Viewsonic VG1656N: This is a pretty mediocre monitor, especially given its $300-plus price tag, but the VG1656N does have one notable feature you may care about: It’s wireless. It’s not particularly good wireless, with noticeable compression artifacts in displayed content and no way to tell how much power remains in its 3-hour battery, but if you’re desperate and your company is paying, it’s an option.
HP Series 5 Pro 514pn: The 514pn is a thin, light and well-constructed 2,560×1,600 14-inch display which also performs quite well. It covers 100% of both the P3 and Adobe RGB gamuts, can hit over 400 nits brightness for when you need to work in bright light (with solid contrast) and has decent color accuracy with a Delta E of under 3. The downside is its price, about $300, especially since it doesn’t have any audio or HDMI for use in a pinch.
Uperfect A17 DS15607: The A17 may be far from an exceptional monitor, but for the money, it has relatively strong brightness and clarity in a package that’s solid for on-the-go productivity. On one hand, the 4K 15.6-inch panel delivers almost 285 pixels per inch, so the screen can be exceptionally sharp. Uperfect backs that up with a solid brightness level of about 427 nits (a touch shy of its 450-nit rating) and surprisingly high 1610:1 contrast ratio. That pairs well with a strong matte finish for easy visibility. Regardless of how the monitor fails to meet the bars that Uperfect set for the A17, it manages good performance for a budget portable monitor (priced at $220 at our last update).
The design isn’t elegant, but it’s simple and effective. For the most part it’s just a big plastic slab nearly half an inch thick with no integrated kickstand, just a magnetic cover that protects the display when it’s packed and tilts it at a few different angles when in use. There are two USB-C ports and an HDMI port, and though it can run off a single-cable connection, like other monitors we’ve seen, that’s not always reliable. At maximum brightness and using the monitor’s (bad) built-in speakers, it requires too much power for a single-cable connection and will begin to power cycle. Simply foregoing the use of the speakers was enough to get over that hurdle in our testing. Just how much you can use will also depend on your system’s port, as we had a better experience using Thunderbolt 4 and more power cycling on USB4.
Minisforum MDSA156: Like the dual-screen Acer PD163Q I reviewed, the MDSA156 is one of few dual-display portable monitors, offering more screen real estate than a single does. It folds up like a laptop, but when opened turns into two 1080p screens connected by a hinge. But they’re disappointing displays with limited color gamuts (far short of full sRGB), and the color and brightness shift dramatically when viewed off angle. The contrast is fine, and they hover around 300 nits of max brightness, though the upper display is notably dimmer, while the lower display has weaker contrast.
On the plus side, runs both off a single USB-C cable connection. At max brightness, though, they use too much power for many devices (30 watts) and can require a second cable. At least the antiglare finish proves fairly forgiving while running the displays at lower brightness. It’s also decently built with a beefy kickstand, plus the hinge between screens holds the monitors at a variety of angles for considerable flexibility. The chassis and kickstand of the monitor is also all metal. It all adds up though: The monitor weighs 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg), as much as a lot of laptops. It includes speakers that can be useful in a pinch, though they don’t sound good. Minisforum also includes two USB cables, an HDMI cable, and a small power brick to pretty much cover all the bases of what you might need for connectivity. You do get a lot for the money; at $216, it’s a nice price compared to the Acer PD163Q.
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