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Portable monitors that you pair with a laptop aren't a new phenomenon, but in the past couple of years, they have come into their own. Most display makers now have at least one in their repertoire, and new models appear more regularly than ever. Whether you want to add a second screen for giving presentations to small groups, viewing two programs full-screen at once, enhancing your portable gaming system, or touching up your designs with a stylus, mobile monitors of different sizes, styles, and paradigms are ready to serve. Ir Touch Technology
Why all of these panels, all of a sudden? The widespread adoption of USB Type-C connectivity—with its ability to transfer power, data, and video over a single cable—has been rocket fuel for the growth of portable displays. They no longer need a dedicated AC adapter for juice (though some do come with one as an option), and many have just a single USB-C port that handles all the connectivity, though some add HDMI or other connectors.
Intrigued? Read on for a breakdown of our current top, tested portable monitors for a variety of users, followed by a guide to what to look for when shopping.
The ViewSonic VG1655 offers some uncommon features for a budget portable monitor. A built-in, fold-out stand offers a wide tilt range. A five-way mini-joystick controller lets you access a full-fledged, sophisticated onscreen display (OSD) menu system. And you'll also find two USB-C ports—one for power and one for data/video transfer—plus a mini HDMI connector, and a pair of built-in speakers. The relatively low sRGB color-gamut coverage of its 15.6-inch 1080p IPS panel makes it best for typical business tasks rather than color-sensitive workflows, but it shines brighter than most mobile panels.
The VG1655 is a good portable monitor for business or personal use—email, web surfing, or creating and editing office-type documents—for people on a budget.
The Asus ROG Strix XG16AHPE 15-inch mobile monitor has no critical omissions. The display packs in a wealth of gaming features, such as a high refresh rate, Nvidia G-Sync compatibility, and low input lag. The monitor also offers a built-in battery, speakers, and a kickstand. Good brightness and a relatively high contrast ratio round out its list of talents. Its excellent sRGB coverage is less critical for gamers, but just adds to its appeal as an all-around portable entertainment monitor.
The Asus ROG Strix XG16AHPE is a formidable, well-rounded portable display for gamers and multimedia buffs. Its excellent sRGB color coverage makes it a good choice for viewing photos and video.
The ViewSonic VX1655-4K-OLED is perhaps the most impressive portable monitor we have encountered, by virtue of its 15.6-inch UHD (4K) OLED screen that has phenomenal brightness, contrast, and color coverage. The only major downside is a price commensurate with its elite performance and ultra-high resolution. It is particularly good for creative work, with a pixel density that exceeds that of Apple creator monitors. It’s also a fine choice for movie watching and light-duty gaming.
The VX1655-4K-OLED is good for creative pros and well-heeled entertainment junkies (movie watchers and casual gamers). For those who can’t afford it, the ViewSonic VP16-OLED is a more-than-adequate substitute—still bright, though not blindingly so, and with a pixel density suitable for graphic artists, even on its 1080p screen.
The NexiGo NG17FGQ 17.3-Inch 300Hz Portable Monitor goes for broke, appealing to hardcore gamers looking for a high-refresh-rate panel they can take with their gaming laptops. Boasting AMD FreeSync support and surprisingly good color accuracy, as well as a sky-high 300Hz peak refresh rate, the IPS panel performs admirably whether paired with lower-end hardware like the Nintendo Switch or a cutting-edge console like the PlayStation 5, or as an extra display for a home desktop or laptop. The premium price, lack of an internal battery, and so-so construction muddy the monitor's shine, but not enough to spoil its overall impressive showing.
Assuming that you match this portable monitor’s user profile (hardcore gamer!), the 17.3-inch NexiGo delivers on its promises of full HD with HDR coupled with an ultra-high refresh rate and minimum compromises. Its build feels a little cheap considering its price, but this monitor excels in performance. The NexiGo 300Hz is a strong companion for esports gamers seeking peak refresh rates on the go. Just make sure that your video source can actually push frame rates in the hundreds per second before diving in.
