ViewSonic's VG1655 ($184.99) is a cleverly designed portable monitor with some uncommon features. It offers a fold-out stand with a wide tilt range. A five-way mini-joystick controller takes the place of the fidgety buttons found on most mobile monitors, and the onscreen display (OSD) menu system lets you access a wealth of settings instead of the handful offered by many rival panels. And it has two USB-C ports—one for power and one for data/video transfer—plus a mini HDMI port. Its poor sRGB color-gamut coverage makes it best for working with text and spreadsheets (versus photos and video), but it shines brighter than most mobile panels. Its surprising wealth of features, including built-in speakers, makes it our latest portable-monitor Editors’ Choice, despite its par-for-the-course panel.
A Standout Stand, and More
The VG1655, black in front and silver on the sides and back, measures 8.8 by 14 by 0.6 inches (HWD). The top three inches of the screen are amazingly thin (about 0.3 inch), while the bottom—which holds the ports—widens to 0.6 inch. The panel is a 15.6-inch IPS screen with a native resolution of 1080p (1,920 by 1,080 pixels). This is the de facto standard for recent laptop-friendly portable monitors.
In back is a hinged, fold-out stand, supporting about a 45-degree tilt range, more than even most desktop monitors...
The VG1655 is one of the few portable monitors we have reviewed that incorporates a built-in stand, others being the Editors' Choice Lenovo ThinkVision M14 and the ViewSonic TD1655, this monitor's touch-screen variant. Most portable monitors include a stiff, magnetic board with grooves, which can be folded to support the panel as a primitive stand and which doubles as a protective cover. The VG1655 comes with one as well; it can serve as a base, and the grooves can also hold the monitor and stand when rotated into portrait position.
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Inputs include two USB-C ports, one of which supports data and video transfer, the other up to 60 watts of power delivery when the monitor is connected via USB-C cable to the included wall adapter or a laptop. In addition, there's a mini HDMI port, along with a mini-HDMI-to-HDMI cable. You'll also find an audio-out jack for connecting to headphones if you prefer using those to the display's built-in speakers.
OSD Controls: Sophisticated, But Easy to Use
It is easy to navigate the VG1655's OSD menus, thanks to a five-way mini-joystick controller, located at the monitor's lower right corner in back. In effect, it is the equivalent of four arrow buttons (pressing the stick up, down, right, or left) plus an Enter button (pressing the stick straight in).
While some mobile monitors include a bare-bones OSD with few options beyond changing brightness and contrast, the VG1655 has a full, neatly organized display, the rival of many desktop OSDs. The six items in the main menu are Input Select (HDMI or USB Type-C), Audio Adjust (Volume and Mute), View Mode (Office, Movie, Mac, Mono, Game, and Off), Color Adjust (Contrast/Brightness, Color Temperature, Color Space, Color Range, and Gamma), Manual Image Adjust (Sharpness, Aspect Ratio, Overscan, and Blue Light Filter), and Setup Menu (with a wide range of options). That's a desktop-monitor-style selection in a portable monitor.
To the OSD's right is a diagram of the controller, showing what each press of the joystick will do. The choices change depending on where you are in the menu system. In all, it's much better to finagle than most mobile-monitor display schemes.
As is typical of IPS panels, the VG1655 offers broad viewing angles (rated at 178 degrees for both vertical and horizontal). Colors were only minimally affected by looking at sample images at extreme off-center angles in our testing.
ViewSonic backs the VG1655 with a solid three-year warranty.
Testing the VG1655: Bright Panel, Muted Colors
I did our brightness, contrast, and color-gamut testing using a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays' CalMAN 5 software. (See how we test monitors.)
ViewSonic rates the VG1655's maximum luminance at 250 nits (candelas per meter squared); in our testing, it came very close to that, coming in at 245 nits. I measured its contrast ratio at 1,040:1, a tad better than its 1,000:1 rating.
In our color-coverage testing, the VG1655 nailed just 61.1 percent of the sRGB color space (see the chromaticity chart below). The triangle represents the colors that comprise sRGB—essentially, all the colors that can be made by mixing different percentages of red, green, and blue. The white boxes show where the data points would be for a monitor that covers the full sRGB space, and the circles represent our own measurements.
Several of our test points are well within the triangle, showing a crimped color gamut, particularly near the red/purple/blue part of the spectrum. Notice, though, that the blue circle is slightly outside of the triangle.
This is actually a very familiar color signature, a pattern that we have seen in nearly all the portable-monitor panels we have tested since 2019—we suspect that most of the core panels have come from the same source or similar sources. The VG1655’s 61.1 percent of sRGB is at the low end of their color coverage, but the others haven’t been much better—the Asus ZenScreen Go turned in 72.7 percent of sRGB, with the other monitors showing this particular color pattern falling between the two. In a desktop monitor, we look for at least 95 percent sRGB coverage, and the only general-purpose portable monitor that has topped that is the Lenovo ThinkVision M14, which covered 97 percent of sRGB.
In looking at video with the VG1655, the effects of this limited color gamut were visible in that reds, purples, and greens frequently looked a bit dull. This was true in both the monitor's default mode and in its Movie mode. In viewing our selection of test photos, the situation was similar, with slightly muted reds and greens.
The takeaway from this? The VG1655 is acceptable for casual video and photo viewing, but photo buffs and videophiles will prefer a mobile monitor with more robust color coverage, such as the Lenovo ThinkVision M14.
Audio from the VG1655's pair of 0.8-watt speakers is soft, but the speakers could prove useful in a pinch. Many mobile monitors do not include speakers at all; the Lepow 15.6-Inch USB-C Portable Monitor, the MSI Optix MAG161V, and the Editors' Choice Asus ZenScreen Touch are a few that do.
Doing Small Screens Right, in the Little Details
The ViewSonic VG1655 has a typical screen for a portable monitor, a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS panel with rather limited color coverage, making the display more suitable for business than entertainment. It is brighter than average, and it has a contrast ratio slightly better than its rating.
Where it really stands out, though, is in those few special features: its built-in, fold-out stand with a wide tilt range, the sophisticated OSD, and the mini-joystick controller for breezing through the menus. With these extras, and a reasonable price, the VG1655 earns our Editors' Choice high-five as a general-purpose mobile monitor.
ViewSonic's 15.6-inch VG1655 has the same limited color coverage as most other portable monitors we've tested, but it's one of the few to offer a built-in stand, a five-way mini-joystick controller, and a sophisticated onscreen display. It muscles out a win on the strength of those convenience features.
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