing.
03-Comes with a protected magnetic cover that acts like a stand and holds it up quite well. And while it is a very good cover/stand, I may get an actual fold-able stand for the monitor so that I do not overuse the cover.
04-Light and thin, even with the cover on.
05-Has a battery. (Previous models didn't).
06-One cable hook up. (this is a blessing in disguise as well as a obstacle in certain uses). In the pro column, it extends your laptop desktop (or phone) with no wall adapter or too many cables.
07-Quite bright. I read previous reviews mentioned that the brightness was lower than the laptop they were using and I was willing to accept that, but this model I have to say, the brightness is as bright as my Samsung Notebook 9 Pro 2 in 1 laptop at 75%.
08-Works with Samsung Note 9 phone and DeX. This is the main reason I wanted this monitor. Besides for traveling purposes. I didn't want to go the route of getting a HP Elite Lapdock for using the Note 8/9 and DeX. This caught my eye and when they released the battery version I had to get it. It works flawlessly with DeX. No black outs or hiccups messages. But there is one con listed below when using the Note 9 with DeX.
09-Multiple monitor capability. Asus says you can connect numerous Zenscreens and while I do not have another ZenScreen to test that theory, my laptop uses displaylink to connect the 3 monitors in my setup. When I connected the Zenscreen to the laptop, it appeared as monitor 4. Nice surprise.
10-Has a pen hole. Comes with a real pen to insert in the hole to prop up the monitor instead of using the cover. I actually like that.
11-Portrait and landscape mode. (Although I haven't tested the portrait mode yet.
Cons (subjective, depending on your use)...
1-It's not touch screen (although a newer model recently announced will be called the Zenscreen Go Touch and coming out in a few months).
2-The one cable hook up when hooking up to a cell phone. While convenient, it does not allow for adding a usb mouse or keyboard. One has to have a bluetooth keyboard or mouse nearby or rely on the mobile phone to use it as a keyboard and mouse and that is easier said than done. Asus should have included an USB-C hub attachment to allow to connect other devices and pass through signal for mobile devices.
3-No other USB-C cable works so far. This is concerning since if I lose it, its a problem. You can't buy it even on Asus' website. Plus the cable has no indication that it is by Asus, Displaylnk etc. I plan on adding a label to wrap around the cable to indicate it is for the Zenscreen to differentiate between other USB-C cables. I just may try out the USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 cable by NekTeck (B0718Z1MWF) and see if that works..
4-Not enough control buttons. There isn't an immediate back button for the controls. One has to continue through the menus to get back to the starting point.
(A temporary solution is to download the Asus Display Widget controls from Asus' website onto your laptop, you can then use your mouse to go through the controls. see one of my pics)
5-No external power/USB-C port or two USB-C ports. While its convenient to have just one cable to connect to a laptop or phone, it would have been nice to have an additional USB-C port to power the monitor without having to suck up your laptops or phones power on the other side of the monitor.
6-Force to use the mobile phone touchscreen as a mouse for Samsung DeX mode. The DexPad cannot be used for this monitor since the DeXpad outputs via HDMI and the Asus monitor inputs via USB-C. Since the Note 9 has the ability to go into DeX mode with its USB-C cable directly, there is no way to use a wired mouse or keyboard or even a wireless one. One has to use a bluetooth keyboard or mouse.
Other notes:
While the screen is bright for me, and it is mainly all metal construction, I will not be using this outside. It is thin and I'm afraid of knocking it over and getting it damaged. While it may be cheaper elsewhere, I would have bought this on Amazon since if anything goes wrong with it, Amazon has a better return policy than outside vendors.
I may want to get a tiny bit bigger carrying bag. the tomtoc 15.6 bag I have is a little snug with both the Galaxy Note 9 Pro laptop and the Asus Zenscreen together in the bag.
I plan on getting either a bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo unit or separate ones for travel, just haven't decided which ones.
I would do a video review, but I never sound good in videos. Hope this help folks who are thinking of getting the Zenscreen MB16AP.
Edit of 2018-11-05
Usb-C cable replacement:
I bought the USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 cable by NekTeck (B0718Z1MWF) on Amazon and I'm happy to report it is a suitable replacement for the Asus supplied USB-C to USB-C cable. It is 3.3 feet long (40 inches long) the same length of the Asus supplied cable.
