Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsUltimate travel monitor? The good: The screen itself, the bad: Power supplies included did not work.
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2020
My original review was 3/5 stars and written just over two weeks after purchase. I am updating my review now that it's been over a year of continuous daily use.
TLDR: Great value, everything continues to work, and I would buy them again, but the original shortcomings I wrote about in my first review are still present.
Ideally, in a future revision of the product, the ports and connectors should permit a deeper connection for the DisplayLink and USB-C ports -- currently everything sticks out between 1 - 4mm (and that's after you gently wiggle-push things in).
The side buttons have no text on them, which also requires you to look over and behind the monitor to figure out which button does what.
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This is a tough review to do because:
a) I bought four of them
b) The screens themselves are pretty awesome. Brightness is great, no dead pixels (one or two of them may have had some exceedingly faint ghosting? It's hard to gauge cause the screens are somewhat shiny)
c) They're super portable and precisely what I was looking for, BUT...
d) The included USB-C power supplies DID NOT WORK.
I bought four of these things for reasons. I tested out two of the included USB-C chargers, but wasn't able to get the monitors to turn on. On the other hand, plugging in an Apple USB-C charger into the monitor resulted in instant success. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but I think it's more likely that the included chargers just weren't up to snuff. (To be clear, I tried with different cables, and then just gave up)
The monitors may also require being held in power-on mode for several seconds before turning on -- and the HDMI port was VERY tight on at least two of my monitors and required some delicate finessing to insert or remove the cable.
That said the actual picture quality is great. I was able to get things to run in 4K HDR at 60Hz without issue, and they do have rudimentary speakers (not... terrible... but... you're not gonna want to use them unless you're desperate -- the volume is too low).
I combined this with a Wearson WS-03A Adjustable LCD TV Stand Folding Metal Monitor Desk Stand and Ergotron Quick Release LCD Bracket, and I basically have the ultimate travel monitor:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XUF2GBI/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W0ETD2/
Yes, there's an included [faux-?] leather stand, but after having launched my Asus travel monitor across the room by bumping its stand, I decided to spend the extra cash for something a bit more sturdy.
When I went to purchase this, I was comparing this to the UPERFECT 4K monitor (currently unavailable), which is almost certainly from the same OEM ( https://www.amazon.com/UPERFECT-Computer-Portable-Monitors-Raspberry/dp/B07R7QH787?ref_=ast_sto_dp ) -- but this one was marked down by about $50 and across four monitors that meant about $200 in savings.
It's pretty clear from the included documentation that the OEM is selling this as a white-labeled product and support is supposed to come from the seller. No big deal really -- that's kind of obvious when you look at the Amazon listing for this (and honestly, most of the other contenders). Somewhere in the mix however, the decision was made to go with these USB-C chargers which just suck.
I'm really torn. I want to give this four stars. Maybe five stars for the value. I really love the style, and it's honestly the ultimate travel monitor. But I'm spending extra money on buying separate Anker USB-C chargers and cables and it's kind of annoying. It's also pretty clear that it'd be a complete waste of time to try to return these or exchange them just because a $10 - $25 charger is a lemon.
Because of that, I'm penalizing this product with a lower rating. I don't think the typical person purchasing this is going to give up and return what they believe at first to be a defective product -- but at the same time, I don't think anyone is going to be happy to discover that they have to go back to Amazon to order another charger and charging cable just to turn this product on. I guess if you're using a laptop directly to this via USB-C you can probably avoid this mess, but my scenario was a bit different.
All in all, I would buy them again -- and would recommend this product to a friend -- but with the caveat that you add in an extra $20 - $45 to the price tag to account for buying your own power supply.