Hasta La Gadget!

NEC Display “is not going anywhere,” according to NEC Display president Pierre Richer, in an interview Monday.

The company is not exiting the LCD monitor business, although it has pared its product line about in half, from 100 products down to between 50 or 60, Richer said. “You hear the word LCD, and everyone thinks monitor; it’s only components” that are being affected, Richer said.

In a corporate presentation Friday, NEC published a slide claiming that it was exiting LCD-related businesses. I called NEC Display for comment on Friday, and a company representative essentially put me on hold until Monday.

Although NEC Display had the opportunity to deny the report then, Richer said that he and other company executives wanted to coordinate with colleagues both in Europe and in Japan. At the time, Richer said, he didn’t feel “confident” enough to talk to a reporter. “This took everybody by surprise,” he said.

A source close to the company said that he had heard that NEC Display had sourced high-end panels (such as in the MultiSync 2190uxi and its medical displays) from NEC Technologies, which apparently will be pulling out of the business. He confirmed, as Richer said, that NEC Display would begin buying them from other panel suppliers.

The Gadget: The previously Korea-only 7-inch plug-and-play Mimo display, which hooks up via any USB 2.0 port. The resolution is a not-too-shabby 800×480, and higher versions, like this UM-750 also has a webcam and touchscreen.

The Price: $130 for UM-710, $170 for UM-730, $200 for UM-750.

The Verdict: Decent, but not phenomenal. Regular readers should know how much I love adding monitors onto my setup, so having a 7-inch, 800×480 display for widgets or chat windows or small, always-open apps is a great idea. Well, it is, but the implementation is slightly lacking.

The Mac support, after a good amount of back-and-forth with DisplayLink, works just fine. It’s plug-and-play and can be detected automatically (and rearranged) using the built-in OS X system control panel. Even the webcam is usable, which is semi-notable because of OS X’s finickiness at accepting webcams. The Windows support has no notable problems either, even under Vista, provided you install the correct drivers in the correct order.

What’s lacking about all versions—no matter what webcams or touchscreen features are added on—is that 800×480 is really hard to read on a 7-inch screen. It’s usable, but you don’t want to stare at it all day. The 7 inches are suitable for your calendar, or your email alert window, or your Twitter client; something you want to keep visible but don’t check all that often.

Touchscreen feature works alright, but is finicky under Windows, and the webcam isn’t quite as good as the built-in iSight on our MacBook Pro. But it is a webcam, and you can have conversations with it.

So as long as you’re using this as a second, third or fourth monitor, or are tight on desk space, or don’t have a spare DVI/VGA output, it’s not a bad solution. We love having extra display space for things you want to have access too quickly. However, For $130~$200, you could get a regular-sized monitor and use that instead, meaning only people who fall into the above categories should consider this product. [The Gadgeteers]