Battery Usage:
I tested how long the battery takes from a 0% back to 100% and it takes about 2 and a half hours to recharge using the supplied Asus USB-C cable and wall charger. I started at 7:30 PM at 0% and it completed at 10:00 PM (give or take 5 mintues since I didn't actually stared at it near the end).
Drawing power:
As for a question of if the monitor continues to draw power from an attached laptop or phone even if the battery is not empty. There is a onboard setting (see latest image) that allows you to choose what is being attached to the monitor, be it a PC/Laptop or a mobile device. That same setting allows you to choose whether to draw power from the PC/Laptop or not. But it does not seem to allow you to choose whether to draw power or not from a mobile device. I ran Youtube videos till the the monitor was down to 5 % and if connected to the phone, the phone will not charge the monitor. If it connected to the PC/Laptop and it goes down to the 1% mark, the monitor will shut down. Thus forcing you to connect the monitor to a wall plug to recharge. But once you charge the monitor for about 5 minutes, it has about 6-8% juice, thus allowing you to reconnect the cable to the laptop and when it reconnects. It will then show a popup asking you if you want to power the monitor using the laptop. If you do, the laptop will then start recharging the battery and allow you to use the monitor as a secondary screen.
Portrait/Landscape mode:
Using the Samsung Note 9 phone, try as I may, I do not see a way to set the Zenscreen Go monitor into portrait mode. Since it goes into DeX mode I do not see a setting in DeX to place the phone into portrait mode. I assume this is by design since DeX is always in desktop mode and most desktops are in landscape mode.
Now using my laptop, it goes into portrait mode automatically one of two ways.. (It helps to read the manual lol )
Option 1: Using your laptop/PC display settings and selecting the monitor and then change it to portrait.
Option 2: is way better. Using the Asus Display widget app, once opened the monitor automatically switches to portrait mode or landscape depending on its orientation. And it works really well. (See image).
Recently obtained this item after becoming aware that there was a battery powered version of the MB16AC (which I also have). This model (MB16AP) works pretty much the same as that model with the difference being is that it includes a battery that can power the display device which sounds good and it is as that allows one to use a smartphone with it. Was able to use the Galaxy Note 9 with it and it works well. The issue I had with this monitor in particular was with the Surface Book 2 15'. When the Surface Dock is connected (with no other peripherals drawing power from it) I could not get monitor to turn on when using USB-C. When Surface Book dock was removed from Surface Book 2 and the SB2 was running on battery power, the monitor does come on but appears to drain from screen with USB-C.
The only way to 'effectively' use the SB2 with this was to use the USB-A to USB-C adapter and even then it drains from screen battery. The monitor works fine with USB-C on my wife's HP Spectre 360 Convertible with no issue, and functions normally as it should.
If you plan on using this with the Surface Book 2 you probably should return it (as I did) and get the MB16AC. Interestingly enough, the non-battery powered version of this monitor (MB16AC) works fine with USB-C and USB-A with the Surface Book 2 with the Surface Dock.
I know what you're thinking... a 4-star review for something that only lasted you a week?
First off, know what you're getting into before you buy this device. If you understand its inner workings, you'll have a fine experience with it. Plenty of reviews, both on Amazon and out in the wild, have covered how this screen works over a USB type C connection. So I won't get too into that. My use case was with a previous-generation MacBook Air, which only has type A 3.0 ports.
I often work with a 2nd monitor dedicated to playing back some sort of background video. I like having random content from YouTube, Netflix, Plex, etc, showing on a second screen, while I'm doing "real" work on a primary screen. But my company-issued MacBook Air is the last generation prior to the recent refresh, which means no USB type C. The fact that Asus included a type A adapter was a big selling point for me. I had some Anker USB 3 A to C cables lying around and they worked great. So I left the factory cable and adapter in my backpack for backup use.
If you're using a device which doesn't have a type C port (and supports DisplayPort output), you'll probably want to head on over to the DisplayLink site and install their OEM drivers. They worked perfectly smooth on my MacBook Air, both on High Sierra and on Mojave (just make sure you pick the right driver download).
