I waited 2.5 years for this folding monitor…#Helpful Post 

the spud or spontaneous pop-up display

was billed as a godsend for all manner

of situations

a high-resolution battery-powered

portable display for watching movies on

the train sharing presentations with

colleagues and being more productive

with your small screen laptop so then in

November 2016 I backed it on Kickstarter

and now two and a half years later I am

among the first to get my hands on to

row vias high-resolution portable

monitor

dear spud backer

we finally delivered it yay

accessories including an HDMI cable USB

type-c cable wall wart and North

American power plug

finally the spud itself so let's find

out if this was a good idea private

Internet access that's exactly what

you'll get with PIAA a safe and

protected IP and it's got loads of other

features as well check it out at the

link in the video description

I think the best way to tackle a product

like this is to go through the

manufacturers selling points one at a

time so we'll start with what exactly it

is it's a 24 inch display that collapses

and expands like a ruggedized umbrella

well I'm not familiar with the term

ruggedized umbrella but I guess it might

be something a little bit like this oh

sure and the display area is comfortably

24 inches which are oviya points out is

23 times larger than a smartphone screen

although I don't know how well those

numbers hold up now that iphones don't

look like this anymore their point does

still stand though if you're watching a

movie this is a lot bigger than this

that said as I'm always reminding my

wife there's more to life than size so

let's go ahead and fire it up and have a

look at the performance so to get it

connected we've got a single HDMI input

the type see here is actually only for

charging that's not a separate input

we've got our power button which we hold

down for 4 seconds until it flashes

that'll turn it on you can see we've got

about 75 percent battery it does have

integrated speakers apparently so

there's our volume up and volume down

we've got a brightness control wheel and

a USB 5 volt output down here we've got

an exhaust vent so it is actively cooled

I can actually feel the fan blowing in

my face right now as well as an intake

and then this is our focus knob and then

we've got one of those little threaded

inserts for throwing it on like a little

tripod or something like that so

theoretically it should now be working

actually all right there we go

I kind of wish I could see what you guys

are seeing cuz from my perspective I am

pretty disappointed by the brightness in

person but I don't know how exactly the

camera is capturing it David how would

you how would you say how representative

would you say the experience is like it

looks brighter on camera than in real

life alright like to put this in

perspective ladies and gentlemen here

I'm gonna turn my lcd all the way down

to mega ultra power saving how do they

compare now maybe it can go brighter

still cuz like here's where I would

normally use this thing I'd say let's

turn it up a little bit you crank it

those colors though like it's clearly

purple and like on the chrome logo

there's no distinction between the white

circle around the blue dot in the middle

and the yellow part of the wheel like

nothing here let's put something white

on the screen you'd think given the

specs of the projector and the distance

of the screen are known quantities but

they would have been able to get the

image a little bit closer to the edge

like there's not there's not really a

way that I could conceivably get it to

stick out further so I could get a

bigger image out of it I'm gonna try to

adjust the focus though that's kind of

rough actually so you can see the focus

of right dead center is actually not bad

but there's a lot of blur up in the

corners and even I'd say anywhere

outside about a sort of four inch

diameter circle in the middle is

noticeably blurry materials quality

seems alright for the most part though

this is a nice lightweight but durable

feeling fabric this is kind of floppy I

actually initially thought that maybe

this was some kind of stand or something

because got like this bend in here but I

couldn't find any meaningful way to to

prop it up on it so it seems like this

is basically how it mounts

so the thing is what really intrigued me

and probably a lot of the nearly 2,000

spud backers was the prospect of using

this thing as a high-resolution

secondary display for a laptop when

they're working on the go so kind of

kind of like this which I guess brings

us perfectly to our next selling point

use it everywhere all right

so watching movies well my main issue

with that is visual fidelity ROV is very

loosey-goosey use of the term high

resolution is something that I think

they could have done a better job of

it's only 720p and unfortunately no

amount of tinkering with the focus dial

