A USB Type-C Monitor, the MB169C

USB monitors always feel as if they are just another piece of the puzzle, with not much general interest except for a few business/professional users. The idea is that they can be handy to have around, especially when travelling, and thus need to be light, easy to use, and easy to set up in a different office or hotel room. The other argument is for students, especially those that require multiple screens, without having to order another $150 large 1080p IPS monitor from Newegg in their latest deal, which then becomes an issue when moving from dorm to dorm. The USB monitor market has existed, but never produced anything particularly major. With the advent of tablets however, thin screens of high resolution are now coming down in cost. When it comes to having this sort of screen as a monitor, it only needs the TCON and a connection in, arguably showing that if you can get a 13-inch screen in a laptop under $300, or a 4K panel in a tablet, you could arguably get an extra monitor for a lot less.

So insert ASUS’ latest foray, taking a good quality panel and pairing it with one of the latest technologies. Using Type-C alternate mode, the MB169C+ uses DisplayPort and Type-C for both power and the image, supporting 1920x1080 resolution.

The panel has a separate power switch and a quick volume rocker that relays back to the device being used. This panel is light, thin, and easy to carry in a separate case along with a laptop, despite being a 15.6-inch display.

No word was given on pricing or time to market, though it looked ready to go as we were playing around with it.

The External GPU Dock, over Type-C AIO goes Zen Pro
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  • pixelstuff - Wednesday, January 20, 2016 - link

    Or for $530 at Netgear GS728TX-100NES which gives 4 10GB ports and 24 1GB ports.

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OZCFVVC
  • thewishy - Thursday, January 21, 2016 - link

    The D-Link DGS-1510-28X is even cheaper. This goes with an SFP+ approach rather than copper 10GBaseT - but given the power consumption and latency for 10GBaseT, that's no bad thing.
    Fibre is cheap, SR SFP+ is cheap. Direct Attach Copper is cheap. As long as you're not trying to reuse existing structured cabling, it's the logical route right now.
  • nils_ - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link

    SFP+ DA is cheap? I think the last time I had to pay around 60 EUR for a 3m cable...
  • pixelstuff - Wednesday, January 20, 2016 - link

    What I am really hoping to see in the near future are 10G ports on all the Mini-ITX boards. I have been trying to make all my new computers builds with Mini-ITX if at all possible (to get a tiny case) and I don't want to give up the graphics card slot for higher networking speeds.
  • nils_ - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link

    PCIe lanes may still pose a problem there, although with DMI 3.0 there are now more options.
  • azrael- - Thursday, January 21, 2016 - link

    No C236 motherboard? ASUS, I am disappoint!
  • 06GTOSC - Thursday, January 21, 2016 - link

    I don't understand why they don't come out with a standard port that wires to into the PCI-e lanes specifically for external graphics. This way we get standardized enclosures and connections and it will support any GPU. External graphics have been an idea for over a decade. Yet they have not done this.
  • Murloc - Thursday, January 21, 2016 - link

    because not enough people need it enough to pay for it.
    Laptop gamers are a minority, those who aren't happy with laptop performance and know the difference between one video card and another and care enough about performance yet they don't buy a normal tower computer because they don't care about the ergonomics or have to move around THAT often are an even smaller minority.
  • newcracksoftware - Monday, February 1, 2016 - link

    thanks for the one who had created this article.
  • Lieuchikaka - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link

    http://mavangvn.vn/ma-vang-dien-thoai/dien-thoai-s...
    my phonne

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