Product Review
Doublesight DSP-1900 Dual Monitor
By Mitchell Levine
Although maximizing visibility might be of only partial interest
to the typical home user, to the technology managers in the
New York City schools, it’s a vital necessity. A simple
fact of secondary education in a major metropolitan area is
the following: the institutions with the greatest need for
technology access have the least space to use it in. With classroom
sizes either increasing or remaining large in the city, every
inch of classroom real estate is precious.
While active matrix technology might be fine for even high-end
business laptop users, for the purposes of the many specialized
classes taught in today’s high schools – web and
graphic design, video editing, animation – only monitors
will do, usually 17” and more. In this context, it would
be ideal, one would think, if it were possible to gain the
benefits of a large monitor with a small footprint.
With it’s DSP-1900 dual LCD display screen unit, Irvine,
California-based manufacturer Doublesight has provided exactly
that opportunity. Housed in a height-adjustable chassis, the
DSP 19”-er offers a full 2560 x 1024 resolution with
a composite viewing area equivalent to that of (approximately
a 30” single monitor. But what’s unique about the
product is that it’s configured to take advantage of
Windows XP’s little-known capacity to drive multiple
monitors simultaneously.
For example, at the same time, one could use the left-hand
screen of the dual monitor to view a Powerpoint presentation,
while following a supplementary web page on the right; or a
user file on one and a streaming video on the other. While
the company claims that the improved efficiency of this ergonomic
design could result in a 20-50% improvement in productivity,
which they feel could anticipate a return on investment in
weeks of purchase, I would personally be circumspect about
making that statement for the education market specifically.
However, the strengths of the product’s applications
to education are still easy to see. How many students could
more quickly use, say, a biology laboratory simulation if they
could follow their notes in a Word file simultaneously? How
much additional enrichment could an AP American or European
senior gain from a streaming video if they could read the points
on the supporting web page for the feature? I’d say a
lot. Of course, the benefits to technical specialties like
Flash animation are obvious.
On a practical note, the evaluation unit I was able to use
had not a single dead pixel, nor did a quick game of Quake
for Mac reveal significant amounts of artifact. All in all,
any education technology manager interested in maximizing efficiency
while minimizing space usage should log on to the company’s
site at www.doublesight.com for more information.#
