While portable monitors have been around for a few years now, Asus is showing off a new idea at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show. The Asus ProArt PA147CDV is a 14-inch portable panel with a few tricks up its sleeves. Unlike traditional portable screens, the PA147CDV comes with a more unique — and narrow — 1920 x 550 aspect ratio.
It’s this intriguing aspect ratio that not only makes the PA147CDV stand out against the competition, but the narrow screen looks like it could have been ripped straight off of one of the company’s many laptops with a secondary touch display.
Asus’ ScreenPad and ScreenPad 2.0 on laptops such as the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED were seen as competitors to Apple’s TouchBar on that company’s MacBook Pro model. However, the ScreenPad was larger than the Touch Bar and could display more information, making it far more useful.
As a stand-alone and portable screen, Asus is pitching the PA147CDV as an innovative productivity display for content creators — it comes with Wacom EMR and Microsoft Pen Protocol 2.0 support for digital inking, making it a nice canvas to sketch, draw, or write on while on the go. Asus also includes another one of its unique innovations — the Asus Dial. With capabilities similar to Microsoft’s first-party Surface Dial, the Asus Dial on the side of the PA147CDV allows creators to have access to tools and adjustments in supported software, like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, the company claims.
For content creators, the PA147CDV also comes with features that are standard for the space — like a color accurate display. The PA147CDV is Calman Verified for color accuracy and the company claims that the screen is factory pre-calibrated. It supports 10-bit color, 100% of the sRGB and Rec. 709 color spaces, and it comes with a built-in kickstand for use in portrait or landscape orientation.
While a secondary screen that’s built into laptops can display useful information, it’s unclear if a stand-alone screen, especially one as narrow and compact as the PA147CDV, can add meaningful value to a creator’s workflow. If you have the desktop space for this narrow display and don’t mind the cable clutter — the display has an HDMI port and two USB-C connectors — then this display can be an interesting one to add to your setup.
The company also showcased its ProArt Projector A1, its OLED PA32DC monitor with built-in colorimeter for automatic color adjustments, and a PA348CGV panel at the NAB Show.
Pricing details for the PA147CDV were not immediately available, though the company revealed that this narrow panel is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2022 in North America.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.