MIMO UM-710S review

The idea of carrying a separate screen around with your netbook may seem to defeat the point, but the fold-up design of this little 7in display makes it a feasible prospect. It may be small – the resolution of 800 x 480 seems miniscule by today's standards – but you could view it as a desktop extender to a small model like the old 7in Eee PC, or just as a bonus Outlook viewer for any PC or laptop.

Its sole port is a mini-USB on the rear, and all you'll need to make it work is the latest DisplayLink driver; netbook owners will need to download it as it's annoyingly provided on a CD. It's certified for Vista, but there’s a Windows 7 driver still in beta. We did have a few issues with this – it interfered with gaming performance on our desktop PC, for example, reducing framerates – but hopefully the issues will be ironed out soon.

The performance of the UM-710S largely depended on the connected system: our Atom-based netbook struggled to smoothly play back YouTube clips on its own screen, let alone the MIMO, but dragging a video window across from our full-power desktop PC showed no jerkiness. As a general rule, other than gaming, if your system can handle a file the MIMO should too.

It's obviously meant more for keeping Outlook or messenger clients permanently in-view and out of the way, but the 400:1 contrast and decent colours make for a surprisingly perky picture. If you're not working it could double up nicely as a digital photo frame, and it neatly swivels through 90 degrees for any other portrait uses that may suit.

It's not exactly a must-have, and with Sideshow proving a complete flop when Vista arrived, we can't see too many people desperate for an extra mini display. But it’s an intriguing way to (nearly) double the screen size of your netbook. If that doesn't sound like a daft idea, and if you can stomach the price, it does what it should do surprisingly well.

Author: David Bayon