Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat dual/portable monitor – needs minimal plugs and great value for its price
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2020
I bought this Lepow portable monitor because I needed an extra monitor when I’m moving from location to location for productivity and for when I’m looking at stock charts. At home I have a huge ultrawide monitor for working and when I’m on the go, a regular 13-inch screen on a macbook pro just doesn’t cut it. A little extra screen real estate goes a long way. This Lepow monitor was a pleasant surprise, its large 15.6 in screen is big and is actually quite portable (you can put it in your laptop bag or backpack and it takes up the space of a large ipad). Usually on a 1080P display looking at stocks or finer detailed images can be difficult, and it leaves you longing for a 4k monitor, but it actually did the job quite well -- just don’t expect 4k clarity. As soon as I got the portable monitor, I threw every electronics I had at it to see if it lived up to its billing. It handled everything very smoothly.
When you first open the product, you’ll notice it takes some cues from apple and it’s a white box that feels pretty luxurious. It comes with a magnetic case, the magnetic case isn’t the best of cases but it does the trick. There’s something about magnets that gives you a feeling like it can come right off if you aren’t careful and also wasn’t intuitive to stand up in the various angles but once you figure out how to stand it up it works perfectly. It’s a free case so I can’t really complain there, it also comes with a screen protector which I am terrible at putting on so I gave up on it and didn’t use it. But again, the fact that they gave you all these accessories included is nice in itself. One thing I really liked about this product is that it includes all the wires you need to plug in most of your devices without paying extra for them or buying them separately. It comes with a HDMI mini to HDMI Plug which makes it ready to plug and play with most of your devices, a USB C Cord, and for power a USB-C to USB A cord with power adapter.
The screen is large and beautiful, it is slim for you to take around anywhere. It does everything you want it to for a very affordable price compared to other brands. It’s hard to justify paying a lot for a portable monitor since it can get pricey, this one was the most affordable one that does everything I wanted, and the drawbacks were negligible. The speakers are my biggest issue with it, it seems there’s no difference between 50% volume and 100% volume (it sounds the same, low and not robust at all). However, most monitors and even today’s televisions don’t have great speakers – it’s how retailers make products more affordable. Luckily it does have an aux port that allows me to easily connect it to a portable speaker or my home speakers.
My main goal in getting this was to hook it up to my laptop. My macbook pro 13 inch worked like a charm through USB C, I didn’t need any additional plugs to power on the monitor. One USB C plug from the macbook to the monitor was sufficient to run the mac and power on the display which is great! It created my dual monitor setup I wanted with a minimal amount of wires making it versatile and less embarrassing if I’m in public such as in a coffee shop. In the manual it says that generally speaking you don’t need to plug the monitor into a power source unless your device doesn’t supply it with any power. It requires very little power in wattages to display properly, for your electronics that aren’t strong enough to power the monitor on its own you can power it on by plugging it into an outlet with the wires they give you or you can use a standard external power bank . I tried some low wattage output power banks that I use to charge my iphone on the go and it worked flawlessly. This will be useful when on road trips and you want to watch a movie together or play some games on a bigger screen.
When it comes down to it, it feels like what you would love for your ipad to be, a beautiful display that you can plug anything you want into it. I had my old super Nintendo classic lying around I don’t use much and I instantly connected it and started to play Super Mario and Street Fighter II Turbo for the next couple of hours. It brought new life to my older game systems I don’t have connected. I’m going to bring it with me whenever me and my friends want to play co-opt Contra III or Street Fighter and we meet up for some beers at an outdoor brewery or camping. My Nintendo switch worked through USB C but required some power for the monitor, if you have a strong enough power supply, I think it supports passthrough charging to charge your Nintendo switch as well simultaneously. I’m not sure if that’s a feature but I saw it charging my switch and even my laptop when connected to my stronger power banks. I also plugged it into my iPad Pro and it worked as well.
Overall, I don’t have a lot of complaints about the Lepow monitor, it was amazing as soon as I turned it on and it brought extra life to my electronics. I can’t wait to take it on a roadtrip, it does all the big things I want it to do very well with little drawbacks and at an affordable price. After I showed my buddies some of the pictures of it in use and now they want one.
