Portable monitors for editing: any real world recommendations?
Hey all - I’ve gone down a research rabbit hole at the moment of wanting to find a small (14-16 inch) portable monitor I can specifically use as for full screen output. Most places I work have a proper TV with a Blackmagic video output, but sometimes I’ll be in a smaller suite or working from home where it would be nice to not having to constantly toggle full screen and eat up my other monitor’s real estate.
My general criteria is:
- Reliability.
I’ll be moving this between several different suites, Apple Silicon Macs, Intel Macs, Windows PCs, etc, so ideally it would just be plug as play as an external monitor without having issues or needing to install extra software. My main priority would be for my M1 Pro MacBook Pro but ideally as much cross platform support would be best.
- Okay picture quality
Many of these monitor seem to be more focused on gaming or for a second screen working with text at a cafe. I’d only be using this as an offline reference monitor, so I don’t need a fancy OLED panel or HDR, but something that’s not super washed out or with terrible motion handling would be ideal. Don’t need UHD but it should be either 1080p or UHD so the aspect ratio matches the footage. Ideally I could also lock it to 25fps / 50fps but that may be too optimistic for the next point.
- Reasonable price.
There are lots of options in the $100 - $200 AUD range, but I’d rather not buy junk that will die within a year or I’d have to jump through returns to replace. Ideally keeping it below $500 AUD / $350 USD range.
With this in mind, this is my shortlist:
ARZOPA Z1FC 16.1'' 144Hz Portable Gaming Monitor - $200 AUD
https://www.amazon.com.au/ARZOPA-Portable-Monitor-Kickstand-External/dp/B0CH9WTW56?th=1
Seemingly a decent option in this line. Don’t expect 144Hz support in MacOS but hopefully can set the refresh rate to 100Hz for my purposes.
espresso Display 15 Non-touch - $500 AUD
https://au.espres.so/products/espresso-display?variant=46760685371624
Recommended by rtings, and hopefully mainstream enough that the reliability is high.
ASUS ProArt PA148CTV 14 FHD Portable USB-C IPS Touch Monitor - $569 AUD
https://www.digidirect.com.au/asus-proart-pa148ctv-14-fhd-portable-usb-c-ips-touch-monitor
I don’t need a touch screen and this price is staring to push it for what is merely a nice to have option. But my main WFH monitor is the PA278QV, and I’ve loved it for the colour accuracy and matte coating, so going all in on the ProArt line is appealing as well.
Any iPad with Sidecar?
This is also a strong contender. The downsides being it’s MacOS only (which should be fine) and that an iPad would be overkill and or a potential distraction. Hopefully a direct USB C cable is fine latency wise as well.
So if you’ve made it this far in the post - has anyone had real world experienced with what I’m trying to do? Any better alternatives? There’s a tonne of options out there, so this might also be a space where I could get the cheap knock off brand and it works fine for what I need for a quarter of the price.
Tech specs wise, I’d be bouncing between Avid and Premiere mostly on Apple Silicon Macs. But would be using these as just a standard small monitor instead of hooking it up via an IO box.
Thanks in advance!