Gechic On-lap
Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you I'm a bit of a monitor hog. My desktop sports a 43-inch ultrawide because I was tired of the bezels in multiple monitors. My laptop never has enough screen real estate for my workflow.
I was raised on multiple monitors, and never really grew out of it. The one place I don't have this problem is when I'm gaming, but my console tethers me unnecessarily to the living room. When I went looking for a fairly inexpensive way to be portable with my console, I found a monitor that not only lets me game on the go but also acts as a fantastic secondary monitor when I'm working remotely. It's called the Gechic On-Lap monitor, and while I'm probably never going to use it 'On-Lap' there are a ton of other places it's going to get used.
Perfectly portable Gechic On-Lap Monitor What I like I don't often take my out of the house, because why would I? Most of the televisions in the hotel rooms I stay in when I travel are locked down so I can't really connect anything, and I'm not usually in the room for particularly long. The monitors built in to my minivan (#DadLife) when I'm taking my kids on long trips are way too small for the experience to be enjoyable for anything but a movie, and I already have a DVD player in the house. I would take my console with me way more places if it made sense to do so, but even on the train, the chances of my having access to two power outlets are slim. This monitor removes a lot of these arguments by design. The 7800mAh battery powers this 11.6-inch 1080p display for at least four hours (Gechic claims 4.5 but I landed closer to the 4 mark most days) with no problem.
The panel itself has an anti-glare matte coating on it so I can use it just about everywhere, and the 178-degree viewing angle lets the person sitting next to me play as well. I took this on a four-hour train ride from Baltimore to New York City and it kept my family entertained the entire trip. The best part about this display is I can use it with basically anything. The ports on the side support DisplayPort and Mini HDMI, with cables in the box to connect to both with ease. I was able to use this to extend the display on my laptop when I wasn't gaming, and it all just worked.
With the headphone jack on the side of the display, I was able to immerse myself in what I was doing, with no need to involve wireless headphones. I'm also barely scratching the surface of what this display offers. There's a port on the back for more permanent mounting solutions where hanging cables off the back is inconvenient. You can also connect to cameras for a huge display when shooting video, and the carrying case gives you multiple leaning angles depending on where you are sitting or standing when using it. Gechic On-Lap Monitor What I don't like Having a battery-powered portable monitor that doesn't suck makes me feel like I'm in the future, right until I try to charge it. Right next to the other ports is a Micro-USB port for charging, which in 2018 kind of sucks. It means the monitor doesn't charge very quickly (almost three hours to full) and really highlights what a missed opportunity USB-C included would've been.
Not only would it charge much faster, but USB-C could have been another display out option for those of us living the dongle life. This monitor fits nicely into its travel case and carries well, but the speakers on the top of the monitor suffer from the same thing most lightweight displays suffer from: tinny audio and occasionally a rattle alongside the bass. It's not the worst set of speakers out there, but you're probably going to want to use your headphones if you have them.
If the audio quality doesn't bother you, the good news is these speakers do get very loud if you need them to. Not a bad option for doing something outside if you don't have speakers or headphones, but not necessarily the choice I would make.
GeChic approached us to have a look at the 1305H and it turned out to be one of those products that you don’t realise how much you actually ‘need’ until you use one. The mobile productivity improvement was fantastic but benefits didn’t stop there.
Don’t underestimate the entertainment convenience of having a movie, YouTube or news/sport on a second screen after-hours when you’re away from the office but still need to catch up on some emails. Day to day I use dual screens for productivity – typically with a laptop and an external 1920×1080 resolution monitor.
When testing kit for reviews, the lab can also get a little crowded and we don’t really have room for dual screens anymore. The GeChic On-lap 1305H is a mobile solution that also works well in situations where space is at a premium. I thought it might be handy on the road but the more I used the 1305H, the more I realised that it bridged many more gaps I hadn’t realised existed.
Let’s look at the monitor first, then I’ll get into why I’d struggle to get by without one in the future. Exactly what is it? The GeChic 1305H is a 13.3″ 1920×1080 60Hz monitor that looks like it could have been surgically removed from an Ultrabook laptop except that it uses a Fringe-Field Switching (FFS) panel rather than a TN or IPS panel. FFS panels use less voltage than an IPS panel and have a superior viewing angle to the typical TN panel that we see in most laptop screens.
