DoubleSight DS-90U

With the popularity of feather-weight laptops growing at a frantic pace we're seeing more portable USB-powered monitors than ever before. One such monitor, the DoubleSight DS-90U ($169 list), takes its place among offerings from Lenovo, AOC, Toshiba, Mimo, and others. This 9-inch monitor is one of the smaller models out there, although the company does make a 7-inch model. With the DS-90U you get good color and dark gray performance in a slim, highly portable chassis, but it can't match the overall performance and bang for the buck that you get with the Editors' Choice Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 ($199.99 list, 4 stars).

Design and Features
Weighing just 16-ounces the DS-90U is the lightest portable monitor to pass through PC Labs to date, but its 9-inch 1024-by-600 screen is also the smallest. By way of comparison, the Lenovo LT1421 sports a 14-inch screen and the AOC e1649Fwu ($139 list, 3.5 stars) has a 15.6-inch screen, and both are 1366-by-768 resolution displays. As such, the DS-90U is clearly not the best choice for small group presentations.

The DS-90U is 9-inches wide, 5.7-inches high and only 1-inch thick (without the stand) and will easily fit into a laptop bag or briefcase. The glossy screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio and is framed by shiny black bezels with a DoubleSight logo on the upper left corner. Around back are a mini-USB port, an on/off switch, and a brightness control which offers the only available picture adjustment. An easel stand resembling a tablet stylus is tucked into a slot on the right side. When inserted in a hole on the bottom of the cabinet it supports the panel like a picture frame.

There's also a screw hole in the center of the cabinet for attaching the included secondary stand (a large thumbscrew is also included). The stand has a glossy black circular base and a tilting mounting arm that allows you to attach the stand in either a portrait or landscape orientation. You'll have to change the actual image orientation in the graphics control applet; unlike the AOC e1649Fwu, the DS-90U does not offer an auto-rotate feature. You can fold the stand up for travel but it does not sit flush with the back of the cabinet and adds considerable bulk to the monitor's slim profile.

The DS-90U comes with a Y-cable (USB), a quick start guide, a black plastic snap-on screen cover, and a CD containing a user manual and the DisplayLink driver. No power cord is required as the monitor is powered by the host's USB port. The monitor worked fine with just one USB connection on my ThinkPad X220 but you may need to use a secondary port if you're connecting to an older PC, hence the Y-cable. DoubleSight covers the DS-90U with a three year warranty.

Performance
The DS-90U delivers deep, rich colors and did a great job of displaying each shade of dark gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test. Small text was clear and legible as well, but the panel struggled to reproduce lighter shades of gray. As a result, highlight detail appeared washed out on my test photo and the three lightest swatches of the 64-Step Grayscale test appeared white. Given the panel's diminutive stature it's not the best choice for a movie screen but if you do decide to watch video you'll have to deal with noticeable motion blur, courtesy of a 30-millisecond (b-w) pixel response.

Off angle viewing is quite good on the DS-90U, at least from the sides. There was very little color shifting or loss of luminance from an extreme side angle but when viewed from the top and bottom the screen darkened considerably and colors were skewed. Keep this in mind when using the monitor in a portrait orientation as the side viewing angle will be quite narrow.

The DoubleSight DS-90U is a slim, lightweight portable USB monitor that you can take anywhere without adding any significant weight to your laptop bag. It offers vivid colors, good dark grayscale reproduction, and crisp text, but its light grayscale performance is wanting. Its $169 price tag is relatively high for such a small screen, especially when compared to the 15.6-inch AOC e1649Fwu ($139 list). That said, if you can spare another $30, the Lenovo LT1421 gets you significantly more screen real estate, a higher resolution, and is a slightly thinner than the DS-90U.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the DoubleSight DS-90U with several other monitors side by side.

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