Thoughts
The £125 Philips 221S3UCB is designed to enable users to add a 21.5in, full-HD monitor to any system that sports USB connectivity. Driven by DisplayLink technology and working just fine as an enabler of extra real estate or as a larger-screen presentation tool when allied to a laptop, it's not a screen for everyone - gaming and high-definition video playback aren't in the same league as a regular monitor.
Technical prowess and ease of use don't mask the fact that the monitor is very much a niche product, primarily useful for increasing the desktop real estate for notebook computers. We'd like to see subsequent versions use DisplayLink's USB 3.0 technology that, ideally, is packaged into a display which is lighter and therefore more portable.
Bottom line: Philips needs to play heavily on the portability and ease-of-use themes if it's succeed in this market.
The Good
No external power
Super-easy to setup
Handy for increasing notebook real estate
The Bad
Fast-paced gaming and 1080p video playback is problematic
Pricing brings regular IPS monitors into play
Power-draw and compression can reduce battery life by 50 per cent
HEXUS Rating
HEXUS Where2Buy
The reviewed monitor is available here.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
