Is There Even a Market for a Laptop Second Screen?

There are a lot of announcements coming out of IFA 2016 today in Berlin, most of which are unsurprising new PC releases. But here's one that caught my eye: ASUS is selling a portable display for laptops. And I'm curious whether there is a market for such a thing.

We've seen our fair share of strange PC peripherals over the years, from rollerball mice to Microsoft's smart displays from 10 years ago to gaming gloves. Most disappeared with barely a whimper, and very few are even remembered.

Secondary screens for laptops aren't new. We've seen USB solutions, and more recently some software-based solutions that can turn an iPad or other device into a second screen as well. Some firms, like Lenovo, have even tried building second screens into laptops. Regardless of the approach, this type of thing has never struck me as being particularly useful, for most, or popular. But the ASUS ZenScreen MB16AC has me wondering.

ASUS bills this thing as "the world's lightest and slimmest Full HD portable monitor." It's a 15.6-inch screen that connects to your PC via a hybrid USB Type-C (USB-C) port that supports both power and video. So it should work with any PC that has a USB-C or USB Type-A port (with adapter, in the latter case).

ASUS defends the "lightest and slimmest" bits by noting the device's 800g (1.77 pound) weight and 8 mm (0.31 inch) thinness. Not that it matters per se: I'm guessing few people reading this could point out a portable display in the first place, let alone one that matches this device's attributes.

It also features a nicely tiny bezel and comes with a built-in protective case that appears to be modeled after the folding covers you see on iPads and other tablets. In that it also props up the display. That makes plenty of sense.

Pricing is unclear: ASUS says the ZenScreen MB16AC will retail for €269 in Europe, so that's about $300 here in the US. That's not terrible, I guess, for what you're getting. The question is ... do you need it? Does anyone?

Ultimately, I think the market for this kind of thing is still small. But USB-C is a driving force for PCs, phones and tablets going forward, and the market for peripherals based on this standard is exploding. Something like this could absolutely be of interest to a niche audience---power users and developers who favor dual screen set ups at home/work, perhaps---and I could see packing something like this in my carry-on luggage so it wouldn't weigh down my laptop bag.

But it's not just USB-C that I find intriguing. The ZenScreen MB16AC can be placed vertically too. That would be very interesting for writing on the go.

No, I'm probably not going to get one. But this is the most interesting thing I've seen from IFA 2016 so far.