Tablets might be easy to carry around the house, but the screen is a tad small for someone following a workout or trying to cook from a YouTube instructional video. You can use a TV instead, of course, and it’ll be much bigger, but the problem is that not every room in the house has one, and moving them is a major hassle.
If this conundrum sounds like something you’re familiar with, the Hisense RoamView might just be the next device you need. It’s a 32-inch 4K touchscreen device that comes with an adjustable, wheeled stand, a beefy integrated battery, its own camera and powerful speakers, and it runs the Android operating system.
The Hisense RoamView is a kind of TV/tablet hybrid device that’s designed to be easily wheeled from room-to-room. Instead of buying another TV, the RoamView can be used as a substitute, for it provides a flexible and portable second screen for watching, creating, working and connecting with others.
Hisense debuted the device in China last month and it’s now coming to the global market, as part of its broader Lifestyle device range. Now if you're thinking the concept seems somewhat familiar, that’s because you’ve likely come across LG Electronics funky StanbyMe 1, StanbyMe 2 and StanbyMe 2 Max devices, which also come attached to moveable stands. The South Korean brand is credited with pioneering the flagpole TV concept, and it has been copied by Samsung with its Moving Style Edge device, though that has only launched in Asia so far.
What Hisense has done to trump LG’s StanbyMe 2 Max is to attach a much bigger battery. Whereas the StanbyMe2 is good for around 4.5 hours, Hisense claims that its significantly more chunky power unit delivers an impressive 10 hours of juice, although the actual lifetime will no doubt depend on things such as screen brightness and how often you’re interacting with it. Nonetheless, it’s quite impressive.
The rest of its features are similar to the LG StanbyMe 2 Max. The long flagpole-type stand is flexible, so you can adjust the height, tilt and orientation of the display, and it has wheels that enable it to be easily moved. It’s an underrated feature that makes it possible to have a large display in many situations where installing a TV simply isn’t practical, the company claims.
As for the actual display, Hisense said it’s 32-inches and has a 3,840x2,160 resolution. It’s an Edge-lit LED display, with light strips placed along the edge rather than directly behind the panel, so don’t go expecting dazzling image quality. The panel has a 60Hz refresh rate and supports HDR10, and Hisense says its viewing angle extends to 178-degrees. But one thing it does better than any TV is interaction, thanks to the touchscreen sensitivity of the display, which makes it feel much more like a giant tablet and eliminates the need for an always-clunky remote control.
The Hisense RoamView is indeed more of a giant tablet masquerading as a small TV. It's hefty, weighing 24.8 kilograms when attached to the stand, and 7.7 kg if you detach it. As such, it probably makes most sense in households where people won’t have to lug it up and down the stairs so often. In such homes, it’s probably just going to end up staying in a single room. But for people who live in flats or apartments, it could be very useful indeed, gliding on its wheels from the kitchen to the bedroom to the workout room or wherever it needs to be.
The device becomes even more useful when you start thinking about it as an actual device, and not just a strange TV. Because it runs Android and supports touchscreen interaction, it can also be used as a decently-sized digital whiteboard, a digital sketchpad, an art gallery and even a karaoke console. It has a built-in wide-angle camera and microphone too, so it can also serve as a platform for more engaging video calls. There’s a physical shutter to close off the camera when you don’t want it spying on you.
Connectivity options include USB 3.0 and HDMI 2.1, it supports device mirroring, and there’s a decent 8 gigabytes of RAM and 128 GB of onboard storage.
One thing you’ll need to bear in mind is the price tag, though. That huge battery and generous amount of RAM means it costs quite a bit more than LG’s StanbyMe 2 Max, which was priced at around £800. Hisense is asking for more than twice that amount, having slapped on a £1,700 price tag.
