Creative monitor extension ideas

October 28, 2024 5:23 PM

I live and work in a tiny house with a laptop + portable monitor. Employer just replaced my 15" pc with a 13", which is great for travel but less great for daily use. Need more screen. What do you know about the portable screen extenders out there?

My daily setup is at my dining table with laptop on a stand (putting the screen at ergonomic height for my eyeballs), next to a kitchen bar that holds my (laptop-powered) portable aux monitor (a 15.6" ASUS Zenscreen, also at ergonomic height). Plus an external keyboard and bluetooth mouse. It looks like this.

I change location on occasion, using whatever is on had for stands (e.g. hotel trash can, stacks of Dominion games). I do also own one portable stand that is good for laptop, but not monitor. I'm curious about extending screen space by adding a third monitor, with a system perhaps like this or this, or whatever else is out there, keeping the whole setup reasonably portable. If useful: I do data stuff, I'm often on Zoom and always on video, screen sharing from one monitor, taking notes on another. Open to ideas!

Blockers: My home setup is not flexible.
-I have the dining table real estate, and the bar to my left. Any extender that mounts to the laptop itself can only mount to the right of the screen while I'm at home.
-The laptop itself could go up on the bar, but it would put the monitor much farther from my face.
-Wall mount is not an option.

posted by AnOrigamiLife to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

Response by poster: Shoot, meant to add that in its current configuration, all ports are in use except for one mini HDMI on the left.

Port inventory:
(1) mini HDMI
(2) USB-c
(2) USB
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 5:31 PM on October 28

If it would help to replace the 15 monitor with an 18.5 inch monitor, I can recommend this UPerfect model. It is highly portable, packs up to a thin and light package and can be put away quickly. It has a built in stand, USB C with pass-through power and mini HDMI. I've found it very useful for nomadic computing in my small home.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:59 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]

I use an iPad as an extended display sometimes (basically a portable monitor) and use this Ikea tablet stand for it. The height is quite flexible - the bottom of the display could be as low as ~3.5cm or as high as ~16.5cm. You could use one to hold a portable monitor (or one on each side), but you might need to stand it on something to get the height right if your monitor is on that stand.
posted by robcorr at 9:24 PM on October 28 [1 favorite]

I have the Zenscreen with the 1/4 inch mount on the back and have it on a stand similar to, but cheaper than, the Asus stand, and I have my laptop on the desk and the monitor positioned directly above it, so maybe you could do something like that with two Zenscreens: one on the kitchen bar, and then another one above it (you could also use a tripod like this (much more portable) as a stand, or this less elegant one if you don't have the 1/4 inch mount option). Or you could go for a setup similar mine: laptop on the table, monitor above it, second monitor on kitchen bar at similar height. I think at this point you're at, in order to get what you want, you'll have to compromise: that is, I don't think you can get more screen real estate and keep everything ergonomic-ish - given your space restrictions - but there again, when I'm working with 3 screens, 2 tend to be my primaries and I use the 3rd more for reference, so maybe everything not being eye-level isn't the end of the world?

For what it's worth, I like the look of the dual portable monitor you linked (although on first blush the reviews don't look as good the more expensive alternatives), but I'd personally file the triple screen extender gizmo under things which seem like a good idea but aren't in practice.
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 11:17 PM on October 28

One other thought: before I went on the road, my home setup was a 28" monitor, a 32" monitor and a 15" laptop, with all screens mounted in a row at eye level. When I went on the road, I just had a 13" laptop, and when I got asked to come back to work (remotely), I went out and bought the Zenscreen, and that was all I needed to do the same job which I previously thought required *much* more screen real estate. So my point here is that stepping down from 15" to 13" might sound like a big deal, but you do adapt (hello, multiple desktops!), and while a 15" screen is preferable, I think in practice it won't cramp your style as much you might think.
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 11:42 PM on October 28

Response by poster: 7 Minutes of Madness I hear you on that other thought. I've been 5 years with this setup and it works--and of course I'd manage. But I've become very interested in trying out a screen in portrait dedicated to taking/viewing notes.

I'm trying to picture your stacked setup... if I bail on the portrait idea, I could see trying something stacked, and I wonder if I might be able to somehow just rest the current 15.6" aux on top of the keyboard, while at the same time picking up the 18.5" suggested by Winnie the Proust to sit on the bar. If not, it's back to the side mount idea.

Until now I'd been focused there, and am wondering if my laptop as shown in my setup could actually support something like this suspended to the right. That would put it hovering about a foot above the tabletop, but it's not clear from the description how/if this would work in my current stand (plus that's a really heavy item). Potential alternative, I found these crazy-strong magnet mounts and a pair of them would likely hold my Zenscreen.

Much food for thought!
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 1:04 AM on October 29

Here's my setup. I started out with a laptop stand - so that my laptop screen was at the same height as my Zenscreen - and it was perfect; but then one day after a long move I just put my laptop on the desk and realized that I much preferred my laptop keyboard to the external one - and ditching the stand and keyboard gave me more desk real estate too - so I haven't used the laptop stand since and this is now my default setup. What I also like is that when change location my setup takes all of 60s to set up, and there's no wrangling required: the Zencreen stand is pre-set to the ideal height, so I just have to attach it to the screen, plug in the cable, and I'm off to the races.
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 3:26 AM on October 29

...just rest the current 15.6" aux on top of the keyboard....

Last year my wife tried laying a bigger USB-C display in front of her laptop's small (and failing!) screen, and the laptop just tipped over.

No amount of shade tree mechanic tinkering by me to make some sort of kickstand for the whole pile helped. Worse for her, I think, was the fear that she would absent-mindedly shut the lid on the extra monitor.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:08 AM on October 29

It's unclear how much you change locations and how much you weight having the setup be exactly the same. I only spend two or three weeks a year out of my home or office setups where I'm trying to get normal productivity done, so I use a setup much like yours when on the road, but allow my home setup to be a little bigger. If that sounded appealing to you, I'd go with moving the laptop to the bar and getting 24" monitor on a stand or arm for your most common use, and going with what you have on the road. I love the idea of a single display that can be your everyday second monitor and your travel one, but those travel ones are never as nice a regular desktop one.

I am, however, now dreaming about that 20" one that Winnie the Proust linked, but I think it's too long to fit in my favorite laptop bag...
posted by advicepig at 7:27 AM on October 29

If you have an iPad you're not using, the Duet Display app will let you use it as your second PC screen.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:57 AM on October 29

If it would be heard as a reasonable request at all, I suggest asking your employer for a laptop with a larger screen.
posted by rhizome at 4:21 PM on October 29