USB-C displays have been appearing in stores for a while now and are an alternative to a conventional display. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of peripherals? Is it a viable alternative to a conventional monitor in all uses or are they certainly limited? What does my computer need to be able to use them?
One of the uses of USB-C over the type A cable is the fact that it can be used to power peripherals that tend to require more power than normal. This allows not only a simplification of the cables, but also to eliminate the power supply of many peripherals. The most common of them, portable USB-C displays.
How useful are USB-C displays?
The origin of this type of monitor comes from one of the variants of USB-C cables, which receives the last name of Alt-DP and its peculiarity is that it can transmit video through the data pins, either in a mixed way. or complete. Which in principle should not be something that would be surprising on paper, however, since every USB cable also works as a power cable, this allows us to use the energy of our PC to feed that of these monitors and that these do not have a power supply.
So they are extremely portable , and if we are lucky enough that our laptop or motherboard of our tower has a video output of this type, then we will find ourselves with the advantage of being able to carry one of these monitors with us. Which are also much smaller and finer than a conventional one. So much so, that at first glance they can actually resemble a tablet and are ideal for desktops with little space or when we need to move around, but we cannot do without a double screen.
The negative part of all this is that USB-C video outputs are not being lavished much on many computers, motherboards and even less on graphics cards where said port is conspicuous by its absence. In the latter case, it is right, since it would be several tens of watts to charge a hardware whose consumption is completely shot. In any case, many models of these screens have conventional HDMI or DisplayPort inputs.
What tasks are they recommended for?
Well, we do not recommend them to play , they have a high response time and do not work at high frequencies. Apart from that you will not be able to connect your latest model graphics card. What’s more, if you are tower PC users, we recommend a more traditional solution, that is, a lifelong monitor.
In any case, they are ideal for professional tasks if you have a laptop and a desk with little space . Most models are nothing more than laptop screens sold separately. So they usually have a size between 13 and 15 inches, much less than the desktop monitor that we can find for sale. Which makes them ideal to work with in narrow spaces.
Keep in mind that when you use them they will draw power from your laptop, so they will affect the charge of the laptop and cause it to drain faster. In this case, it is ideal if you are an itinerant professional to have a Powerbank of several tens of milliamps to have your laptop and USB-C monitor well charged with energy at the same time.
