Hello all, shopping for a portable monitor to match up with an old old T420 ThinkPad. Being an old PC the typical/mass results on Amazon might not be the best fit (USB C to USB C with vid drivers + power delivery, only other IO is HDMI). My T420 just has DisplayPort and I doubt it can power an external panel via USB so I’m looking at these two:
Pro of above
Pretty good review score
Comes with adapter cables for the mini HDMI and mini DP + power adapter.
Waterproof? interesting, I don’t see that as part of my use-case, but not a bad thing.
Cons: Random Alibaba like brand.
Pro:
Comes with adapter cables for the mini HDMI and mini DP + power adapter.
seems a bit slimmer
cons: Less reviews, also no-name strait from a container brand.
Both look like alibaba like brands. If it were me, I’d get the first one since there’s already a bunch of people who already got it and have reviewed it. If the second one was cheaper around $50 or someone here or on youtube strongly recommended, it’d be a easier buy.
Cheap adapters are available to convert display port to HDMI, digital to digital doesn’t result in quality loss, so that gives you more options.
You’re right that your old USB-A ports won’t be able to provide anywhere near the power you can get from USB-C PD ports… so what are you looking for? If you want to use them on the go, there are some screens with built-in batteries that’ll run for a few hours between charges. Or are you happy to be tethered to a wall outlet?
There are active DP to usb-c cables out there that work perfectly well for portable screens. You’d need to plug in another USB cable for power, though, but it will work.
I have a few adapters of various directions around for my LVL1 KVM, I have a bad taste in my mouth from adapters, especially ones that require power and have some chip conversions going on.
Ordered the first one for this reason. Overall price and feature set, this should fit the use-case (sitting at a desk with a power strip for hours on end needing two screens that I can easily pack up and go).
