I would like to thank Desklab for supplying the review sample.


Desklab is a boutique brand with a single product: the 15.6 inch Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor. Several accessories for the screen and the environment it would be used in are offered for purchase by the brand as well. There are several niche brands out there that offer portable monitors, but most max out at 1080p as 4K would need more power, which very few host devices can provide on their own. While Desklab advertises the screen at an MSRP of $700, it is essentially permanently discounted to a much more realistic $399. This is certainly a premium over other displays out there, but let's take a quick look at the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor to see how it stacks up.

Packaging and Contents

You will receive the unit in its own white cardboard box. Both major panels have a bit of imagery and some marketing text. There is no UPC code or set of specifications. Thus, odds are it will be difficult to find the product in online or retail stores. Instead, the sole source will most likely be the Desklab website itself.


On the inside, the top foam tray holds the screen in place securely. Underneath the screen is another tray with all the accessories.


You will get an HDMI to mini-HDMI cable, USB-C lead, and USB-C equipped power supply. The latter is a nice touch other brands forego, and its inclusion is rather important for this 4K monitor. It will successfully run at 1080p on a 2 A power source, but Desklab advises users that the display requires 4 A at 4K, which is something most host devices cannot offer. Naturally, the compact power supply delivers just that: 4 A at 5 V.


On top of that, you will find a fairly detailed and well written manual in the box. Desklab also sent us the cover/stand for the screen, which is a $50 accessory. This is quite the hefty price to pay for something so important to the core functionality of the portable display. In other words, you really need to budget $449 for the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor as a complete product.

A Closer Look

The display is built very nicely, with a seamless full glass front. It is protected by a clear plastic layer out of the box as an added measure. The housing of the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor is made out of metal and sports a small company logo. This logo will actually be hidden when applying the cover, leaving you with just the one on the front.


Adding the protective layer is easily done, but it does take adhesive to hold in place, while other brands opt for strong magnets instead. The cover feels nice, but the material will most likely not put up with heavy-duty use over extended periods of time. Given the price point, it would have been nice to see a more versatile cover/stand with more folding creases and sturdier materials.


Once installed, the screen can be stood up on the cover because of the horizontal crease. It also has some embedded magnets to keep the top parts of the cover attached to each other for added stability. Overall, this works well, but the crease will eventually buckle under the weight of the monitor if you slide the stand toward the back too much.


In terms of the I/O, similar to most displays out there, the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor splits it between the two sides of the screen. On the left is a tangible power button and click wheel to navigate the onscreen menu. Below that is an audio jack output, so you may connect your headphones directly to the monitor. On the other side, you will find the mini-HDMI port, two USB-C plugs, and a micro-USB 2.0 connector. Both USB-C plugs may be used for either power out or data input. At the bottom edge are two rubber pads, which is a nice touch to keep the screen upright nicely, but another reminder that you really need the cover for the utmost portability. Two small speakers pipe out any audio.

On-screen Display Menu

Before we dive into the use, scrolling through the OSD, there are six menu items: Picture, Color, Audio, Other, Input, and OSD Settings. You may push the scroll wheel down or up. Pressing down on it will allow you to enter any of the sub-menu items. While there is the usual Brightness, Contrast and Sharpness under the Picture menu, you will also find ECO and DCR entries here. ECO ships in "Standard" and lists several other modes, like Game, Movie, Photo Vivid, and User. Of all the presets, "Game" instantly gives you by far the best results while boosting the much needed brightness of the screen. DCR, short for Dynamic Contrast Ratio, is meant to give you more saturated colors when turned on. It does so at the cost of overall brightness.

The Color menu provides you with a refreshingly wide range of adjustment options, and the screen ships set to 6500K color temperature by default. Out of the box, the colors are a bit on the warm side, so having the ability to tweak this a bit towards the cooler end is nice. the Low Blue entry is a nice touch and subtly reduces the blue light from the screen when turned on, which should be healthier on the eyes. The Audio segment only has the essentials of volume control and muting the speakers.


The remaining three menu items are less important with the exception of the UltraHDR setting. This is set to auto, which seems to equate to "off." Turning it to on instantly blows the color intensity out of the stratosphere—it is not useful at all. You should really just keep this setting off to avoid any unwanted surprises the "auto" setting may hold. The remaining menus are about input selection and where or how the OSD appears on screen.

In Use

Desklab advertises the 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor as "anti-glare," but with its mirror finish glass front, it doesn't really hold up to that statement. Both the most recent M1-powered MacBook Pro and ASUS desktop monitor used in this article offer better "anti-glare" coating. That said, the IPS screen with its 282 PPI density provides massive screen real-estate in a tiny footprint. In comparison, that is higher than the M1 14" MacBook Pro at 254 PPI. That host device is able to power the screen at 4K without any issues, but connecting the power supply gives you an little boost in brightness as well.


Desklab mentions a 20 ms response time, which seems rather high compared to a classic monitor these days. However, as far as portable screens go, the vast majority doesn't manage sub-10 ms on paper and fares even worse in real life. That holds true for the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor as well, as can be seen with the naked eye in Windows. Running our favorite clip of the movie that may never be released in this decade, Top Gun Maverick, at 4K, the screen really impresses with crystal clear visuals thanks to the massive pixels per inch. The audio, while a bit flat as it is lacking punchy lows, is surprisingly distortion free even at full blast and potent enough to be useful on the road or in a small meeting room.


Connecting the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor to a Windows 11 desktop PC using USB-C allowed us to try out the 10-point touch screen and compare it to the experience of a desktop monitor. As you can see, the ASUS IPS based 27" screen cranks out higher brightness, but as a secondary screen, the Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor fares just fine.


Opening up the TechPowerUp website, you can see how much more screen real-estate you get with the 15.6" screen compared to the 1440p 27" variant. On top of that, for those who do not have any audio on their main display, the portable unit provides it, which could be handy in scenarios where you do not want to use headphones. Fun fact: that speaker system shows up as "RTK UHD HDR" in Windows, but a quick Google search did not provide any hints as to the origins of that naming.

Conclusion

The portable screen market is crowded with screens around the 15" mark—there are countless niche brands and several better-known alternatives. But most get their product from the same or similar source, so there is little differentiation besides price and accessories. Looking at 1080p variants, they can be had for around $120–150 with a cover, while 4K options start at around $250 including a cover and even VESA mounting holes. The Desklab 4K Touchscreen Portable Monitor with the optional cover sells for $449, a large $200 price premium, but does include a separate power supply and all the cables. It is build extremely well with its full glass front and manages to provide a sharp, crisp image at suitable brightness. On top of that, the built-in speakers are surprisingly useful, while the USB-C also offers passthrough charging for your mobile device when using the included power brick. However, at the price, it will be a really hard sell over the slew of similar niche brand products out there, most of which are also readily available from marketplace retailers on Amazon for added convenience.