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Bartop Monitor Size: How small is too small?

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lustreking:

I have an old laptop that I'm thinking about using in a bartop machine.  With a stripped version of XP it boots very quickly and runs the type of games that I want.  It does, however, only have a 14" screen.  I've been using it for a couple days with a standalone control panel, and I think it will work, but will I be disappointed later that I didn't build it with a bigger monitor?  I only plan on it being a 1 player bartop.

nitrogen_widget:

I've seen arcade cabinets based on 7" & 9" android tablets and even smaller.
I probably wouldn't want to use one though. :)

Is it a widescreen 14" or 4:3?
if 4:3 then as long as it fits the cabinet (no giant cabinet with tiny monitor & giant bezel) then as long as it's big enough for YOU, then I don't see a problem.

yotsuya:

Either design your bartop around the size of the screen, or use the VGA out on the laptop to shoot video out to a larger screen you can probably get for $20 on Craigslist.

Ken Layton:

The smallest commercial countertop monitor I've seen was 9" in a Merit "Pit Boss" game.

JDFan:

I built a small mini bartop with a 7" DVD player screen (pic posted below)and a plug and play game that gets plenty of use -- though the screen is a bit small so I'd say a 14 or 15" screen should be fine especially for a single player setup - just be sure to design the build around the screen size so you don't keep looking at it and wondering if you could shove a bigger screen in there later !! If it is build to dimensions. I also have a larger bartop setup with MAME that uses an old 15" monitor and the screen is perfectly fine for a single player Robotron bartop ( I down scaled another build to fit the smaller 15" screen )





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