While portable monitors have been around for a few years now, Asus is showing off a new idea at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show. The Asus ProArt PA147CDV is a 14-inch portable panel with a few tricks up its sleeves. Unlike traditional portable screens, the PA147CDV comes with a more unique — and narrow — 1920 x 550 aspect ratio.
It’s this intriguing aspect ratio that not only makes the PA147CDV stand out against the competition, but the narrow screen looks like it could have been ripped straight off of one of the company’s many laptops with a secondary touch display.
Asus’ ScreenPad and ScreenPad 2.0 on laptops such as the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED were seen as competitors to Apple’s TouchBar on that company’s MacBook Pro model. However, the ScreenPad was larger than the Touch Bar and could display more information, making it far more useful.
As a stand-alone and portable screen, Asus is pitching the PA147CDV as an innovative productivity display for content creators — it comes with Wacom EMR and Microsoft Pen Protocol 2.0 support for digital inking, making it a nice canvas to sketch, draw, or write on while on the go. Asus also includes another one of its unique innovations — the Asus Dial. With capabilities similar to Microsoft’s first-party Surface Dial, the Asus Dial on the side of the PA147CDV allows creators to have access to tools and adjustments in supported software, like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, the company claims.
For content creators, the PA147CDV also comes with features that are standard for the space — like a color accurate display. The PA147CDV is Calman Verified for color accuracy and the company claims that the screen is factory pre-calibrated. It supports 10-bit color, 100% of the sRGB and Rec. 709 color spaces, and it comes with a built-in kickstand for use in portrait or landscape orientation.
While a secondary screen that’s built into laptops can display useful information, it’s unclear if a stand-alone screen, especially one as narrow and compact as the PA147CDV, can add meaningful value to a creator’s workflow. If you have the desktop space for this narrow display and don’t mind the cable clutter — the display has an HDMI port and two USB-C connectors — then this display can be an interesting one to add to your setup.
The company also showcased its ProArt Projector A1, its OLED PA32DC monitor with built-in colorimeter for automatic color adjustments, and a PA348CGV panel at the NAB Show.
Pricing details for the PA147CDV were not immediately available, though the company revealed that this narrow panel is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2022 in North America.