Ask HN: Portable 17" second monitor?

[h34t]

Has anyone here heard of such a thing as a truly portable second monitor?

I travel a lot but find it very difficult to do web work with only my 17" macbook pro, yet my 24" BenQ external monitor is a real pain to drag around, and either impossible or expensive/bulky to bring on flights. I'd love to have a second 17" screen, identical to the one in my MBP, that I could bring with me in my bag.

I tried a web search for this but couldn't find anything useful, so thought I'd check here.

[alabut]

I used to use multiple laptops and control them from a single keyboard using Synergy. It's not exactly what you're looking for (can't drag documents between windows) but it goes a long way, like being able to offload all the administrative stuff (email, IM, music) to one screen and then work in the other.

[h34t → alabut]

Yeah, I could see that being useful.

My current laptop is maxed out at 2 gigs of RAM so I have to buy another one anyway to handle large-format design work. Maybe having both laptops with me will be good enough. Still, looking at how thin and light laptop screens are, I find it weird that nobody has packaged one up to be portable and independent.

[pasbesoin → alabut]

Interesting. Instead of (just) a second monitor, you get a second entire computer.

Also, while Synergy does not allow screen sharing (?), I've seen descriptions of other programs that do. On Windows, there's Maxivista:

http://www.maxivista.com/

and the perhaps dubious ZoneScreen

http://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm

Perhaps something similar is already implemented under other OSen? Although having two fully functioning/accessible computers seems preferable to me.