Sleek cable management: KYY X90A

KYY isn’t the most catchy brand name, but they have an interesting product: KYY X90A (AmazonUS(Grey|Black). It comes with a feature, I wish it was present on all multi-display setups like these. Since I have their screens here, let’s see if I’ll get equally excited about everything else the panels have on offer.

Screen estate is everything

The best productivity (and procrastination) life hack I have for you is to increase your screen estate. You can pick a bigger monitor (I use a 32″ 4K BenQ display for my desktop computer), or double up with dual displays, especially if you have monitor arms like these from Atumtek… What about laptop users? In my quest for more screen surfaces without excessive laptop sizes, I ended up with the Asus Zephyrus Duo which comes with a 2nd display. A pleasure that set me back £2400! We can do better!

Until now, all similar solutions I tested latched to the laptop’s screen making it top-heavy. KYY X90A. These have another idea. It lets you place the screens behind your screen leaving your computer untouched. Is this a better way of doing things?

KYY X90A in detail

Straight out of the box, KYY X90A makes good impressions. It’s made from aluminium and has a decent weight to it. Sturdy shells for both displays could take some beating! Inside the box, I found a charger, a single power and video cable and a USB stick (500MB) with drivers in case you use a USB-A port. You can see me getting all excited about it in the TechDrop below:

The inclusion of a single cable teases the main feature of KYY X90A – integrated cable management inside the panels. I complained before about cables going everywhere in my reviews of dual displays from Oiiwak and Limink. KYY X90A will have none of that! It offers one USB-C cable for video input and one USB-C for power.

Screens still fold onto itself and the centre of the stands features a very handy handle that I used to move my setup between tables. It’s very comfortable. I could complain about the lack of a carrying case, but that’s just picky. Once extended, screens feel sturdy and resist excessive wobble, but if I shake the desk enough, the vibrations will transfer.

I’m not 100% sure why, but KYY decided to have a different number of buttons for the OSD menu on each panel. What’s more confusing are the OSD prompts, as they refer to a 4-button layout to navigate the menu whereas panels use only 3 to get to all options. Thankfully, it’s “set and forget” kinda thing!

Lastly, there are no speakers on these. That’s fine with me, as all portable screens I have tested so far, had not-so-impressive speakers at best. How much do you have to spend to get these? Here is a pleasant surprise! Not nearly as much as on other sets I reviewed. You can pick these up on (AmazonUS(Grey|Black) for around 300.

Best fit for…

These displays are the best suited for 14″ laptops, as they let the laptop screen rest on the backplane connecting both 14″ ISP 1080P panels. However, since they don’t physically attach to your screen, I also tried them with my 15.6″ Asus Zephyrus Duo. As the hinges are relatively wide, the laptop did not get in the way of the displays, but it made it harder to access the OSD buttons and the KYY A90X displays were significantly lower with no chance for adjustment.

In short, there is a degree of flexibility when it comes to your laptop size, but the best fit for this model is for 14″ laptops. On my 14″ Lenovo with DIY USB-C port, I tested it with the USB-A cable included (and drivers supplied on the USB stick) and on my Asus Zephyrus Duo I used the USB-C port instead. I liked how it KYY A90X only required me to use a single USB port.

KYY A90X displays

Both displays are 1080P and come at 14″. These are ISP panels with 300cd/m² brightness. This is enough to work comfortably at home in the daylight, but not bright enough if you want to work in direct sunlight.

Out of the box (after cranking the brightness to 100%), I found the colour profile to be very nice and vivid. More importantly, the screens matched my laptop display almost perfectly without any modifications in the OSD menu. Despite screens being at the angle on each side, they retain the colours at generous horizontal angles. Vertical viewing angles are less generous but displays work great at the default position.

KYY A90X panels run at 60Hz, so they are unlikely to be any better at gaming than your primary display, but they will complement nicely whatever is on your main desktop.

Familiar troubles

In my review of a very nice, but power-hungry 4K portable display from UPERFECT, came across power deficiency issues, where powering the screen only from my USB-C would result in the screen not receiving enough current to operate at full brightness levels. To work consistently, it required an external power source.

KYY X90A suffers from the same issue. The maximum brightness level will depend on your computer and how much current your port can supply. It’s likely, that you will need a spare power source (via included charger). Note, that if you set your brightness too high, you won’t be able to turn it down without a charger – as panels will get stuck in a power loop.

Other things

As KYY X90A don’t hug your display and rests on the table behind you, the stand will obscure access to any ports you may have at the back of your laptop. I could make a sufficient gap to wedge a flexible cable between my laptop and KYY X90A, but I don’t know why the stand doesn’t offer any cutouts in the bottom.

The unexpected consequence of having screens rest on the table behind the laptop is the steep angle at which the screens are placed. It’s not a deal breaker but I feel stands that hug your monitor instead offer a bit more angle flexibility at the expense of being more problematic to deploy.

TIP: if one of your screens keeps changing solid colours when your laptop is off, you left your KYY set powered on. Use the power button to turn it off.

In use

Other than the issues stated above, I didn’t encounter any problems. They don’t make your laptop top heavy, the hinge mechanism keeps the screen in the desired position and the panels don’t wobble any more than my laptop’s screen. They might not be the smallest when folded, but the sturdy aluminium enclosure should keep panels protected from bumps and scuffs.

I set my panels to 100% scaling, as it works well for this screen size and I enjoyed having additional displays, especially on my older Lenovo laptop, which I used to write this review. Moving forward, I would probably look around to get custom UBS cables for these displays, as I don’t need a 0.7m long cable to connect it to my laptop. A small USB-A with a right bend to USB-C would do the trick. This would clean up my desk from the excess cables and make the internal cable routing shine even more.

Final thoughts

KYY X90A (AmazonUS(Grey|Black) works best with 14″ laptops. I’d be willing to be more forgiving about the extra power requirement if they included a USB-C passthrough to charge your USB-C laptop too! As they come at an affordable price compared to the models reviewed earlier. As long as you have a 14″ laptop, (or are willing to forgive the aesthetics of using a 15.6″ one), you will enjoy the extra estate they provide. Let me know your thoughts in this Reddit thread.

🆓📈💵 – See the transparency note for details.