Lepow portable monitor review – use your smartphone as a laptop…and much more

LaptopMedia.com Reviews and Analysis Lepow portable monitor review - use your smartphone as a laptop...and much more

From: Nikolay Palaozov 13 July 2020 / 08:17 | 0

Lepow is a portable monitor that can ease your daily routine and you don’t have to break the bank if you want to buy it. If you have a small desk and you need a second monitor attached to your laptop this compact fella is a good choice for this kind of situation.

Let’s say that you can play some casual games like Hearthstone on your main display and you can use the external panel for watching videos (or vice versa) or perhaps taking a look at news feeds. Maybe you can use the Lepow display for playing games on it because it supports HDR (we will talk about it a bit down below) and it will enhance your gameplay experience if you like the visual representation of this feature.

This gadget can be hooked up to a smartphone as well. Let’s say that you are on a long journey and you have to travel from one place to another for hours (on a plane or a train, etc) and you want to watch a movie or some entertaining YouTube videos. Well, it’s not necessary to say that if you connect your smartphone to the Lepow monitor the overall viewing experience will be much greater because watching something on a 15.6″ panel is better than watching it on a small 6″ smartphone display.

This portable monitor has integrated speakers and a volume rocker so you can easily adjust the sound level without touching your smartphone. And you can plug your headphone as well if you don’t want to distract the other people around you. Speaking of speakers, another pro is that you can hook up your gaming console directly to the panel via the provided HDMI cable and you can start playing games right away.

You can check the current price of Lepow portable monitor here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Unboxing and setup
Design and construction
Display quality
PWM (Screen flickering)
Buy our profiles
HDR
Verdict

Unboxing and setup

Nothing fancy here, the Lepow product comes in a standard box that looks durable and sturdy and that’s good because the device and the accessories are well secured. Inside you’ll find the monitor itself (what a surprise), a magnetic leather cover, a screen protector, a Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable, a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable (for power), a USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable for video, a small screen wipe, and an AC adapter.

The screen protector and the screen wipe are nice touches and they can be handy. Note that the screen protector will probably affect the picture quality in some aspect but if you plan to use the monitor outdoor often or in a dusty environment it’s not a bad idea to apply the protector.

Design and construction

First of all, the design is okay for us. The bezels are narrow (for an external panel), the product is thin and light which makes it easy for carrying it around with you. The bezel part is made of metal while the rest is plastic and the device doesn’t feel cheap at all. The panel looks well-built and it’s not prone to bends and twists (it will be really strange if someone is trying to bend a portable monitor on purpose but we’ve tried it for the sake of science). Unfortunately, the whole device is a fingerprint magnet, no matter where you’re touching it, you’re going to leave a “mark”.

The monitor weighs 770 grams which is fine for a product of this caliber. The protective cover can be used both for protection (when you’re not using the display) and stand. The good news is that its made of leather and that’s why the grip is good even on glossy surfaces so you’re monitor will not jetskiing on the table if you accidentally bash it with your arm. So, the chassis quality of this particular monitor is definitely on the high side, especially for such a decent price tag.

This panel has an anti-glare finish, which is good for reducing glare if you’re using it in direct sunlight conditions. The matte coating isn’t too aggressive (the colors aren’t grey-ish or too washed out) and the onscreen content looks fine despite the panel isn’t a top-notch piece of hardware.

Ports

On the left side of the monitor, we can spot a Mini HDMI port, a USB Type-C port (video), and an audio jack. On the other side are placed the volume rocker, another USB Type-C (power), and an On/Off button. As we said, there are built-in speakers that are placed on both sides.

Display quality

The Lepow monitor has an IPS panel. The diagonal is 15.6″ (39.6 cm), has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, and a refresh rate of 60Hz. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60 cm (23.6″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels).

The viewing angles are good which is typical for the majority of the IPS monitors out there. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 194 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 186 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 10%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6650K (average) – which is almost on par with the 6500K optimum for sRGB.

