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This review first appeared in issue 345 of PC Pro.
There are dozens of 15.6in portable monitors available on Amazon, many costing around £100, so you may wonder why anyone would consider paying over four times that price for the ViewSonic VP16-OLED. The first clue is in the name: including an OLED panel rather than IPS immediately puts this display on a different pedestal.
But the real reason is quality. Cheap portable monitors usually reward you with poor color coverage, low brightness and lackluster color accuracy. What ViewSonic promises is much more in line with a professional monitor. With Pantone validation and a guaranteed average Delta E of less than two, you can be confident of the colors you see. This was borne out in the tests for our review unit, with typical averages of around 0.5.
I say “typical” because this monitor ships with numerous color modes: user, DCI-P3, sRGB, REC.709 and DICOM. DICOM is a medical standard, while REC.709 is used in broadcasting and similar to sRGB. That means it’s conservative in terms of coverage, so for the punchiest colors you should choose DCI-P3.
When testing such profiles, we’re always looking for it to clamp down on the gamut as much as possible. That’s why it was comforting to see sRGB lock the panel to 96.4% coverage out of a 98.6% volume. So, only a tiny fraction of the colors you see on the VP16-OLED will sit outside the sRGB gamut when you’re in that mode.
Likewise in DCI-P3, where the monitor produced results of 95.4% and 96.9%.
It’s also easy to switch between profiles. ViewSonic places four buttons on the monitor’s base, and the text-based OSD is so simple to navigate that I was left wondering why all monitors don’t follow its lead.
The panel’s only minor negative is that it isn’t a true 10-bit display but 8-bit plus FRC. FRC stands for frame rate control, and mimics colors not supported by the 8-bit panel by flashing alternate colors incredibly quickly. It’s effective, but purists prefer 10-bit panels.
ViewSonic has gained DisplayHDR 400 certification for this screen, but don’t expect images to burn your retina. Still, OLED is naturally easier to view in brighter conditions than IPS thanks to its “infinite” contrast ratio, so although the VP16-OLED peaked at 402cd/m2 in our tests I can’t imagine any situation where you won’t be able to see its contents.
There’s even a hood in the box. This is normally included with professional monitors to stop ambient light interfering with colors, but here it’s most useful to keep the screen’s light from interfering with your darker shoots. I was also hoping it would offer protection during travel, but the folding mechanism isn’t quite clever enough to perfectly wrap around the screen.
Otherwise, I can’t fault ViewSonic’s design. One of the cleverest elements is the adjustable height stand. The photos below tell most of the story; all I need to add is that it moves smoothly through every stage and locks perfectly into position.
The VP16-OLED doesn’t include a battery, but it can draw power from a host laptop over USB-C or work the other way round: plug in the supplied USB-C power supply and then power your laptop. However, it only delivers 40W, so it’s better suited to keeping a laptop topped up than charging it from empty. There’s also a micro-HDMI input.
ViewSonic includes a pair of 1W speakers, and as that power rating indicates they aren’t going to fill a room. Sound quality is mediocre – no depth, weak bass – but if you’re on a video shoot and want to check the audio they’ll be up to the job, or you can resort to the 3.5mm jack.
There’s one final downside to this monitor, and that’s its 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. Again, hunt online and you’ll find 4K portable monitors for half the price. Personally, I didn’t find this a problem in practice as text, photos and videos still look sharp at normal viewing distances.
For its target audience, then, this OLED monitor is worth every penny. It’s accurate, flexible and images pack a punch you won’t see from IPS rivals.
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