Enlarge (credit: Lenovo )

Smart displays have struggled to gain a foothold in a saturated market. Even an old smartphone or tablet can give the best smart displays a run for their money. From the Facebook Portal videoconferencing display and Amazon Echo Show 15 to Samsung's series of desktop-sized smart monitors , companies have been trying to find a purpose that sticks. The next effort is Lenovo's 27-inch ThinkView Plus. It attempts to find a niche for smart displays for business purposes but does so with a limiting focus on Microsoft Teams.

Announced at Information Systems Europe conference in Barcelona today, the ThinkView Plus is two parts videoconferencing display, one part USB-C monitor.

On the monitor side, you get decent connectivity options—one HDMI, one DisplayPort in and out, two USB-A ports, and one USB-C (versions not specified). However, at 1920×1080 resolution and a pixel density of only 81.6 pixels per inch, you're not going to get the type of image quality you might expect from the price tag alone. Lenovo hasn't specified the ThinkView Plus' panel type or other related specs.

Enlarge / Fire TV on the Amazon Echo Show 15. (credit: Amazon)

Amazon's Echo Show 15 versatile smart display now has a more mainstream purpose: streaming TV and movies. Amazon pushed a free software update today that grants the Echo Show 15 with Fire TV capabilities, and newly purchased devices will be able to stream content from the likes of Disney+, Peacock, and other Fire TV apps.

Amazon initially announced plans to Fire TV-ify the Echo Show 15 in September. At the time, it said 70 percent of people who used the 15.6-inch smart display in the prior month did so to watch videos.

Upon release, the Echo Show 15 supported Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu; (though you could only summon them by asking Alexa). But today's news puts those apps under one umbrella while adding additional streaming services, including HBO Max and Discovery+ ( soon to merge into Max? ) and Paramount+.

Enlarge (credit: Meta )

Meta's Portal displays have always felt pretty niche. The 10- to 14-inch screens were heavily marketed as video-calling devices for apps like Facebook Messenger and Zoom. Even with the addition of music apps like Spotify and productivity apps like Microsoft Teams and a calendar, the products struggled to become something that felt necessary in tech-gadget-filled homes.

Rumor has it that Meta is pivoting the Portal from consumers to businesses, but first, the product is getting at least one more chance to prove it can add value to people's homes. On Wednesday, Meta announced that the Portal Plus Gen 2 and Portal Go now support Duet Display, an app that can turn a display into a secondary monitor for Macs and PCs.

The Portal Plus is the same size as some of the best portable monitors , so it makes sense to repurpose it for that function. Because it's built for video image quality, it has a decent resolution for a portable display—2160×1440.