eVGA’s Interview
Posted by Jon Peddie on June 12th 2009 | Discuss
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Hardware Review
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eVGA’s Interview being tested in MTTL’s lab. The camera is in the center post.
See more do more, see more together. Anyone who has read Tech Watch has heard about Peddie’s second law—The more you can see the more you can do. And you’ve no doubt heard me extol the benefits of multiple displays, seen pictures of my workspace, and suffered through my lectures on the productivity gains one gets as they add screen space.
Two are better than one
It’s an easy concept to grasp. If you try to replicate a desktop. A real physical desk top that is maybe four to six feet wide and two and half to three feet deep, that is covered with papers, books, charts, pictures and whatnot, to a 15-inch computer screen with limited resolution, you will be frustrated. Moving to a 17-inch monitor with higher resolution helps and adding a second monitor obviously doubles the gains.
Sharing is better than spinning
Now take the scenario of having something on your screen that you want to show to a colleague or a client. One choice is to have him or her come into your office or cubical and lean over your shoulder while you point out the things that are important. The other choice is if you have a desk not bolted to the wall of a cubical that allows someone to sit facing you. Now the typical action is to swing your monitor around so they can see the important stuff.
However, neither of these approaches allow for joint interactivity or collaboration. You’re either leaning over someone trying to work their mouse or one of you is trying to look around the edge of the monitor.
Flipping over you
The clever designers at eVGA have come with a third solution—the Interview dual monitor that lets you flip it. Suppose you had a dual screen set up and you could simply flip one of your screens over so it faced the person facing you at your desk? It you put the same image up (easy to do, just turn off ‘extend desktop’) you could both be looking at the same thing—if the flipped screen was upside down. Huh? Think about it. If the screen’s bottom is facing you, when you flip it, it is now the top for the person sitting across from you, so for this to work you have flip the image when you flip the screen. eVGA’s Interview has a gravity switch in it so when you flip it it signals the controller to flip the image. Either monitor can be flipped over.
Multiple mice and keyboards can be plugged in for collaborative work. The unit has three USB connectors in the front.
The dual display also allows the 17-inch 1440 x 900, 60 Hz screens to fold in so you can view them at an angle that is comfortable to you when you’re using them in a personal dual monitor mode. Between the monitors is the post that hold them and in it, at the top, is a 1.4 MP camera. That allows you to set up the monitors as a video conferencing system, with multiple participants and/or video conferencing on one screen and a document or diagram in the other that both parties can be working on.
The system was a perfect out of the box experience. We unfolded the display panels, fitted them into the base, plugged in the special display cable (it is a single DVI like connector on the base with two one-meter cables with a DVI cable on each end), plugged in the USB cable (for the camera and front connectors) plugged in the power supply and it came to life. There’s also a mic connector for the video conferencing operation (the mic itself is built into the center post). There’s a set up disk with the manual and a WebEx program for setting up video conferencing and collaboration.
The screens, which are from AUO, are bright and very sharp. The system sells for $650 which is about what you’d pay for a couple of 17-inch
monitors.
