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Portable monitors, unlike laptop displays, don’t all have built-in protection. When you travel with your laptop, you close it, in turn protecting the display. The rest of the laptop covers the display and adds some structural rigidity to it. Portable monitors don’t have these benefits. So, if you take a portable monitor with you, it’s a good idea to have a sleeve or cover for the screen itself to protect it from scratching, and you’ll want to ensure it won’t get bent in your bag. Thankfully, many portable monitors come with covers and sleeves. Most also include some sort of stand, so you can p

Portable monitors don’t have any inherent advantages for gaming. Many are built with lower-quality display panels and have low refresh rates. Many I’ve tested suffer from some ghosting, which doesn’t impact day-to-day use heavily but negatively affects gaming. Low refresh rates also keep games from looking as smooth. That said, plenty of portable monitors have special gaming optimizations. You can find models with fast 120Hz and higher refresh rates, and some even offer OLED panels, which exhibit almost no ghosting. That said, most portable monitors are larger than the screens on mobile gaming

The 16-inch Arzopa Z1RC is the best portable monitor I’ve tested, checking off almost every box for what makes a good everyday portable monitor. It's got slim bezels and a lightweight design, so you don’t have too much extra to carry. I don't just rank the Z1RC at the top of the pack for its design, though: It has good technical specifications and delivers on performance, too. Around $100, it’s also one of the most affordable options I've tested. Read more: Best Gaming Monitors If you need advice on whether a particular type of monitor is right for you, there are some answers to common questio

This depends on a couple of factors. Many phones don’t support display output, so you won’t be able to use your phone with these monitors. Some phones, such as recent iPhones, support display output over their USB-C port. But these are unlikely to supply enough electricity to power the external monitor. That means while you can still use the portable monitor, you will likely need auxiliary power for the monitor itself.