PrismDesk turns an Android tablet into a wireless display
for your Windows PC — in HDR, with pen input, and with numbers you can check
before you trust it.
Then the setup guide
walks you through the first connection.
Video at 2944×1840
5.0Mbps
Idle, on a still screen
8.9kbps
To wake a still screen
0.5–1.3s
Connected at once, verified
4devices
See how it will look before you connect.
The app’s settings screen draws your device with the settings
you picked applied to it. This is that drawing, running in your browser. Change the
orientation, the display mode or the resolution and watch both the PC and the tablet
follow. Drag the window on the PC across onto the tablet.
Open the demoClose the demo
Drag the window to move it
(or select the picture and use the arrow keys; Shift moves further).
The 1 and 2 at the bottom left are the displays as Windows arranges them.
Three typical device shapes stand in for yours. The PC screen is an
example at 2560×1440. How many frames actually arrive depends on how often Windows
composes the screen — see “What it does not do — yet” below.
Every line on this page is something we measured.
Second-monitor apps are easy to demo and hard to live
with. So instead of adjectives, here is what came out of the test rig — and
below, exactly how it was measured.
0steps
After a PC restart
Set up nothing
The installer adds the display driver, the firewall rule and the
start-up entry itself. After a reboot the PC is already listening — open
the app on the tablet and the screen is there. No “Windows Defender
Firewall has blocked this app”, no port forwarding, no account.
12/12
Sessions recovered
It doesn’t break
Wi-Fi cut for 2, 5 and 10 seconds, four times each: every session came
back on its own, onto the same virtual display. A tablet that leaves for
good is cleaned up in 20.5 s, so you are never left dragging windows
around a monitor that isn’t there.
7.999703
hdrSdrRatio on a Pixel 9
It does HDR
Measured on a Pixel 9: BT.2020 with a PQ transfer curve, end to end,
with no silent fall back to SDR. HDR content on the PC arrives as HDR
content on the tablet. HDR is part of Pro.
How this was measured.
Host: Intel Core i7-11700, NVIDIA RTX 3060 + Intel UHD 750, Windows 11
(10.0 build 26200), gigabit Ethernet. Tablet: Lenovo Idea Tab Pro (Android 16),
1840×2944, Wi-Fi 6 at −46 dBm, same layer-2 network. Figures come from
outside the product — NIC byte counters, GPU engine utilisation, and
SurfaceFlinger frame timings on the tablet — not from the app’s own
reporting. Bandwidth was measured on 1 September 2026, before transport
encryption was added; a later run put the increase from encryption at
roughly 2%. In the same test, on the same content, spacedesk used
24.7 Mbps. HDR was verified on a Pixel 9. Your numbers will differ with
your resolution, your content and your network.
How it works
Three steps, once.
1 / 3
Install it on the PC
One installer. It sets up a virtual display driver, so Windows sees a
genuine extra monitor with its own resolution — not a mirrored window
you have to arrange around.
2 / 3
Open the app on the tablet
It finds the PC on your network by itself. If you would rather be
explicit, scan the QR code the PC shows, or type the address once.
3 / 3
Leave it alone
Drag windows onto it, draw on it, walk out of Wi-Fi range and come
back. Restart the PC and it is waiting again without being asked.
What else it does
Pen
Pressure, tilt and rotation arrive on the PC as real Windows pen
input, so pressure-sensitive apps see a pen and not a mouse.
Webcam Pro
The tablet’s camera shows up on the PC as “PrismDesk Camera”, so you
can pick it in Discord, Teams or OBS.
Four at once Pro
Four devices can connect to one PC, sharing a single capture and a
single encoder. Four is the number we verified, so four is the number we
publish.
Encrypted
TLS 1.3 on the control and input channels; AES-256-GCM on video,
audio and camera. The tablet pins the PC’s certificate fingerprint.
Nothing leaves your network
No account, no telemetry, and no automatic update check —
pixels go straight from your PC to your tablet, and nothing is
collected about you. PrismDesk reaches the internet only while you are
pressing a button: Activate (our payment provider) or
Check for updates (one small file, no version and nothing about
your PC). Leave both alone and it never leaves your network.
Quiet when idle
A still screen costs 8.9 kbps. Leaving a tablet propped up beside the
monitor all day is not a bandwidth decision.
Price
The free edition needs no account and no card, and has no time
limit to run out. Pro adds four things, once, for US$22.
HDRHDR10 to a device whose display and decoder support it.
Up to four devices at onceOne capture and one encoder, shared between them.
Device camera as a webcamShows up on the PC as “PrismDesk Camera”.
Input device modeThe device as a pen tablet with shortcut keys, for a screen your PC already has.
Pro is sold by Polar Software, Inc. as merchant of
record, and one key covers three of your own Windows PCs. If it does not work on a PC
that meets the requirements and we cannot fix it with you, you get your money back
within 14 days — see refunds.
PrismDesk Pro · US$22 once
What Pro unlocks
HDRHDR10 to a device whose display and decoder support it.
Up to four devices at onceOne capture and one encoder, shared between them.
Device camera as a webcamShows up on the PC as “PrismDesk Camera”.
Input device modeThe device as a pen tablet with shortcut keys, for a screen your PC already has.
The connection, the SDR picture, pen and touch, and audio are the
same in the free edition. Pro is activated on the PC, and every device that connects
to that PC gets it — there is nothing to buy in the Android app.
Good. If you are buying it for HDR, check one more thing first: the app’s
Color space setting says This device will get HDR10 or
This device will get SDR before you connect.
Checkout is run by Polar Software, Inc., the merchant of record.
Your key (PDESK-…) arrives by email: on the PC, open
PrismDesk → Settings → License, paste it and press Activate.
One key covers three of your own PCs. Refund within 14 days if it does not work on
a PC that meets the requirements — refunds.
Please try it first. It is free and needs no account, and Pro does not change how
the connection works — if the free edition does not connect on your setup, Pro
will not either.
Read this before you install. A second monitor that disappoints
you on day two is worse than one you never installed. These are the things we would
want to know first.
Windows 11 only — 64-bit, build 22000 or later. Windows 10 is not
supported, and we have not tested it, so we do not claim it.
Same network only. Your PC and tablet share a LAN. PrismDesk is
not a way to reach your desktop from a café.
We do not advertise a frame rate. The rate follows what Windows
composes: on a 75 Hz primary display the achievable rates are 75, 37.5 and
25 — 60 is simply not on that list. Anyone promising you a number is
promising you their monitor, not yours.
Long-run stability is not measured. We have not yet published a
multi-hour soak test, so we will not tell you it is rock solid overnight.
Five Android devices tested — Pixel 3, Pixel 6, Pixel 9, Lenovo
Idea Tab Pro and TCL Tab 11 Gen2. The TCL is the only budget device, and on
it we checked only that it connects and shows the screen. Try the free
edition on your own tablet before you pay for anything.
Requirements. Windows 11 64-bit (build 22000 or later) with
administrator rights, and a GPU that can encode H.264 in hardware — NVIDIA
NVENC, or an Intel or AMD encoder through Media Foundation. Android 8.0
(API 26) or later with a hardware H.264 decoder. Both devices on the same
LAN, wired or Wi-Fi.
Help
Setting up, what to do when something does not work, and how each
feature behaves. In Troubleshooting you can
type the message you see and jump to the fix.