This leads me to the biggest caveat to consider if you're on a type A connection, and one I haven't found in other reviews. You'll see CPU usage go up when using it on a type A port. If you think about it, this makes sense. In a type C environment where the port is sending a video signal via DisplayPort output, your graphics chipset is doing the heavy lifting of pushing all the pixels around on screen. Your CPU only needs to tell the graphics subsystem what needs to be drawn. But your average graphics chip isn't normally hooked into a standard USB type A port. So your CPU has to do double-duty and uses the DisplayLink drivers to translate what would normally be a video stream into a data stream that the monitor's DisplayLink chip decodes. When playing back 1080p video, I routinely saw the drivers consuming 50-60% CPU usage (of a dual-core i7). This could easily take a 20-30% hit off of your laptop's battery runtime. I usually set up in a conference room, so having AC outlets nearby resolved this for me. But think about your specific usage before you jump into this.
I used this daily for a week before it died on me. One morning, it wouldn't power up after charging. The LED indicator was stuck showing green, or fully charged. Despite everything Asus tech support asked me to try, it wouldn't reset and power up. So it went back to Amazon. But during that week, I was very happy with how it performed. I don't fault Asus for churning out one bad unit.
As mentioned elsewhere, it's not the brightest screen. But in any office, home, hotel, conference room setting, it is perfectly useable. Its operating power is 9 watts, and there's only so much brightness you can achieve at that wattage. With standard USB supplying 5 volts, you'd need 1.8 amps to power it fully. This means that you're running on mostly battery power on a type A connection and your computer is basically slowing the monitor's discharge rate. I was getting a hair over 5 hours before needing to unplug and recharge it. So an hour more than the factory stated 4-hour runtime on battery alone. Type C could theoretically power it indefinitely if your laptop can supply that wattage and you're on AC power.
Which leads me to the only real gripe I have about this screen, the lack of power input options. I get that Asus wanted to create a "one cable" implementation, but that limits how useful it can be. If there was a port on either side of the device, you can plug into the laptop on one side and use a power adapter on the other side. Or even a powerbank if you wanted to run it with your phone. They'd even be able to "overdrive" the brightness to something closer to the 300 nit range of most premium laptops.
I plugged my Samsung Galaxy S8+ into it and screen mirroring worked exactly as I would've expected. So if you wanted to, you could charge both devices up fully and get a couple of movies in without having to use up precious mobile hotspot bandwidth (like if you were to tether to your laptop).
This monitor is simply great for my needs. I am able to fit it into my existing laptop bag (or backpack depending on needs) and take it to jobsites with me. Perfect for data entry style tasks where you need to look at something on one screen while typing into another or for coding where you can keep your editor open on one and your app running on the other.
Thanks to the built in batter I don't have to worry about high battery drain on my laptop. It has worked well on my Dell XPS 13 and my Pixelbook. I have not yet tried it with my 2016 Macbook Pro but I'll test it over the next several days since I generally avoid using the Macbook unless I need to build for iOS or MacOS.
I haven't actually had to play around with the monitor settings much or other monitor features so I can't comment much on that. I can't say it has excellent picture quality but I definitely don't consider it bad for my uses.
Do I think it justifies the extra $100 cost over it's competitors just because it has the battery? Yes.
Do I think it would be worth getting a different monitor without a battery for a higher price but with a touchscreen? No.
Given that I can find a laptop such as a Chromebook with a similar size screen for roughly the same price, do I see that as a negative? Yes and no. Yes because if you think about value wise as this only being a monitor but when comparing monitor quality on a cheap laptop or chromebook at that price and the fact that it would run independent of your computer meaning that you couldn't just simply plug it into your computer and drag windows around... then no.
What about monitor brightness, reflection, and angles? Brightness is fine in the environments I generally use it. Reflection has been a problem occasionally but the reflection problems are generally because of the angles that it offers you to place it. Because light are generally overhead and light comes in from windows, if you have lights above and behind you or a window behind you, there is a decent chance that because of the angle the monitor can sit that the light will interfere with your viewing of the monitor and might even glare directly in your eyes.
Overall though I have greatly enjoyed this monitor so far and have made great use out of it.
I pretty much agree with the review by David V.
I've had no problems with the monitor paired with:
- Intel Hades Canyon NUC (NUC8i7HVK) using Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.
This is my portable gaming machine and performance is great with the
monitor.
- Acer Chromebook (2015) using USB-A converter with existing ChromeOS support.
