iDisplay – use your phone / tablet as another monitor! [REVIEW]

Got this nifty little program sent to me the other day and I’ll admit I didn’t think much about it at first.

But I got to playing with it and it’s kind of nifty.

The premise is simple.  You load the app up on your phone / tablet (tablets are a little more friendly as they have more screen real estate), and it will pair itself with the desktop software you installed and it’ll allow your device to be a 2nd (or 3rd) monitor that you can drag windows/apps to.

It’s brought to us by the same folk that brought us RDM+ (a desktop mirroring app – which I reviewed a while back) and IM+ (a multi IM client, which is still my favourite to use), so I can say it’s going to be a good app if it’s from the same developers.

So, how do you actually use it?

First visit this site to download the 2 bits you need:

http://www.shape.ag/en/products/download.php?product=idisplay&platform=android

(alternatively you can buy the app through the Play Store)

Once you have downloaded both onto your phone and onto your desktop (your computer will need a reboot as it installs some video drivers to make the magic happen) you just run the computer software and the Android app simultaneously (or one then the other, order doesn’t matter).

The phone will be on search mode for your computer.

Once you select your device (which if you don’t see it, the icon in the system tray on your computer can tell you the manual IP / Port you’d need to do so manually), your computer will then realize something’s trying to pair and then you can just opt to let it:

Once you allow your screen will go a little ‘kablooie’ as it sets up the other monitor (I actually have 2 monitors already, and it had no problem now working with 3 display devices), only thing is you lose your wallpaper on your main display… weird.

The devices will then take a second to process and then you can start to drag windows and apps over to the right of the monitor and into your phone / tablet.

It gets a little eerie seeing how you mouse moves around on your phone, and can interact.

Unlike with RDM+ there’s no super lag in the display between the both.  With RDM I found it pretty slow, whereas with iDisplay, must smoother.  Not perfect, but definitely enjoyable.

So, what to use it for?

Well, if you have a twitter feed, or something like that, easily you can throw that on a second monitor.  for just looking at as you need to.

Immediately you’d want to say you could use it for watching movies, but remember audio doesn’t go with it… or I’d say I’d let my kid play, but because you still only have one pointer (if your kid taps on the screen your mouse jumps way over there if you were trying to click on something in the main display).

The other downside is that the resolution is so much smaller on a tablet compared to a monitor, or at least it feels like it (maybe it’s resizing the window on the tablet/phone) that you feel a little cramped.  You can zoom in on something on the tablet, but you can’t ‘zoom out’, I wish there was a setting option for that, but I couldn’t find it.

$5, not a bad buy at half the price of RDM+ app.  Plus they’re next iteration of the app will include GoogleTV connectability (which is good, however, still no audio… was really hoping for a quick answer to watching files on my downstairs computer on my GTV upstairs).

Go pick it up!

Oh, and they gave me an extra license code if anybody would want it!  I’ll give it away to the person who can come up with the most unique use for it! … Go!