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Winmate W10L100-GCH2-C
Long name, simple concept: a line of rugged industrial touch screen monitors with just one port
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)
Industrial displays come in many shapes and forms. And sometimes there is a need for one that's not only tough and rugged enough to stand up to use and abuse, but that is also easy to clean and disinfect, looks clean and elegant like a modern consumer tablet and — drum roll — needs just one single cable for power and video. USB Type-C makes that possible. And Winmate has a whole range of such displays, with screens measuring from 7 to 18.5-inches.
The Winmate USB Type-C display
The review unit Winmate sent us was the W10L100-GCH2-C USB Type-C display. From the front it looks like a modern tablet, but that's quite deceptive. This display is all cast aluminum and steel and tough as an anvil, definitely designed for demanding industrial use.
The display measures 10.1 inches diagonal and has 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. That makes for 149 ppi (pixels per inch), plenty sharp enough for its intended use. The display offers near perfect viewing angles from all directions, without any color or contrast shifts. Luminance is 350 nits, also good enough for indoor industrial and assorted other applications. An 800 nits version of this panel is also available (see here).
All this display has (and needs) in terms of I/O is a single USB Type-C port. Nothing else. That means one single thin cable for power, video, audio, and whatever else goes back and forth between a PC and its display.
As for buttons, there's a small push-control pad in the rear, mostly for basic setup and viewing customization.
The USB Type-C cable that came with our setup was 6-1/2 feet long. USB-C cables can be up to twice that long for simple USB 2.0 data transfer. Faster USB 3.1 setups mean shorter cables. For the USB 3.1 Gen 2 that supports 10gbps, cable lengths are limited to about three feet.
The power of USB Type-C
USB Type-C's immediate and most obvious advantage over the original USB Type-A connector is the smaller and reversible plug. No more 50/50 chance that you're trying to plug a cable in the wrong way! How could that be done?
In essence, while the original standard USB Type-A plug has just four pins (ground, voltage, two data pins), USB Type-C has those four pins on both of its 12-pin rows, and so it doesn't matter which way the plug goes in.  It seems a simple thing, but given how frustrating the Type-A plug is and how easy to damage it is by trying to force it in the wrong way, the Type-C plug is indeed a major step forward. There is, however, much more to USB Type-C than that.
While the reversibility of the USB Type-C connector comes from having not one but two sets of an expanded 12-pin layout, "USB Type-C" itself only describes the physical design of the smaller, reversible connector itself; it is the version of USB that determines what capabilities a cable with USB Type-C connectors has.
Those capabilities can be simple legacy USB 1.0/2.0 or "SuperSpeed" 3.0 or 3.1 data transfer. But there are also so called alternate modes that allow standard USB Type-C connectors to deliver power and carry non-USB data by using some of the extra pins in the USB 3.1 standard. As of now there are alternate mode specifications for DisplayPort, HDMI, Thunderbolt and MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link). Which is why this Winmate USB Type-C display needs just one thin USB-C cable to handle power, video and sound.
But isn't power through USB fairly limited, just enough to charge a smartphone or tablet battery? Not with USB Type-C. USB Type-C technology can supply as much as 100 watts, plenty enough to drive a 10-inch touchscreen display such as the W10L100-GCH2-C which needs way less than that. That said, the USB Type-C port on the computer the W10L100-GCH2-C is plugged into must support 5V/3A.
Below are the pin assignments for the W10L100-GCH2-C's USB 3.1 Type-C connector:
Bottom line: Winmate USB Type-C Solution
What began as a much appreciated solution to a decades-old annoyance — a better USB connector — has grown into a versatile connectivity solution that reduces the number of cables.
Fewer cables is always better, and with its innovative USB Type-C solutions, Winmate is putting this new interface technology to productive work.
And that is where Winmate's rugged USB Type-C displays come in. Available in seven sizes ranging from 7 to 18.5 inches diagonal, these high-quality displays get their video, audio, USB and power all through a single thin cable — Winmate's W10L100-GCH2-C USB Type-C Display. Makes perfect sense. — Conrad Blickenstorfer, January 2021
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