I was very excited to find out that the Lenovo laptop I use for school work, my creative projects, etc. has a nice and efficient HDMI port, so I knew I had to get a monitor on it.
Since I’m a fan of the HDMI port, I’m very happy to learn that it is also compatible with the new version of the Lenovo R13 which is the $150 device that brings high-definition 1080p video to your laptop. I was able to install the latest version of the Nvidia drivers on my laptop, but the one thing I had to do was add the additional HDMI cable from the laptop to my monitor.
The new version of the R13 is not compatible with the previous version of the R13 which is the R13a. It is a USB 3.1 device, and the previous version of the R13a used USB 2.0, which is the current standard for high-definition video on laptops.
The new version of the R13 is a USB-C device, which is the standard for high-definition video on laptops. I had to ask my laptop manufacturer, lenovo, to update the driver for me since the previous version of the R13a was not compatible with my laptop. I would have preferred to have my current laptop use its USB-C port instead of the HDMI port, but they did update it for me anyway.
It’s a win for the consumer who can enjoy high-definition video on their laptops. It’s also a win for the manufacturer who now has a way to upgrade drivers on laptops. For those who are not familiar with lenovo’s new version of the R13a, the previous version of the R13a had a video-output port on the other side of the laptop.
Unfortunately, the video output port has become a major pain point for many of the tech savvy consumer. When you plug in an external device, it connects to your computer and tells the CPU what to do. It can’t tell the CPU to look at your external monitor if you have a laptop with an HDMI port connected. So unless you have an HDMI port on the laptop, you can’t do much with your external monitor.
The good news is that R13a supports HDMI video output, and it only takes a few extra steps to connect your external monitor to the laptop. So now you can see your laptop’s screen on your external display. This is a major win and allows you to use your external display to do things like watch 1080p movies, or even stream your favorite video games. It can also be used for external video cameras or even a tablet (which is just another external display).
Well, we don’t use this for gaming. But for watching movies and streaming TV, this is a big deal. We haven’t had any problems with our external monitor, but it’s nice to know that it has a little extra power on its side.
The screen on your external display is made out of the same type of plastic as your monitor. We use this plastic because it’s cheap and it’s not prone to scratches. But you could also go for a metal screen, or even an LED screen which is a little bit more durable.
External displays are a convenient way to have more screen real estate on your computer. It’s not uncommon to have an external monitor that’s about the size of your laptop screen, but the resolution is much higher. We have an external display that’s 4K at 60Hz, which looks as good on my laptop as it does on my external display.