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1995-2000


SEPTEMBER 2005

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.#

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