In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 71% Brightness (White level = 140 cd/m2, Black level = 0.10 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is very good – 1380:1

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream display.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Lepow’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 52% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Lepow portable monitor with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 27 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Lepow’s backlight isn’t PW-modulated above 65 cd/m2. This makes it comfortable for your eyes in this aspect even during long working periods. The backlight uses PWM below 62% brightness and with a low frequency (300 Hz) – it’s now suitable for prolonged periods of usage (it’ll be good if you can avoid this scenario, just set the brightness higher than 62%).

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for the Lepow portable monitor.

In this case, the profiles are ready for work after a factory reset, except for the Gaming and Web design profile, where you need to set the display to the “sRGB mode”. Interestingly, depending on the ambient light and the game you’re playing it is highly possible that the Office Work profile might be more appealing than the Gaming and Web design one.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

$19.90 BUY NOW

HDR

This panel supports HDR (high dynamic range) and when this feature is turned On, the overall picture quality is average at its best (let’s just say that we have seen better HDR implementation in other panels). Of course, not everyone likes this picture mode but if you like it you have to play a bit with its settings (mostly in games).

Some games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey have built-in settings for HDR and you can turn it On or Off through the in-game menu and you even have sliders for adjusting the maximum luminance and the paper white levels. Keep in mind that the settings are not “as is” and probably you’re not going to like the defaults so it’ll take some time for additional tweaking.

Other games like Metro Exodus don’t have such rich customization regarding this visual feature and HDR can be simply turned On or Off and they require HDR to be applied firstly from the Windows menu and then you will be able to use it in-game.

Watching HDR video was an easy job. Go to “Windows HD Color Settings” and set “Use HDR” to On. After that, the easiest way to see if everything is working correctly is to search for this kind of video on YouTube. If everything is okay you’ll spot “HDR” tittle next to the resolution modifier.

Verdict

This Lepow portable monitor is an interesting gadget. It’s a versatile panel that can be useful in many ways. It can be used as a second monitor which means more space for work or entertainment (or maybe both). Speaking of entertainment, the connection process with a console is a flawless job – just use the Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable which is part of the accessories and that’s all. Connecting a smartphone to the monitor isn’t complicated, plug the USB Type-C cable into the phone connector and then hook it up to the panel. In most cases, the Lepow product will play the role of a “mirror screen”.

If your phone supports Desktop mode, well, congrats – the experience is a bit smoother and on top of that, you can connect external mouse and keyboard, and there you go – a “laptop” on the go. Sadly, not every smartphone supports this extra. By the way, your phone can be charged continuously while it’s connected to the Lepow display if you plug its other USB Type-C to the wall using an AC charger. That’s a nice one, you can use both the phone and the display as long as you want, without warring about how much battery juice you have.

When it comes to laptops, you’re lucky if your device has a USB Type-C port with video and power delivery capabilities, the whole connection requires just a single cable. We’ve tested it this way with HP Omen 17 and we really like the end result – no additional cables on the desk and you don’t need an AC charger too. Well, if your notebook doesn’t have a powered USB Type-C port you can use the HDMI cable and the other USB Type-C cable for charging.

The picture quality of this panel is a mixed bag. The contrast ratio is excellent and the viewing angles are comfortable but on the other hand, the sRGB color coverage is low (just 52%) and the panel has a slow response time (27 ms) which makes it not-so-great for games like CS:GO and Call Of Duty. The display is PWM-free if you bump the brightness at least to 62% so keep that in mind as well.

HDR is available too and it’s nice to have extra. As we already said, we are not blown away by the picture quality when this mode is activated but yes, it’s useable and it can be handy in some games with predominant dark scenes like Resident Evil 2 – you are able to see much more detail in the dark parts of the picture.

So, in short, the Lepow portable monitor is a handy thing. It’s light, compact, and you can carry it with you almost everywhere because of its slimness and protective cover that can be turned into a stand with two simple moves. The good viewing angles make it more usable if there are more people around you and they want to watch the content on the display at the same time. The USB-Type-C and the HDMI ports make the Lepow monitor more versatile and it can be connected to a laptop, a smartphone, or a gaming console. You have all the necessary cables in the box so you’re receiving a “full package” at a decent price.

You can check the current price of Lepow portable monitor here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)