Last month, we reported that Microsoft delayed its 55-inch conference room-focused Surface Hub tablet until January of next year. It wouldn’t be fair, however, to say the Surface Hub is a business-only option in the giant workroom tablet space. That can be seen by the fact that, as InFocus revealed to us in a press release, the Mondopad 2.0 released today sports features similar to the Surface Hub.
Not only that, but unlike the Hub, the Mondopad has been on the market since 2011, making it the first company to introduce a “full service collaboration system designed to improve work efficiency,” as InFocus president Raymond Yu told us. “With its built-in business-class video calling and a sharable digital whiteboard, it became the giant touchscreen solution that everyone wanted in their conference room.”
The new Mondopad reportedly brings significant upgrades over its predecessor. These include one-touch dropbox storage, multiple camera support, a continuous multi-directional whiteboard canvas, and an updated UI. And like the original, Mondopad 2.0 supports data presentations, whiteboarding, remote viewing on a PC, video, tablet and smartphone casting, and interactive data in a video call.
Additionally, by making use of Dual Stream technology, Mondopad allows sharers and viewers of data to see meeting participants on the other end, enhancing the interactive experience and preventing communication disparities. These notoriously stem from lack of face-to-face communication elements such as facial expressions and gestures.
And for when one touchscreen simply isn’t enough, Mondopad 2.0 also introduces the ability to pair a second display, enabling a bigger space for activities such as file annotation and whiteboarding. Of course, like a dual-monitor setup on a PC, this also allows for the initiation of multiple application instances. This means users could potentially run PowerPoint and the Mondopad’s integrated video conferencing app at the same time, ideal for presentations.
Distinguishing itself from other massive enterprise-focused tablets of a similar vein, Mondopad 2.0 is packed with a technology InFocus calls LightCast. Similar to Wi-Fi Alliance’s Miracast or Apple’s Airplay, LightCast aims to provide users with the ability to “wirelessly cast content from a notebook, smartphone or tablet directly to the Mondopad display and control Windows devices via touch.”
Like the Surface Hub, Mondopad 2.0 can run Windows applications optimized for touch. This means it facilitates support for the entire Microsoft Office suite, which is bundled with the display.
Available starting today, Mondopad 2.0 comes in a variety of sizes. The 57-inch model will set companies back $5,799, a good amount less than Microsoft’s $7,000 Surface Hub. Upwards from that is the 70-inch Mondopad, available for $9,799, and the 80-inch version at a painstaking $17,000.
Fortunately, if you’ve purchased the original Mondopad in the past year, Mondopad is offering a sizable discount to upgrade to the Mondopad 2.0 — free. Whether you’d be better off waiting for the Surface Hub remains to be seen, but one thing’s for certain. Businesses looking for a collaborative touch screen display to use right now need look no further.
