Are Portable Monitors Worth It?

Do you want to add a second screen for giving presentations to small groups? Maybe you want to view two programs full-screen at once. Are you a gamer looking to enhance your portable gaming system? Are you a creator needing to touch up your designs with a stylus? Mobile monitors of different sizes, styles, and types are ready to serve your needs. When it comes to your personal or work interface, having two monitors is always better. It simply helps you visualize, compare, and contrast everything that you’re working on. Whether you’re a traveling exec, a gamer, or a graphic designer, a portable second monitor can add both screen room and an extra dimension to your work or play. Here’s everything you need to know when deciding if a portable monitor is worth it.

What is a Portable Monitor?
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, is between 12 and 17 inches like the Deco Gear 15.6” Portable monitor. 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 and at 7 inches. These are mostly for use with gaming consoles. Most portable displays use a stand consisting of a thin but stiff plastic board, with several grooves or creases on which it folds like the Deco Gear 15.6” Portable monitor from Buydig.com. 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. These foldable stands double as protective covers for the display when it’s not in use. Some protect just the front of the monitor, while others, like the Deco Gear Portable monitor are larger, wraparound covers that sandwich the entire monitor.

Evaluating the Screen
When you’re looking at the panels for mobile monitors, the main factors you want to look at are the screen size, the native resolution, the brightness range, the technology the panel uses, and the color-gamut coverage. You may prefer to use a mobile monitor that has the same screen size and native resolution as the laptop screen you’re using it with. However, you’ll have no trouble running portable displays that are slightly larger than your laptop’s own screen. As long as you don’t mismatch the mobile monitor’s and laptop’s screen aspect ratio, you’re unlikely to experience much trouble with matching them up. The native resolution on panels suitable for use with a laptop ranges from 1,366 by 768 pixels up to 3,200 by 1,800 pixels. Most of the recent laptop-appropriate screens sport a native resolution of 1080p like the Deco Gear Portable Monitor from Buydig.com. Monitors that make use of in-plane switching (IPS) technology like the Deco Gear Portable Monitor 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.

Power and Connectivity
With the Deco Gear Portable monitor, there’s no installation required. Simply plug the portable monitor to your device. This Deco Gear Portable monitor also has a built-in 10,000 mAh battery to power the monitor when you’re not near an outlet. This is particularly helpful when artists are using the Deco Gear Portable monitor as an interactive monitor using the sketch pen. There’s also an HDMI port on the Deco Gear 15.6” Portable monitor. So with HDMI, USB, and USB-C connections, you can pair laptops, game consoles, tablets, and even phones to double workspace or extend smaller displays.

Portable monitors can make life easier Make your work more productive and gaming more fun with the Deco Gear 15.6″ Portable Monitor.