Two things set the $349.99 Asus ZenScreen Touch (MB16AMT) apart from almost every other general-purpose mobile monitor we have reviewed. First, it has a touch screen, a feature that it shares with some interactive pen monitors like the Wacom Cintiq Pro 17. Second, it has a built-in battery, which can be a godsend if you're viewing content from your phone, or if your laptop's battery is low on juice. This 15.6-inch display, which is best for use with Windows computers and Android phones, is feature-rich and a joy to use. It's not cheap, but it's very capable.
Be sure to check out the Asus ZenScreen Touch (MB16AMT) if you have a need for a portable monitor with a touch screen—this model supports both gesture-based multi-touch using your fingers and touch control using the included pen/stylus eraser.
Although the Lenovo ThinkVision M14d doesn't have the range of controls that some other portable displays do, and its 14-inch screen isn't the largest among portable monitors, it is bright, features high color fidelity, can be tilted to a wide range of angles, and is very light and easy to transport. Its color accuracy (96% of sRGB) is much better than that of most portable panels we have reviewed. The screen cabinet rests on a hinged base in which the ports and controls reside, and you can tilt the screen away from you at any angle you desire, down to flat. Connectors include two USB-C ports, including one that supports USB Power Delivery as well as DisplayPort over USB-C. And it has a 16:10 aspect ratio to match the squarer screens of late-model laptops.
The Lenovo M14d is a good pick for anyone looking for a secondary monitor for home or travel use. (For the latter, Lenovo includes a soft traveling sleeve.) It is particularly apt if you want reasonably strong color fidelity for photo viewing and editing or movie watching. It's also aimed at people who want simplicity, since the attached, hinged stand is much easier to use than the folding "origami-style" stands commonly found on portable monitors.
Ricoh didn't bother dipping a toe into the water before entering the portable monitor market—it plunged straight into the deep end. Its Portable Monitor 150BW has the sort of high-end features you would expect from a panel at its rarified price: an OLED screen, touch sensitivity, Wi-Fi connectivity, and even a built-in battery. The screen's image quality is high, with good color coverage and the ultra-high contrast ratio typical of OLEDs. The 150BW is a tour de force of mobile display technology, all the more so because this is Ricoh's first foray into this product area. But unless you really need all its features—especially the full wireless capability—you can get well-equipped portable displays for considerably less money.
The Ricoh Portable Monitor 150BW doesn't come cheap, but it's an awesome piece of kit. If money is no object, or if you really need its triumvirate of features—the wireless connectivity, the touch input, and the quality of an OLED panel—the 150BW should be a satisfying purchase. Otherwise, turn to other fine portable monitors listed here with many of the Ricoh's features—including touch screens and batteries—at more affordable prices.
The Acer SpatialLabs View ASV15-1B can display images, videos, models, and games in three dimensions without 3D glasses, in addition to having some atypical elements such as a built-in battery and an SD card slot. The ASV15-1B works perfectly well as a traditional portable monitor, thanks to its bright UHD screen with excellent contrast and near-complete sRGB color coverage, but its real forte is glasses-free 3D. It works best with content such as games with built-in 3D elements, but finding the sweet spot for 3D viewing by centering yourself in front of the screen and remaining relatively still can be cumbersome. Still, the SpatialLabs View is worth consideration by gamers who have money to spare for trying out 3D.
If you have a relatively recent gaming laptop and a little over a grand to spare, you can add another dimension to your viewing experience with the Acer SpatialLabs View ASV15-1B, and throw out those old 3D glasses while you're at it. Imperfect as it is, the Acer SpatialLabs View ASV15-1B is a viable system for viewing three-dimensional content, such as the games that the SpatialLabs TrueGame app supports.
The 15-inch espresso Display portable touch-screen monitor’s thin, uncannily flat anodized frame is a triumph of industrial design, and its coverage of the sRGB color space is among the best we've seen among similar products. It doesn't include a stand or a protective sleeve or case—the manufacturer, espresso Display, offers a couple as optional accessories—and it lacks a stylus, which is usually bundled with portable touch-screen panels. The full-package price therefore really adds up. Still, it could make a great showpiece for on-the-go presenters driven to impress, and you're bound to be happy with its image quality.
