InFocus Mondopad Ultra (INF7023) Review

The Mondopad Ultra aims to be a conference room in a box. InFocus bills it as a digital hub for collaboration, presentations, and videoconferencing that's meant to be easy enough for the average business manager to use, without assistance from IT folks. The Mondopad Ultra delivers in some key aspects but falls short in others. It offers an intuitive whiteboard application that lets you easily annotate and share sessions. The package price is a good deal compared with other videoconferencing devices, it runs Windows 10 Pro and Microsoft Office for compatibility with corporate environments, and you can add third-party applications. But the Mondopad disappointed in some aspects: We ran into several usability issues in testing, video quality was mediocre, and setup and configuration was vexing at times.

The Mondopad Ultra comes in two screen sizes, each with a resolution of 2,160p (3,840 by 2,160). The 70-inch 4K UHD costs $10,499; the top-of-the-line 85-inch Monodopad 4K Ultra model adds antiglare Gorilla glass to the package. Those features, in addition to 15 extra inches of screen space, will cost you $18,499. We tested the 70-inch 4K UHD model onsite at PC Labs.

You can't measure value on screen size alone, but in general the Mondopad is more affordable than the Microsoft Surface Hub, priced at $8,999 for the 55-inch 1080p model and $21,999 for the 84-inch version. The 55-inch Google Jamboard is $4,999. By comparison, InFocus offers a 57-inch Mondopad for $5,799.

Like the Microsoft and Google models, InFocus doesn't include a rolling cart that enables you to shuffle the display from conference room to common area. The company sent our 70-inch test model tucked into a $5,999 Lift Case to ensure safe shipping. The case has a shock-mounted lift that allows you to raise and lower the screen with a single finger—a nice feature considering the device weighs a hefty 108 pounds. The case is designed for sturdy transportation to events like trade shows and training facilities. As such, it's a bulky, industrial-looking box—durable, certainly, but not something that would enhance office décor.

If you're looking for a mobile cart to wheel the Mondopad from room to room in the office, the InFocus Deluxe Mobile Cart is available for $1,299 at CDW and other merchants. That's a bargain compared with rolling stands for the Microsoft Surface Hub: The stand for the 55-inch Hub is $2,350 and it's $3,699 for the 84-inch model. The Google Jamboard stand is more reasonable at $1,349.

Setting Up the Mondopad

When you open the box, you'll find the Mondopad display, as well as a wireless keyboard and mouse, a TV-style remote control and a digital stylus (an extra stylus would be nice to have). You'll also see antennas, a USB cable, a videoconferencing camera, and speakers with mounting brackets—all of which you'll need to assemble. By comparison, the cameras and speakers are built into the Surface Hub ($8,999.00 at Microsoft Store) and Jamboard.

The bezel is matte black and slim. Overall, the display is attractive and solidly built, but the speakers and video camera could have been more elegantly incorporated. At the right side of the bezel are four USB ports and a touch control input, which allows you to connect to another monitor. Around back, directly below the PC unit, there are three HDMI ports, a PC-in and component RCA video jacks. The power-on button is at the lower right. Along the left side is a USB-A port for a wireless mouse or thumb drive, an RJ-45 jack and audio in and out ports. At the top center, there's a USB port for connecting the video camera.

Setting up the Mondopad hardware is relatively straightforward. You first install the mounting hardware on the back of the display by removing and replacing four screws. Next, affix the right and left speakers to screw holds along the bottom of the display. Last, attach the camera/mic unit to the top of the display and plug the USB cable into the port directly beneath the camera.

Software setup entails registration of Windows 10, registration of the Mondopad device, and activation of Microsoft Office. The Mondopad comes with a standard version of Office Home and Business, so software installation will be familiar to anyone who has set up the suite on a PC. The next steps—setting up network access, email accounts and SIP accounts—may require help from your IT crew. To compare, the Surface Hub requires creation of special kinds of Office 365 and Skype for Business accounts, involving running command line scripts. Setting up a Jamboard ($4,999.00 at BenQ) is a snap, but you'll only be able to add people in your G-Suite account, just as the Surface Hub is mostly limited to members of an Office for Business account. In this regard, the Mondopad is more free and easy, but less locked down to corporate use than the other two.

Hardware and Software

InFocus equips the Mondopad with comparatively beefy computing capabilities. It's powered by an Intel Core i7-6700T processor and 8GB of RAM. For storage, you get a 256GB SSD drive, double the amount of the Surface Hub we reviewed. Storage capacity may not be a big concern, however, since users of these touch-screen systems are meant to store files in the cloud or on anetwork drive. (The Surface Hub actually wipes itself clean for the next meeting users). Attached USB storage is also an option.

In addition to Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) and a 32-bit version of Office, the Mondopad also comes with namesake software for videoconferencing, whiteboarding, sharing and annotating files. System administrators can also add third-party applications, which are stored under the Extras tab. The use of the business-standard OS and productivity suite could be seen as giving the Mondopad a leg up on the competition.

