10 mo. ago • 100%

Mini Monitor Recommendations

I’m looking for a small 7” or 8” computer monitor to keep on my desk to display Discord and other things without taking up real estate on my main monitor. Ideally something cheap and therefore not a touchscreen. There’s tons of options online but I’d like to get some recommendations from people who have a similar product and enjoy it.

Something similar in shape and size as the StreamDeck XL would be great. Obviously just a screen though.

12 comments

If you already have a similarly sized tablet, you could just buy a dummy HDMI plug, a few dollars, to add a second virtual desktop and then simply cast that screen to the mobile device.

There are pretty nice Android tablets now with 2.5k 120 hz HDR OLD screens. You can just connect it directly to the computer via USB, enable USB network tethering, then use something like the Moonlight client app with Sunshine screen casting server. With the wired connection, and a high bit rate such as 150 Mbps, you can get single digit millisecond latency and hardly tell the difference from an native HDMI display.

Tablets like those might be on the high end, but at least you'd have nice secondary display that's a bit more multifunctional. Or just go with a cheaper LCD based tablet or old iPad, if color accuracy, refresh rate, or resolution isn't a priority.

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- With this method, would I be able to use an iPad as a display for windows 10? If so, are there any downsides? I remember trying Duet Display years ago but they charge a monthly fee which is absurd. And performance was not great.
  
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  Looks like Moonlight does have their app up on the Apple store or iOS, and Sunlight has binaries for most operating systems. Personally, instead of Sunlight's server, I still use Nvidia's GeForce Experience software to stream games, as it takes less effort to configure. Of course, Nvidia may not be applicable if you're using integrated or AMD graphics instead.
  
  Although, with Nvidia recently deprecating support for it's shield device, Sunlight provides support for the same protocol that Moonlight was originally developed against, but it's also open source. I've not used multi monitor streaming with GeForce Experience, something Sunlight would be much more flexible in configuring.
  
  As for connectivity, I'm unsure if iOS supports the same USB network feature that Android has. I'd imagine at least the iPhone would, as that's a core feature/option for mobile hotspot connectivity, but maybe that's nixed from iPad iOS? Alternatively you could get yourself a USB C hub or dock with an ethernet adapter and pass through power delivery, so you can connect your iPad with a wired network and charge simultaneously.
  
  Or you could just use Wi-Fi, but with wireless networks dropping and retrying packets, that'll impact latency or bitrate quality when casting displays. Although for something mostly static like discord windows, that's probably less of an issue. Windows 11, and maybe 10, also have a hotspot mode, where you could share your wired network via your PCs wireless radio via and ad hoc Wi-Fi SSID. That could reduce latency and improve signal reception, but you'd have to start the hotspot setting every session or whenever the device disconnects from windows' hotspot for more than 15 minutes or something.
  
  You could try other remote display streaming software as well, like Parsec. However they have a online account login requirement with the freemium model, so I prefer the open source client Moonlight instead. However parsecs a lot easier too use when streaming from outside your home, or when remotely single screen co-oping with friends, without having to configure firewalls or domain names.
  
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I haven't personally tried them, but there are a lot of monitors on Amazon that are meant for Raspberry-Pi's. I was looking at them myself but I instead decided to get an old monitor for free off of Freecycle. I made a post there and a bunch of people offered a bunch of old ones they weren't using any more (like the ubiquitous Samsung 720N).

Also, I already have a second monitor but it's too narrow for discord; as in the window can't be made small enough. Maybe it's just a GNOME thing, but I'm not sure discord will 'fit' on those small screens.

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- Good idea. I was leaning heavily towards those raspberry pi monitors.
  
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  Ive used those, they all seem to be pretty similar in hardware and work fine. Might be out of the range of scaling things to a "normal" size with built in OS scaling settings, but still usable. I was expecting the color to be terrible, but in my experience it's fine.
  
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I couldn't find anything like this other than very expensive portable options last time I checked, and unfortunately Android Tablets are surprisingly hard to use for the purpose.

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I got one of these recently and I'm pretty happy with it. It's a repurposed iPad screen, 2k, 4:3, and put into an aluminum frame. slightly larger than your requirements tho. Got the version with usb-c and mini-hdmi inputs, and is USB powered. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801503431249.html

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Do yourself a favor and just get a regular second monitor.

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Search for travel monitors or portable monitors.

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^Dell ^UltraSharp? ^:P

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If you have an iPad, you can use the app Duet. I used it for college back when I only had a laptop and and iPad and it worked surprisingly well.

There's some lag and you'll need to install some software on the PC as well, but it's pretty lightweight if I remember correctly

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