Solving the Tablet Dual Monitor Problem, Dec 26

Eric Mack, the most famousist of Tablet PC acronym makers has said at numerous times (to me at least) that he can't get his Tablet PC to drive an external monitor and then be able to rotate the Tablet screen for writing at any angle. Here's what you normally get:

Caption: Toshiba Tecra M4 on the left, Philips 20" flat panel on the right. Tecra M4 displays fine, image on the Philips is upside down. Alternate theory: one screen displays properly for NZ users, the other for US ones ;-)

Last week I took delivery of the Toshiba Multi-Dock II, a rather expensive but very helpful accessory for the Tecra M4 (it's about 15% of the price of the Tecra). See the product tour to learn more about it. In essence, you connect the Tecra M4 to a panel which can then be hung on the Multi-Dock, un-hung and snaked out for writing, and swivelled within 5 seconds from portrait to landscape mode and back again. It's really neat ... and due to the external monitor port on the back end, it solves the dual monitor problem.

Caption: The images on both the Tecra M4 and Philips 20" display the correct way up.

And when you rotate the Tecra to get portrait mode -- for example to get more screen height real-estate to work on a MindManager map -- the image on the Philips is left unrotated.

Caption: Tecra M4 has been swivelled to portrait mode, and the image on the Philips monitor is left unchanged.

Finally, when it is time to ink, you merely lift the Tecra off the Multi-Dock and lay it on your desk. There is a built in angled platform, which is great for ink work.

The Multi-Dock has solved a number of real Tablet PC usage problems for me ... I will leave the Tablet as a Tablet from now on, and not as a standard laptop. The Multi-Dock is very much worth the apparently high price.

I wonder if Eric will get one ... :-)

Comments

[Matt]

I'd like to ask about the problem that im having with my crt monitor. The display shrunk and I can't do anything else to fix it since I don't have any background in troobleshooting a crt monitor. What can I do to fix this problem by not exposing to any dangerous events that might happened?What are the components that causes this problem? Can I replace them?

Hoping for your positive response on this.

Thank You very much!

Matt