The espresso Display (15-inch) is an elegant, portable touch-screen monitor with magnificent sRGB color coverage. You’ll have to pay extra for some needed accessories (stylus and stand), but it’s a good choice to show off to clients and colleagues.
Many smaller desktop displays can be taken on the road in a pinch, but "true" portable monitors are those specifically sold as such. Even those range quite a bit in size: from 3.5 inches to 22 inches. Portable displays run the gamut from personal, business, and general-purpose models to panels for artists and gamers.
The sweet spot for use with a laptop, though, and our focus here, is between 12 and 17 inches. Many users match their portable display with the screen size of their laptop. But also on the market is a handful of models at 10 inches (mostly for use with gaming consoles) and at 7 inches (for use with the Raspberry Pi).
Many portable displays, especially toward the budget end, use a stand consisting of a thin but stiff plastic board, with several grooves or creases on which it folds. At one end is a magnetic strip, which adheres to the back of the monitor at its top. Folding the sheet in the middle, with the angle pointing away from the user, props up the monitor. The bottom of the monitor inserts into a groove, securing it and tilting the device upward. (Some portable displays have several grooves, and you can alter the monitor's tilt angle by placing the base in a different one.)
These foldable stands, often referred to as origami-style stands, can double as protective covers for the display when it's not in use. Some protect just the front of the monitor, while others are larger, wraparound covers that sandwich the entire monitor.
Another common stand design, particularly on higher-end models, consists of a rigid, flat base, containing the ports, to which the screen is attached via hinges. You can set the screen at any angle you like simply by tilting it. Also, a few designs use the laptop itself as the support, fastening to its back or its side and sliding or swinging out for use.
Although most mobile monitors lack the height, pivot, or swivel adjustability of their desktop counterparts, they are small and light enough that they are easy to adjust manually. Some monitors can be pivoted by hand, though not all stands can support a monitor when it is in portrait mode. In those cases, you could always prop up the monitor against a wall or other surface. Most portable monitors can automatically correct the image so it is always right side up, whether you're in landscape or portrait mode. (Even in those that lack such automatic image rotation, you can change the orientation in Windows display settings.)
When we're looking at the panels for mobile monitors, the main factors we evaluate are the screen size and aspect ratio, the native resolution, the brightness range, the technology the panel uses, and the maker's claims for color-gamut coverage.
Many users prefer to use a mobile monitor that has the same screen size and native resolution as the laptop screen they are using it with. That said, I have found these panels to be forgiving and have had no trouble running portable displays that are slightly larger than my laptop's own screen. As long as you don't mismatch the mobile monitor's and laptop's screen aspect ratio (which, until the last few years, was almost always a 16:9 widescreen ratio but is now increasingly often 16:10), you are unlikely to experience much trouble in matching them up.
The native resolution on panels suitable for use with a laptop ranges from 1,366 by 768 pixels (too coarse for modern laptops) up to 3,840 by 2,160 pixels (UHD, aka 4K). Most of the recent laptop-appropriate screens sport a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels (aka 1080p, or "full HD"), but a few go higher.
Mobile monitors tend to be dimmer, at their maximum brightness levels, than their desktop counterparts. What is commonly called brightness is actually luminance, or brightness per unit area. Portable monitors tend to cluster around 180 nits (also expressed as "candelas per meter squared") in our testing, even though many are rated at between 230 and 300 nits, which is fine for typical use. The recent arrival of portable OLED panels has given a huge boost to monitor luminance, with the brightest we have tested measuring in excess of 550 nits.
Monitors that make use of in-plane switching (IPS) technology are generally preferred for general use over vertical-alignment (VA) and twisted-nematic (TN) panels due to their wider off-axis viewing angles and good color accuracy. Many recent mobile monitors are IPS, but there's a catch, especially if such displays were made before 2022. When we test a panel for its color gamut, we first test the sRGB color space, which is the default color space for the web and many other applications. This color space comprises essentially all the colors that can be made by mixing red, green, and blue. Most desktop monitors cover at least 95% of sRGB, and we have seen portable monitors attain similar coverage.
