My portable monitor died mid-project in a coffee shop in Chiang Mai

I was sitting at this little place near the old city, sipping on a cold brew and finally feeling like I was getting into a flow state. Then my screen just flickered and went black. No warning, no weird sounds, just a dead display. I spent the next hour trying to figure out if it was the cable or the monitor itself, turns out the internal board fried. Had to finish the whole project on my 13 inch laptop screen which was a nightmare for the spreadsheet work I was doing. Now I'm stuck figuring out if I should replace it with another portable one or just bite the bullet and get a proper external monitor for my apartment. Has anyone else had a screen die on them while traveling? What did you switch to?

3 comments

3 Comments

craig.olivia5d ago

omg this exact thing happened to my friend Sarah when she was in Bali... she was working on a huge video edit and her screen went out at like midnight. she had to use her tablet as a second display with some janky app and it was so laggy she almost cried. she ended up buying a cheap monitor from a local electronics shop and just left it there when she flew home. said it was way easier than messing with another portable one that could break again.

perry.jesse5d ago

Yeah I used to think portable monitors were worth it but that story changed my mind.

perry.jesse4d ago

Honestly @craig.olivia, that Bali story hits close to home. I had a portable monitor die on me during a road trip last summer, ended up having to do a whole presentation on a 13 inch laptop screen while sitting in a hotel lobby. It's one of those things where you think you're being smart by having a backup, but when it fails it just makes everything worse. Sorry about your friend Sarah, that sounds like a real nightmare.