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Best Portable Touch Screen Monitor (Review) in 2022
Last updated at November 5th, 2020
Portable monitors are great way to increase productivity by multi-tasking on the go or in your home office. In addition to being ultra portable, some of these monitors also include touch screen functionality as well.
In this article, we will review how touch screen for portable monitors work and how they can be useful to your routine, and then we will review the best portable touchscreen monitors on the market.
How does Portable Touch Screen Monitors Work?
Portable monitors are just monitors that are ultra portable with their low weight and smaller size compared to regular monitors.
With this portability, in most cases, consumers use portable monitors with their laptops for multi tasking and additional productivity.
In addition to laptops however, It is particularly interesting to use portable monitors with mobile phones or tablets.
Most mobile phones actually include many apps that you would normally use to accomplish your daily tasks, such as email, web browsing conference call etc.
Given It's portability, most people opt out of carrying an additional laptop, instead they use their mobile phone with a portable monitors if they need to spend longer hours getting things done.
Touch screen functionality is especially important if you are going to use this portable monitor with a mobile phone.
Not only mobile phones are touch first devices, but you can use the touch surface to even type eliminating need of an additional external keyboard or a mouse.
How Does Portable Touch Screen Monitors Connect?
Before getting in to the details of touch screen portable monitors, It is important to understand how these monitors are connected to laptops or mobile phones.
As you might already know, HDMI is the cable that is used very often to connect display devices to gaming consoles or laptops. Your laptop or computer probably already has an HDMI port.
However there are two problems with HDMI, and that is why most portable touch screen monitors don't use HDMI ports.
First of all, HDMI is physically a big connector, and almost none of the mobile devices, phones and tables have this port built in. You need to get an additional adapter to connect that to your mobile device.
Secondly, HDMI is for display data only. You might think touch screen displays as monitor and trackpad combined together. So if you connect this with HDMI cable, touch screen functionality will not work.
What is USB-C DP-ALT Mode?
This bring us to port that most touch screen portable monitors use, and that is the new USB Type-C port.
This port combines display, data and charging into a single cable, and most mobile devices should have USB Type-C port built in.
Additionally, based on our research, most touch screen portable monitors also come with cable that let's you connect it to your mobile devices directly without an adapter.
Even though most USB-C ports support external monitors by default, you should still confirm with your device manufacturer to see if the port is capable of transmitting display data which is what Display Port Alt mode means.
Do MacBook, iPad and iPhone Work With Portable Touch Screen Monitors?
Newer MacBook laptops come with the new USB Type-C port. In fact, Apple decided that this will be the only port that they will support moving forward on their devices.
USB ports on Mac OS devices also support external monitors and charging with single cable, which is called display port over USB-C.
Even though MacBooks support connecting monitors, unfortunately Mac OS operating system does not support using external touch screen monitors.
Given this, if you connect one of these touch enabled portable monitors to your MacBook or Apple device, It will only act as an external display, and the touch screen functionality will not work.
Which Mobile Phones and Tables Support Touch Screen Monitors?
On the other hand, most mobile devices or laptops that use Windows operating system, or Google's Android mobile phone operating system should have no issue supporting external touch screen monitors.
Here are some of the devices that we know can handle portable touch screen monitors with no issues.
- Samsung Galaxy
- Samsung Note
- Huawei Matte 10
- Huawei Matte 10 Pro
- Windows Desktops
- Windows Laptops
Just to sum things up, you should make sure that your device has USB Type-C port that can support monitors, you can confirm that by checking your device's online product manual.
Can You Game With Portable Touch Screen Monitors?
Gaming is growing every year, and technology is getting improving constantly. If you want to use a portable touch screen monitor for gaming, the answer is both yes and no, and It really depends on what you are looking for.
Mobile gaming industry is almost as big as the console and pc gaming, and consumers are spending more time playing games on their phones and their tablets.
Some mobile games even have bigger user base than console games. Portable touch screen monitor could be a great addition to any mobile gaming setup as long as the device and the game supports it.
Tablets and mobile phones shouldn't have issues, but make sure to check your specific game and the device.
When It comes to console gaming however, none of the games and the next generation gaming console support touch screen interface. You can still connect and use it as an external monitor, but the touch functionality won't be available.
What Resolution is Good for Portable Touch Monitors?
Once you decide on connectivity for your portable monitors, the decision boils down to the technical specs of touch screen portable monitors.
And the first thing to consider when buying a portable monitor is the display resolution of the panel. Most devices should have no issue supporting these resolutions, so that isn't something you need to worry about.
Based on our analysis of most of the portable touch screen monitors, these are the most common screen resolutions on the market.
- 1920 x 1080p Full HD
- 3840 x 2160p 4K
Obviously better resolution is always better, however you might want to check how it effects the price and see what your laptop's screen currently supports. If you are happy with laptop's resolutions, you might not need to get something better than that.
Appearance, Flip Covers, Stands & More
In addition to technical device, portable monitors is something that you will carry around and a lot, so It has this accessory element to it.
For that reason, many portable monitors, come with stands and flip covers similar to tablet designs. Most portable monitors also support both vertical and horizontal usage.
Portable monitors also offer couple different color options such as matte black or silver, some of them have unique slim designs which helps with carrying around.
So with all these difference, after comparing technical specs of portable touch screen monitors, make sure that the device's appearance is also something you like.
Best Touch Screen Portable Monitors
Give all these different aspects and technical details, we have curated a list of the best portable touch screen monitors that we really like.