By contrast, the Jamboard is built around Google's cloud-based applications and runs a custom version of Android. And the Surface Hub runs a specialized version of Windows 10 tailored to collaboration and whiteboarding in meeting-room situations. If you like the idea of a full, no-holds-barred version of Windows, then the Mondopad takes the honors. But there are reasons that restricting some capabilities makes more sense: These units are meant for shared conference rooms, rather than for individual users.

The Mondopad video camera has a relatively low resolution of 720p (1,280 by 720) at 30fps. The cam can be tilted up and down, as well as left and right. If that doesn't meet your needs, you can also add a separate camera. By contrast, the Surface Hub has two cameras, built into each side, that automatically switch based on where the presenters are standing. The Jamboard uses a single wide angle 1080p webcam that refreshes at 60 Hertz.

InFocus offers a promotional subscription (three seats for one year) to ConX Video Meeting, a cloud-based videoconferencing service. The company also sells a multiple bridge calling service, which starts at $4.99 per endpoint. And if your business uses its own SIP video-calling service, the Mondopad is compatible with that.

Video Quality Test Results

As a business collaboration tool, it's not exactly fair to judge the Mondopad by the same standards as a TV. But since it's a very large screen with HDMI inputs, we ran it through our standard TV tests, using a DVDO AVLab 4K test pattern generator, a Klein K-10A colorimeter and Portrait Displays' CalMAN 5 software on a Razer Blade Pro laptop. In the normal picture mode, the Mondopad showed a modest peak brightness of 195.74cd/m² and a very high black level of 0.56 for a meager 350:1 contrast ratio. This would be terrible for any TV, but the Mondopad is designed as a collaboration tool and as such isn't really built to offer deep blacks or even be used in a very dark room to screen movies.

The Mondopad's color accuracy was similarly disappointing. The above chart shows Rec.709 color levels as boxes and measured color levels as dots. Reds, whites, and magentas all run very cool, unsurprising for a display designed for use as a big computer monitor. Green actually extends past the standard color gamut, but that doesn't add much to the picture.

Getting Started With Digital Whiteboarding

When you launch the Mondopad software, you'll see a toolbar comprising eight sections: Getting Started, View & Share, Browser, Whiteboard, Video Meeting, Cast, Extras, and Reset Meeting.

Getting started proved a challenge in testing, however. One day after installation, the Mondopad's touch screen stopped responding to finger and stylus input. After a series of unsuccessful software tweaks—changes to transport protocols and reinstallation of Windows drivers—an InFocus support rep sent a replacement PC unit. Fortunately, the unit is a snap to install: Remove two screws on the back, pull the existing unit and slide in the replacement.

Up and running again, we tested the touch-screen solution's software. Whiteboarding is where you'll spend the bulk of your time collaborating, making visual demonstrations and interactive presentations. At 70 inches, our test unit's display was roomy enough for two people to comfortably use it at the same time. The Mondopad has 10-point multi-touch capacitance, which doesn't match Surface Hub's 100-point touch capability; the Jamboard uses with a 16-point touch panel.

To launch a session, click the Whiteboard tool and select the documents you want to display, annotate, and share. You can use documents stored in the Mondopad's View & Share folder, as well as on your network drive, a cloud drive such as Dropbox and a USB device. (Once you log out of Dropbox or reset the meeting, Dropbox files are no longer accessible.) You can also email documents to the Mondopad, which will appear in the View & Share folder. We tested these file access and storage methods, and they were intuitive to use and worked without issues.

The Mondopad accommodates a wide variety of document file formats, including Office files, PDFs, and standard video, image, music, and text files. Whiteboard sessions are saved as MWBX files, which can be shared, opened and edited between devices but requires that users are running Mondopad software.

Once you've loaded a document, you can annotate it by writing and drawing on the screen with your finger or the included stylus. The software lets you select colors and add text boxes that can be customized by font, size and color. To tidy up sloppy drawing, the Mondopad software includes a feature called Auto Shape that automatically converts your annotations to straight lines, rectangles, and circles. It's a great way to create more readable and pleasing annotations. The Surface Hub can also instantly convert hand-drawn shapes to perfect ones, but the Jamboard can even improve your penmanship, with its Handwriting Brush.

When you're annotating by finger, the Mondopad's on-screen gestures borrow from those of smartphones and tablets. Swipe up or down in the direction you want to move through the image, document or page. The toolbar moves around automatically as you swipe. You can zoom in or out by using the pinch and spread-finger gestures. We found the touch screen to be responsive, with little delay, although finger input was somewhat choppy. By comparison, finger input on the Microsoft Surface Hub was much more fluid; it lets you vary the width of lines based on how hard you press, essentially the same effect as using a felt-tip pen.