- Thinkpad laptop (2013) using USB-A converter with the DisplayLink driver.
The size is just right. Big enough for the resolution but also still
fits in your travel bag. The pen hole for standing up the monitor
works and is kind of cool. The magnetic cover works well in both
landscape and portrait orientation.
I bought this battery version MB16AP over the non battery because I
was concerned about draining my laptop battery. Though I haven't
experimented yet with battery life.
Feature Product
- 15.6" Fhd IPS USB Type-C portable monitor with hybrid signal solution for compatibility with USB Type-C and Type-A sources (Note: Display Link driver needed for Type-A connection)
- Ultra-portable award-winning design at 1.87 pounds and 0.3 inches slim to pair perfectly with ASUS laptops
- Built to be on-the-go with 7800mAh battery for ultimate compatibility with both laptops and phones
- Smart Cover and smart pen hole allow for landscape and portrait orientations easily with auto rotation
- ASUS Eye Care technology with TUV Rhineland-certified flicker-free backlighting and blue light filter minimizes eye fatigue.Brightness(Max) : 220 cd/㎡
- 60 hertz
Description
Designed for portability, The 15.6" Full HD IPS Zen screen go MB16AP USB monitor features the world's first hybrid signal solution. At only 1.87 pounds and 0.3 inches slim, the MB16AP easily slides into briefcases to become the ideal travel companion for laptops to maximize work efficiency and simplicity.
I don't think my review can compare to David's so I won't even try. I will tell you that I have used this for over a month with both my Razer Blade 15 and Razer Phone. I've had one issue that was promptly resolved by Amazon's customer service, but otherwise it's great! This display is thin enough to fit (tightly) into my Targus Pro-Tek EVA Sleeve, which makes complex tasks very easy while on the go. I just take both out, plug in the one usbc to the monitor and then I'm good to go! Super convenient, and easy.
The ASUS MB16AP is light weight and serves the purpose. I paid the extra dollars for the battery hoping it will help me in a situation where there is no power available or using with a mobile. But I use a 2017 MacBook Air with the USB A to USB C adapter. Looks like its not charging the battery enough and over several hours the battery drains and shuts down the monitor even when the MacBook Air is connected to power. The onscreen menu shows that the screen is being charged.
But the screen is good and very portable.
I've been using for a few weeks now and I Love my portible monitor!!
I purchased the one with a battery and just love this thing. Even though my laptop wont charge it ( its a laptop issue ), the battery still last long time because it is drawing partial battery life from the latptop.
Screen Quality is GREAT.
I use it at home and on the GO !!
CONS, you cant attach to power outlet and laptop at same time. Other than that, no other cons I see.
When I first got the screen to use with my Surfacebook Book (gen 1) I was having trouble getting the screen to stay "on" - it'd work, then stop, then work, then stop. After doing some reading online, I read in some obscure comment that the "Quality of the Asus cable for USB-A to USB-C is not good. Get an Anker Powerline series USB-A to USB-C to resolve problems" I ended up taking that advice and now it works PERFECTLY!
So if you plan on using that adapter OR you're having problems now, get the cable. Worked wonders for me.
The Asus MB16AP Portable Monitor it's awesome, i use it for my Samsung S9 and work great, i use it with the Samsung Dex Pad after installing the DisplayLink app, thru the isb adapter. It does not work because i have some issues while using a wired mouse or using the cellphone as a touchpad, the problem is that the pointer only work on 1/3 of the screen displayed. The only thing that solved that problem is using the monitor as a second monitor, problem solved. picture quality i gave it a 4/5 stars becuse of the brightness, i would like a bit more but it work just fine, not disappoint at all. Next thing i like to try is have a split cable so i can charge the monitor while im using it with mi desktop (that i use it with the USB adapter and the Displaylink app as well) because from the 4 hour i only have like 2 hour slmost 2 and a half because i have it on the 100% of brightness. Hope this review help you if not ask if you want i would love to investigate
Where can buy Asus Zenscreen Monitor in Uae, Asus Full HD IPS Monitor in Uae, Asus USB Type C Monitor in Uae
ReplyDeletehttps://pcdubai.com/product/asus-zenscreen-go-mb16ahp-usb-type-c-15-6-inches-full-hd-ips-monitor-with-built-in-battery-mb16ahp/