Gechic Driver
The frame and bezel are styled more like a laptop component than a tablet and the panel itself is more configurable thanks to a decent On Screen Display (OSD) menu that allows more adjustment that we typically see on a laptop. Take note that the monitor includes no speakers but given the size of the screen any attempt to implement speakers would likely have resulted in terrible sound anyway – Kudos to the designers on this as headphones are a much more practical feature. In order to keep a relatively fragile LCD panel safe in transit, there is a reversible case that will protect the monitor when not in use and also provides an adjustable stand for the monitor when you need to hook it up to a HDMI source. The screen is slim (79mm) and weighs only 950g in the cover or 685g on its own. There are 2 HDMI connectors on the monitor, one for landscape use and one for portrait. I’d use landscape 80% of the time but for reading PDF documents you can’t beat portrait mode.
Gechic On-lap 1305h
There is only one cable in what is probably the best feature from my perspective – proprietary connector at one end for use with the 1305H and at the other end there is a male HDMI connection for AV and a male USB type-A connector for power. This means that if you are using the 1305H with a laptop, MacBook, console or PC, you should only need that one lead between your device and the screen. GeChic also give you a 1.2m USB extension cable and a USB AC power adapter in case you are using it with another device such as a phone or tablet that doesn’t have USB connectivity.
This is a great concept, well executed and kept simple by the manufacturer. The build quality of the monitor is very good and despite what some might think is a quirky design, the stand/cover is also up to the challenge of travel. The cover has 2 magnetic clips that hold the monitor in place for both orientations (monitor or reversed for protection during travel). Once you get used to the way it works, using the 1305H is easy. Writers/content creators may also benefit from another display – particularly if they travel; either this model or the larger 15″ design might be the way to go. It is far more efficient to have photos or notes of the content you’re creating on the second screen and work on a larger primary display. I use Dragon Dictate a bit and it was great to have my notes on the On-lap as I was dictating into another application.
Considering entertainment uses, you can watch Netflix or other online content from your phone or tablet, just on a bigger screen! The only thing to be mindful of here is that you will need a way to output to the HDMI connection and will also need to put the AC power adapter to use as the 1305H doesn’t have a battery. I used screen mirroring with the On-lap via a Smart Phone and could see why it might be attractive to travellers or students. Although the 1305H doesn’t have an enthusiast grade refresh rate of 1ms – rather a business grade of 12.5ms GTG response time – the screen is still very useful for gaming and LAN events due to its compact size and the ability to show chat windows or streams relevant to multiplayer tournaments. Another area that occurred to us is Raspberry Pi developers. Best we don’t forget about consoles – yes these work too. To be fair though, I can’t see console use being a key selling point for the 1305H due to the fact that most console gamers like bigger screens rather than smaller ones.
In our situation, we also think the 1305H will be suitable for VR where we don’t need a large screen as most of the action happens in the headset and we just need to use a screen for system tasks that occur outside the head mounted display. In this case, a larger screen is just another thing to lug around with the portable Oculus VR setup that we use so the 1305H would be ideal. Pricing and Availability At US$277, the On-lap 1305H isn’t cheap. Why am I talking in USD and not AUD? There aren’t any Australian distributors at the time of publishing but you can buy one direct from GeChic if you want one and I’d hope that Amazon expand their distribution of the product to Australia.
If you would like to get your hands on one of these,. Conclusion The On-Lap 1305H makes for a very handy and unobtrusive second screen that will increase productivity for most people, especially those on-the-go who need to make the best use of their time when not in the office. As an entertainment peripheral, the On-lap 1305H makes watching movies more comfortable, especially if the content is on an iPhone or smaller tablet.
Personally, I look forward to using this device to watch content whilst skimming through my emails and notes at the end of the day when travelling away from home and my home office setup, and also for monitoring system stats while benchmarking kit in the lab. This is a great product and something that I may not have considered buying prior to spending time with it. After using one every day for a few weeks, I can say that I’d now struggle to consider travelling without one. GeChic On-lap 1305H Monitor PROS Compact and portable design with one cable Good image quality OSD with image adjustment options Genuine productivity booster Portrait or Landscape Orientation options CONS – The stand isn’t as stable in Portrait mode Awards. Canon eos app for windows.