Mimo’s new iMo eye9 touch screen is a bit of a strange bird. At its heart, it’s a 9 inch resistive touch screen monitor for your computing device (pretty much anything that supports USB video out). It will work on both PCs and Macs and provides a unique user experience to say the least. However, the design does beg the question, how far do you need to be from your computer to get comfortable?

Having a monitor that is separate from your computer and portable is great for ergonomics, comfort, and portability, but it does make things a little awkward when you’re trying to be productive. While the monitor is touch screen, you still have to use the physical keyboard for certain aspects (such as typing) so why would you even want one of these things? To make this thing freestanding you have to prop it up on its stylus!

Throw in the 1.3 megapixel webcam and you’ve got your answer. The camera is front facing and gives you 1024 X 600 resolution. The device rotates and you can display your workspace in either portrait or landscape configuration. The obvious application is FaceTime-like video conferencing. Perhaps you could convert a single PC into some sort of work sharing device as well. However, the stability of this screen really is a shortcoming

In short, you have to hold onto it to make it really viable as a work surface. So in an era when everything is going hands-free, why would anyone hobble themselves with this little thing? It’s cool. It looks snazzy. And it will definitely give you that Star Trek data pad feel. You just have to decide if you want to spend $299 of your tech budget on something more productive.