More Mobile: External Display (Premium)

The appearance of a new HP Conferencing Monitor for review has thrown a (temporary?) wrench into my More Mobile computing setup. But then, that’s sort of the point, isn’t? Keep trying new things and see what sticks.

To date—by which I mean, since about last September—I’ve been using a docked laptop setup at my desk, using only the laptop’s built-in display. This works well for me, though I very much prefer larger laptops for their bigger displays: 15.1-inches is better than 14-inches is better than 13.3-inches.

But that configuration is, I think, somewhat unusual. And I suspect that the most common configuration for people who do primarily or only use laptops is to just use the laptop, with no dock or mess or peripherals. And the second most common—again, just guessing here—is a laptop connected to an external desktop display (and possibly a desktop keyboard and mouse).

That second type of setup is so common, and its use cases so obvious, it almost doesn’t require explanation. In fact, even my wife, as normal a person as there can be, uses this setup each day. But remember that I’m no fan of dual displays, despite many, many attempts throughout the years. I can’t explain why. I just prefer using a single screen.

But I keep trying. And with my newer More Mobile setup, I’ve experimented with two configurations that involve dual displays. One with a portable (USB-C based) secondary display. And one with the more standard desktop display configuration. I last tried that latter setup about a month ago, with the 27-inch HP Z27n G2 1440 display I was using before my switch to the More Mobile setup. What I found at that time was that the smaller IKEA desk I had also switched to during this process wasn’t deep enough to use the HP display comfortably. The display was just too big too big to be that close. And so I moved on.

But then HP offered me an E27m G4 QHD USB-C Conferencing Monitor for review. And I thought, OK, I can make this work, if only temporarily. I just needed to figure out the desk.

My wife and I were in Philadelphia overnight about two weeks ago for a concert, and the local IKEA—which isn’t all that local, really—is on the way home, so we swung through there in part to see if I could find an inexpensive little desk, stand, or cabinet that I could position behind my office desk and sit the display upon it. And, I probably could have gotten something for under $100, but it seemed semi-pointless, and I eventually decided that we must have something at home that would work. Probably something in one of the kids’ rooms, since no one is using anything in either of those rooms right now.

When we got home, I couldn’t find anything suitable, but walking back into my office, I spied a metal rollable shelfing unit I wasn’t using for much of anything. And I just went with that, placing it behind the desk. What the heck.

And it actually works pretty well, though it was obvious that I’d need to remove the laptop stand I’d been using so that it didn’t block the display. I actually left it there for a while with the stand lowered as much as possible and the laptop display closed. But once I removed the stand, that opened up the desk nicely, creating a cleaner look that I really like.

I also used this opportunity to switch laptops, which I do from time to time anyway, this time opting for the Microsoft Surface Pro 8. That’s worked out well, too. It’s a modern PC, and though it was a bit hissy with fan noise the first day, it’s settled down and I don’t hear it anymore. Its compact size is nice as well, adding to clean look.

Given my preference for single-screen setups, I stuck with using only the external display, but I’ll be experimenting with using both displays simultaneously this coming week. (My early attempts were not positive.) The transition was fairly seamless. I had, of course, used this type of display for, well, forever, and it’s impossible not to appreciate some of the benefits of its larger area, including the ability to drag items directly from the desktop into a window, which can be floating rather the full screen.

Regarding this display in particular, it also introduces some useful peripheral minimization capabilities because it has a decent built-in webcam, a single USB-C cable connection with 65-watts of laptop-charging power, and what is essentially a built-in hub. (It also has decent built-in speakers, which is key.) That means it could—theoretically replace several of the peripherals that currently clog by desk: the USB-C hub, the USB-C hub’s power supply and cable, the webcam, and even the laptop stand.

And that is very interesting to me.

The built-in webcam is decent. It’s a 5 MP unit, which is theoretically—no, sorry, it is literally—better than 1080p from a resolution perspective, and it tilts. In practice, the quality seems pretty good. It’s better than most built-in laptop webcams I’ve used, and probably not as good as the external webcam I’d been using. But I like not having to deal with an extra peripheral, so I’ll almost certainly stick with it.

Unlike a portable display, which usually requires just a single cable (USB-C), the HP E27m is a desktop display and of course, it needs two cables: a standard power cable for the power receptacle and a USB-C cable to connect with the PC. But this is no different than my current setup, which involves a USB-C hub and a dedicated power cable plus the USB-C cable. So that’s all good: the display can pass power through to the PC and power that too.

Whether the ports provided on the display meet one’s needs will vary by person, of course. I need at least two USB-A ports—one for my keyboard/mouse dongle, and one for the Focusrite USB interface for my podcasting microphone—and then a spare USB-C and USB-A port for random connectivity needs.

The HP E27m provides two built-in USB-A ports, so I can connect my dongle and Focusrite. And a single USB-C port for connecting to the PC. And there’s even an Ethernet port, which I also use with my dock. But that’s it, so I’d need to use ports on whatever computer I’m using for those random connectivity needs. That’s probably fine in most cases, but the Surface Pro 8 I’m currently testing only has two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports, so I’d need a dongle for a USB-A connection. Not ideal but, again, probably OK.

UPDATE: Actually, the display provides four USB-A ports. As a reader was nice enough to point out in the comments, there are two more USB-A ports out at the the bottom left of the display, and easily accessible from the front. And the top one supports Battery Charge (BC) 1.2. Perfect! (There is also a headphone/mic combo jack on the opposite [right] side.)

The E27m provides other ports related to video that I won’t need, like an HDMI port, a full-sized DisplayPort In, and a full-sized DisplayPort Out. And, as a conferencing monitor, it features echo-canceling dual-microphones, which will likely be decent for meetings giving my tests in Teams. I’ll use it in some real-world calls to be sure, but I can’t imagine they’re good enough for podcasting. Though, let’s admit it: that would be amazing giving how ponderous my microphone setup is.

But even without that, the HP E27m offers an amazing range of functionality that should meet most needs. Not just mine, but those of many readers. And so this display—or something else like it—emerges as a very interesting solution. Note, too, that HP makes different sized versions of its new Conferencing displays: there are 24-inch (E24m) and 34-inch (E34m) versions, too, the latter of which is curved. Now I’m wondering if the 24-inch version might have just fit on my desk. Hm.

Anyway, I’ll give this configuration a shot over the next several days and see how it goes.