Access to four screens definitely improves productivity—especially the topmost display. Once fully set up, it quickly becomes a wholly natural part of your working environment.
TIRED
1080p resolution offers limited usability. Most laptop users will require an extra AC outlet to power the monitors. Very bulky, heavy, and awkward to set up.
Add-on displays like the portable monitor have been around for years, but aside from better resolution and clarity, the category hasn’t changed much since its introduction.
Under-the-radar operation KYY aims to shake things up by suggesting that the path forward involves not making these devices better but giving you more of them. So, if two displays are good and three are great, what does four screens feel like?
The Big, Big Picture
Photograph: Chris Null
The KYY X90G is a collapsible device that provides you with three extra screens, and while you can use it with anything that has a USB port, it’s specifically designed for connection to a laptop. The three 15.6-inch IPS LCD screens (each with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, non-touch) are all connected to a thick, central backing board via beefy hinges.
One folds out to the left, one to the right, and one upwards; your laptop (there’s room for up to a 17.3-inch machine) is meant to sit in the middle of this arrangement, providing the fourth screen in a quad-display setup. The screen on top can swivel back so that it faces away from the user, offering the potential to use that screen for presentation purposes (while still giving you three forward-facing screens to work on yourself). The panels have no audio capabilities.
Fully extended, the thing is a monster, stretching nearly 46 inches (nearly 4 feet) from side to side and 18 inches vertically. With a weight of 6.4 pounds, it also adds significantly to your travel load, though it’s clearly not designed for use in situations where real mobility is required.
Size isn’t the only challenge on the portability front: The KYY X90G also draws a significant amount of power—up to 30 watts. If your computer’s USB port can output that amount of wattage, the X90G can run via a single USB-C cable connection to one of the two ports on the backing board. Mine seemed to offer enough juice at first, but once I started turning the brightness up to something usable (and drawing more juice), the screens began to flicker and fail. Fortunately, KYY includes an extra USB-C cable and power adapter that, once connected to an outlet, ensured I ran into no further power consumption issues. That does, however, mean you’ll likely need access to two AC outlets for a typical laptop setup to work properly—another strike against attempting to fire all of this up at a Starbucks.
Each screen includes its own hardware controls, allowing for individual configuration, a traditional three-button affair that launches a simple menu system whereby you can adjust brightness, color, and contrast, and fine-tune the positioning of the screen. The default brightness of 30 (out of 100) was far too dim for usability, but otherwise I found the factory settings to be workable. I tested the X90G with a Windows laptop, and it was simple to arrange the three screens around my central display in the Display settings control panel to extend my desktop in all directions.
Resolution Restrictions
Photograph: Chris Null
In today’s laptop world, 1080p resolution doesn’t get you far, and I found this to be the major limiting factor for the device, restricting the utility of the three extra screens due to the limited amount of content I could populate each of them with. Realistically, a minimum 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution is needed to make this extra screen real estate practical for knowledge work, though it’s fine for more casual content.
Physically arranging the panels can also be a bit of a challenge, particularly the two side wings. When fully opened, the screens align vertically with the backing board (and your laptop screen) and are flush with the tabletop, but since they don’t face the user, they’re awkward to work with. The better plan is to angle the side screens about 30 degrees so they point toward your face, but this alters the vertical alignment, forcing each screen into a weird diagonal with the outside edge kicked upward. It looks really odd, though I got used to this after a few hours of working with the system and was eventually able to look past it. While KYY could try adding another degree of freedom to the hinges on the side displays so they can swivel down into a level position, this is probably asking for a high risk of hinge failure.
The X90G lists for a hefty $700, but it's available on Amazon for $600, and I've seen it discounted to $480. Once I started using my laptop with the screens, I found it hard to go back to working without them. The upper screen is easily the most useful of the trio. Even though its resolution is limited, it brings your most important work a lot closer to your eyeline, improving ergonomics significantly without the need for a stand. I mostly used the side screens for less critical work like chat sessions and web research, and left my email parked on my laptop’s built-in display, where the higher resolution was needed the most.
While it’s not a device that I plan to travel with, it is something I have no doubt I will continue to use when working remotely (while parked in a single location) for multiple days at a time. Note to self: Pack a power strip too.
Christopher Null, a longtime technology journalist, is a contributor to WIRED and the editor of Drinkhacker. Chris is among our lead laptop reviewers and leads WIRED's coverage of hearing aids. He was previously executive editor of PC Computing magazine and the founding editor in chief of Mobile magazine. ... Read More