off camera managed to fix the issue that

I was having with focus so no matter

what we load up on it it just doesn't

look good using it outside actually yeah

I could kind of see that but I'm also

pretty sure that they did some fairly

aggressive color grading in this

promotional video because from our

experience you're going to be using it

around dusk or later for sales

presentations yeah I could see this

fitting pretty nicely into a briefcase

or something like that that is as long

as there isn't already a TV or a

projector in the meeting room that

you're heading into and then for cooking

again yeah I could kind of see that as

long as you've got the counter space as

for the coffee shop sure having a big

screen display there might be nice but I

really don't know if you want to be that

guy I think overall you guys can kind of

see where I'm going with this most

places

truth be told just don't have like a

convenient four square feet of space to

plop down a fully deployed spud like at

two pounds it's obviously a lot lighter

than an old tube style CRT monitor but

it's merely the same size

bringing us to portability which i think

is probably the spuds most compelling

selling point because here's the thing

all of my convenience and image quality

complaints aside if I absolutely needed

a large screen display in any of those

situations this really is my only option

is what I would have said if in the last

two and a half years since I backed the

thing we hadn't seen a veritable

explosion of portable battery-powered

LCDs now I'm not saying that the spud

doesn't do some things well it's way

bigger than any portable display on the

market even that four thousand dollar

one from the soos and the material that

our oviya sourced for the projection

screen is spectacular

like check this out I wish they may have

never ironed shirts out of this stuff

because it's just it's actually kind of

amazing the inclusion of a healthy

integrated battery and a USB port for a

chromecast or something like that

that's a great feature and the overall

fit and finish of the thing just is

surprisingly good for a kick-started

product the thing is I just don't really

understand who this thing is for like on

the one hand they seem to be going after

the be like elegance crowd with the

whole size of a book thing in the

marketing but here's my issue with that

hold on let me just get this folded down

here we go saying to me that this is the

size of a book is kind of like saying

that a truck is about the size of a car

like yes this is a lot more like a book

than it is like a full tower computer

but this is a pretty big book and a

folded spud is more than double its size

by volume now as for the practicality

crowd well I think those folks are

probably buying pocket projectors for 50

bucks on Aliexpress

and pointing them out a pillowcase

propped up on a couple of sticks when

they go camping for myself though none

of that is really the main problem for

me the issue comes down to the price if

this thing was 99 bucks at the Walmart

I'd be like heck yeah that's basically

camping accessory territory but after

nearly four hundred US dollars that I

paid for this I would take the trade-off

in size any day of the week and go with

something like this Chinese portable

monitor I mean if it's not big enough

then all I have to do is sit a little

closer or pick it up and hold it since

it's so lightweight and the form factor

is so much like a tablet also since the

resolution isn't straight out of 2005

almost no matter how close I get to it

actually no matter how close I get to it

it's still going to look a lot better

than the spud

sorry spud you're just potato image

quality I can't believe I didn't think

of that joke until now do you have any

idea what happens at your front door

well ring is on a mission to reduce

crime in your neighborhood with their

1080p HD resolution 160 degree video

doorbells

they've got night vision an adjustable

motion sensor two-way audio so you can

talk to whoever's at the front door and

of course their Wi-Fi capable so you can

always check what's going on wherever

you are your ring doorbell is powered by

an 8 to 24 volt AC doorbell circuit

and/or the battery bank it's compatible

with iOS Android Mac and Windows and the

video doorbell kit includes their video

doorbell to a spotlight cam and a solar

security sign so buy it now at ring comm

slash ltte we're gonna have that linked

below so thanks for watching guys if you

disliked this video you can hit that

button but if you liked it hit like get

subscribed or maybe consider checking

out where to buy the stuff we featured

at the link in the video description

maybe we'll also throw in a link for

like more practical portable monitors

asus has one that's about the same price

this one's actually cheaper also linked

in the description is our merch store

which has cool shirts like this one and

our community forum which

should totally join