If you prefer, you can use the stylus to annotate files. Stylus tracking was hampered by the stylus' rubber nib, which seemed to drag on the touch screen. Using a stylus on the Microsoft Surface Hub and Google Jamboard was a much more fluid experience.

You can also share whiteboard screens with your computer, tablet, or smartphone, as well as control the presentation and make annotations. To do so, click the Cast icon from the home page, and download the apps for your device and OS. (You can share a whiteboard screen as a JPG or PDF without downloading apps.) We controlled the Mondopad from an iPad, which connected easily but lagged when annotating files from the device. We also took control of the Mondopad using a MacBook ($1,175.20 at Amazon) , which worked fine after a few issues with installing the app. These BYOD applications work well enough, but they seem somewhat unpolished and should be more intuitive for the average business user.

When the meeting concludes, click the Reset Meeting icon to exit the meeting and wipe any documents from the screen, which ensures that the next group doesn't steal your ideas or see information not appropriate for them. Like the Microsoft Surface Hub, the Mondopad enables you to schedule meetings using Office and Exchange accounts. The device's Schedule widget will display upcoming meetings that are assigned to the Mondopad, along with conference room or location information.

Videoconferencing Sessions

Next up, we shared whiteboards in a video call. Mondopad supports videoconferencing using any SIP-based video calling service. It also supports the H.323, Skype, and Lync codecs. There are several ways to initiate a video call. You can click the Video Meeting icon on the Mondopad home page. Using the dialpad, you can enter the other party's videoconferencing or IP address, or make a call from the Contacts tab. You can also use third-party applications like Skype, assuming your administrator has installed the software. Another option is to use the InFocus Instant Conference feature, which requires an InFocus.net 121 Premium subscription. Unlike the Microsoft Surface Hub, however, you cannot initiate a call.

In our test calls, we connected using InFocus.net 121 SIP calling by simply clicking the IP address associated with InFocus. We also connected using a personal Skype account. Both methods were a bit erratic and demanded a level of troubleshooting that may be beyond the average business user. In one instance, the video feed didn't work because the camera was connected to the wrong USB port. In another, transport protocol settings for the SIP account required changing. And in yet another, the Mondopad automatically connected to a wireless access point, which overrode the LAN network settings.

Once a videoconference call was successfully connected, the video quality was adequate. Whiteboard sharing was crisp and responsive, but video of the presenter was occasionally pixelated and sometimes stalled. This performance can't be blamed on the Mondopad, however, since video performance is only as good as your Internet connection speed. Based on information from the Mondopad Stats tab, our wired network demonstrated more packet loss, lower frame rates and lower bit rates compared with the sender's network. InFocus tech support said the ideal bit rate is about 2Mbps to achieve clean 720p video.

Off-axis viewing of the screen falls short of expectations. The display started to lose focus at an angle of roughly 45 degrees. That means larger audiences may need to squeeze in to get the best viewing experience. In this regard, the Mondopad performed similar to the Google Jamboard; viewing angles on the Microsoft Surface Hub were brighter and crisper.

The Mondopad's two 10-watt stereo speakers provide adequate but not outstanding audio. You certainly won't mistake it for a home-theater sound system. While the sound faded at times, the presenter was always audible. The Mondopad is equipped with three built-in unidirectional microphones; the Jamboard and the Surface Hub each have a four-element microphone array.

Conclusion

All things considered, we like the 4K UHD Mondopad Ultra for its intuitive Mondopad shell software, solid whiteboarding features, compatibility, and inclusion of Microsoft Office. Sure, we had issues with setup complexity and sometimes disappointing video performance (again, our network was probably at fault here). Its mobile apps could use improvement, too. But compared with the Microsoft Surface Hub, the pricing of the InFocus system is easier on the budget.

Since it runs a full, standard version of Windows 10 Pro, the Mondopad system is more open than those of either Google Jamboard or the Surface Hub, both of which lock it down to your corporate G-suite or Office account members, respectively. This could be seen as a pro or a con, depending on your needs. For its superior screen and audiovisual hardware, however, the Surface Hub has PCMag's highest rating in the category, with 4 stars. But for less money, the Mondopad is nevertheless a worthy aid to collaboration, presentations, and video-conference meetings.

InFocus Mondopad Ultra (INF7023)

3.0

Check Stock

at Amazon

MSRP $10,499.00

Pros

• Roomy 70-inch screen.
• More reasonably priced than competitors.
• Comes with Windows 10 and Office.
• Easy-to-use whiteboarding app.
• Allows smartphones, tablets, and PCs to join and contribute to presentations.

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Cons

• Setup can be tricky.
• So-so screen and video quality.
• Initiating videoconferencing sessions can be difficult.

The Bottom Line

The InFocus Mondopad Ultra digital collaboration hub delivers a 70-inch 4K touch screen with an intuitive interface at a competitive price, but setup can be complex and video-calling performance was disappointing in our testing.