However, until a few years ago, most mobile IPS monitors we reviewed showed much more limited overall color coverage (60% to 72% of sRGB) and very similar color profiles—indicating poor red and purple coverage and slightly enhanced blue-greens. Because of their nearly identical "color signatures," these core panels likely came from the same or similar sources, although they are on monitors made by a variety of manufacturers.
These measured results were borne out in our experiential testing, where in photos and videos red and purple areas tended to look dull and washed out. Although screens with this issue are fine for most business and productivity use, they are subpar choices for videophiles or photo enthusiasts. In our monitor reviews, we include a chromaticity chart that maps our readings against the ideal readings for the color space being tested, and provide an analysis of the panel's color coverage. Most recent portable IPS monitors have shown much better color-gamut coverage, but we occasionally still review one with the same poor color profile.
As I alluded to earlier, the mobile-monitor world is undergoing a convergence of power and connectivity thanks to USB Type-C connectivity. Many USB-C ports support both DisplayPort over USB and USB power delivery, letting both data/video and power flow through the port from a computer over a single USB cable. Most new mobile monitors have at least one USB-C port, and some connect solely via USB-C. While this simplicity has its appeal, be sure that your laptop's USB-C port supports data, video, and power transfer, because some early-generation USB-C ports don't. (Thunderbolt ports should also work fine; their functionality encompasses all of that of USB-C.)
A few mobile monitors use traditional power adapters. This is particularly true of models that work with sketch pens and are intended for artists; they are in effect interactive monitors. In a common configuration, the display draws power through an adapter, while two cables connect to the computer. One is HDMI, to handle transfer of the image displayed on the device, and the other is USB (through a USB-A port), to record the pen motions the user makes when drawing on the interactive display. HDMI (usually in the form of mini-HDMI) is also a common port (the most common other than USB-C) on more conventional portable displays.
A few older portable-display models draw their power from a laptop over a separate USB 3.0 connection, but USB-C has made this kind of connection passé.
Nearly all portable displays are plug-and-play and require no software to operate. Any utilities offered, usually supplied on disc and/or through download, will be for specific functions, such as the ability to enable the screen image to remain upright when you switch between landscape and portrait orientation. Sometimes, the display may come with a utility that lets you change monitor settings from your computer screen rather than through the secondary panel's onscreen display (OSD) controls.
The OSD is the monitor's menu system, governing user-controllable settings such as brightness, contrast, color levels, picture mode, and aspect ratio. It is often arranged in several submenus. Although a few models include several buttons to use in navigating the OSD, a single button or switch to control it is more common.
In general, audio is not a consideration with mobile monitors, as these devices tend to lack built-in speakers or audio jacks. The few portable displays (often gaming models) that do include speakers, in our experience, have weak ones and are most useful when paired with a portable gaming console or a smartphone. When the monitor is connected to a laptop, you can always switch from the display's speakers to your laptop's speakers by clicking (in Windows) the speaker icon in the taskbar and changing to your laptop's audio.
Whatever your needs or budget, there's a model out there that's right for you; the key thing is to consider the primary display panel that you'll be using alongside it. Below, check out the current best portable displays we've tested. We update this story regularly, but for the very latest monitor reviews we've posted, also see our monitor product guide.
Since 2004, I have worked on PCMag’s hardware team, covering at various times printers, scanners, projectors, storage, and monitors. I currently focus my testing efforts on 3D printers, pro and productivity displays, and drives and SSDs of all sorts.
Over the years, I have reviewed iPad and iPhone science apps, plus the occasional camera, laptop, keyboard, and mouse. I've also written a host of articles about astronomy, space science, travel photography, and astrophotography for PCMag and its past and present sibling publications (among them, Mashable and ExtremeTech), as well as for the PCMag Digital Edition.
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