Mobile Pixels Geminos Dual Vertical FHD Monitor review

Geminos, from Mobile Pixels, is a new way of using more than one display. Instead of having two separate displays side by side, Geminos stacks one monitor on top of another in a one-piece but foldable setup.

The Mobile Pixels Geminos Dual Vertical FHD Monitor incorporates two vertically stacked 1080p at 60Hz HD displays.

It folds like a laptop, but you can position it so that both screens are straight-on or slide the lower screen to an angle of your choosing. You could position the upper and lower screen at 90 degrees, for example.

This vertical setup seems odd until you think about the way we use two monitors horizontally. With the traditional side-by-side setup you have to twist your neck to see the screen that isn’t directly in front of you, and inevitably there’s an empty space between the screens.

Depending on the placement of your webcam, that can mean your video-call colleagues seeing the side of your head rather than your face as you scan the second display mid-call. With both screens directly in front of you, you are always facing your colleagues and what is on the screen.

Mobile Pixels is aiming the sliding-mechanism Geminos at the creator market—media creation and editing tasks may suit the vertical setup—but the design could work for other users who prefer a large screen space in front of them while they work. The total diagonal size of the merged display is 34 inches.

Most useful is the Gemonos T version, where the lower monitor is a touchscreen. I can imagine that editing video or audio on the lower-angled touchscreen display while the video plays on the upper screen would be more useful than having to scan two monitors side by side.

Excel users might appreciate the ability to vertically stack their data and spreadsheets, and writers their documents and supporting materials. if you find two side-by-side displays useful, consider whether a vertically stacked setup might suit you better.

The stacked one-piece design and on-board multi-port dock also reduce desktop clutter, although in our testing—with a 14-inch M2 MacBook Pro—we still needed two display cables going into the Geminos ports despite the promise that everything could go through one cable.

Technical specs

Geminos is made up of two 24-inch 1080p HD (1920-x-1080 pixels) at 60Hz. Gamers and video professionals will prefer 4K or higher screens at faster refresh rates, so Geminos is more of a supplementary screen setup rather than a replacement for the main gaming or video display.

As an aid to editing, the stacked monitors offer a more comfortable alternative to the side-by-side arrangements currently favored.

Each can be separate or interlinked as one display. Geminos can be used like one long but still wide portrait screen—albeit one with a visible fold in the middle—but the one screen on top of another offers something extra.

At the top there’s a built-in 1080p webcam with microphone. With the two screens raised, using the webcam doesn’t make much sense unless you have an adjustable standing desk and aren’t too tall—or a very tall chair. Pull the lower screen down, however, and the webcam makes more sense. You can use the top screen for the video call or presentation window and the lower one for the Presenter View, for example.

The monitor features built-in dual speakers that sound better than most display speakers I have tested. Volume is controlled via the onscreen controls rather than by your Mac’s Sound menu. These onscreen controls are easier to manage than most monitor controls as they are squarely in view at the front of the lower screen.

The monitor includes a built-in 10-port hub, including two USB-A and two USB-C ports, as well as two HDMI ports, audio out, Gigabit Ethernet for wired Internet access, and both SD and MicroSD/TF card readers on one side.

The monitor offers 65W USB-C passthrough charging to your laptop, although this require an included USB-A adapter so isn’t as simple an exercise as you’d imagine.

Connecting

In our testing, I connected one screen via USB-C and the other via HDMI. Mobile Pixels claims that you should need only one cable connection, but I couldn’t get that setup to work on my M2 MacBook Pro.

Before this you need to download the drivers for Windows or Mac and follow the instructions to ensure that these are working. For the Mac, this includes setting Screen Recording in Privacy settings. In my implementation, I downloaded the software but didn’t receive a prompt to add permissions, although the screens worked without this. That could be why I had to use two cables.

You can then arrange the screens as you want in System Settings>Displays—as one screen or two separate screens. The displays feature an impressively thin bezel design.

Price

Geminos costs $699 / £619 / CA$999 / AU$1,499. The touchscreen Geminos T version costs $799 – it is expected to cost £699 when released in the U.K. We think spending the extra for touchscreen control is worth the money. Mac users aren’t used to touchscreen Macs but once used, you don’t want to go back.

If you and your neck can cope with side-by-side monitors, it is certainly true that you can save money buying individual displays even at higher resolutions.

Buying two similar but separate screens would certainly be cheaper than this dual setup, as decent 24-inch HD screens are not expensive, retailing for as low as $100 each. Macworld’s favorite budget 24-inch HD monitor, the Dell Ultrasharp U2421E, costs $330—so two of these quality displays would equal about the same as Geminos. See our recommended best monitors for Mac roundup for more solutions.

One of PCWorld’s favorite basic 24-inch HD displays, the Acer K242HYL, costs just $149. Two of those cost less than half the price of the basic Geminos monitor package.

With Geminos you are paying for the single-unit vertical setup with its unique folding design and integrated dock.

Verdict

If your way of working favors multiple screens and the idea of having them stacked vertically appeals, Geminos is worth considering unless you require higher resolutions than 1080p HD. We agree that the touchscreen version could suit creators such as editors better than a traditional two-displays layout.

The ergonomic, vertically stacked Geminos dual-monitor setup is a more comfortable one than having two large screens side by side, as you don’t need to twist your neck this way and that, although you will need to raise or lower your gaze to see one or other of the screens.

Two displays side by side take up a lot of desk space so having them stacked makes sense for smaller work areas while keeping maximum screen estate.

Source : Macworld