Tired of streaming shows and movies on your 13-inch laptop when you’re away from home? LG’s StanbyMe Go might just be the answer you’re looking for. It puts a 27-inch full HD LED touchscreen inside of a durable travel suitcase, along with a 20-watt speaker system and a three-hour rechargeable battery, so you can take your TV pretty much anywhere you travel. The StanbyMe Go is available for preorder only on LG.com later this month for $1,000, and units are expected to ship before the end of the month. If you’re among the preorder customers, LG will also throw in a free LG Xboom 360 Bluetooth speaker, which it claims is a $300 value.
“Content viewing is no longer confined to the living room or even the home, but until now, consumers have had to sacrifice screen size in favor of portability,” said David Park, LG’s head of HE product marketing in a press release. “LG StanbyME Go makes the full-scale viewing experience travel-friendly and offers a versatile option for streaming, listening, remote working, and more.”
The StanbyMe Go’s screen can be repositioned in a variety of ways, with mount that lets it tilt from completely flat to almost vertical, and spin so that it’s viewable in both landscape and portrait orientations. When laying flat, it’s designed to be used for games, though LG hasn’t indicated which games (if any) will be preloaded or where folks will be able to grab additional titles later.
It’s also compatible with both Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision technologies, and is powered by LG’s webOS smart TV software. When you’re in range of a Wi-Fi network, it can connect to the internet and it supports Apple’s AirPlay 2 for streaming content from a compatible Apple device. When traveling, the TV supports Bluetooth.
Presumably, you’ll be able to download some content to the TV for offline viewing, but LG hasn’t indicated how much onboard storage the StanbyMe Go has for such activities.
As a touchscreen, you can control the StanbyMe Go with your fingers, but included in a recessed compartment is a full remote control. You can also control the TV with voice commands thanks to embedded far-field microphones.
LG hasn’t indicated how bright the screen can get, instead saying that you can “easily access outdoor brightness control to make sure your image looks good all day long.”
It’s possible to connect the StanbyMe Go to external devices, but you’ll be limited to just one at a time — the portable TV only has a single HDMI input and doesn’t appear to have any ports for getting audio in or out of the device.
LG doesn’t list the unit’s physical specifications yet, but according to TechSpot, the StanbyMe Go gets as small as 26.38 x 17.05 x 4.69 inches when closed and it weighs 28 pounds, which isn’t exactly featherweight.
TechSpot further claims that the TV carries a MIL-STD-810H durability certification, though it’s not clear exactly what that means in terms of the StandbyMe Go’s ability to deal with water, dust, or shock. We’ll update this post when we find out.
