If you work on a computer all day, you'll eventually come to realize that a dual-screen setup (at least) is pretty much a requirement. I personally tried to resist the urge to upgrade for years before I finally caved, and it's hard to imagine living without it now. I even went ahead and eventually ended up buying a "super ultrawide" 32:9 monitor that's basically two screens in one.

But while that's my main setup in my home office, I still keep extra screens around, and for a while now, that extra screen has been a portable monitor, specifically this 16-inch Arzopa model that I've been a big fan of ever since I bought it. It's replaced my desktop monitors, so much so that I've sold those old screens or given them away.

It saves so much space

My desk is much cleaner

I've actually had this portable monitor for a few years, but it's only in the last few months that it truly became my second monitor for every situation. In my office, I have two desks, one with my main setup for writing, editing images, and so on, and then I have an old desk where I use other laptops or PCs when I need to do quick tests.

This is where I has my desktop monitors, and I tried to stick with them for a long time, but after a while, this got old. My second desk is relatively small, and I hate the idea that, by default, it's crammed full of devices. Desktop monitors are big, their bases take up a lot of space, and they're unsightly for photos, which made it harder to capture images for many of the articles I write.

I could unplug them and move them each time, but I also don't love having monitors on my floor where I might accidentally kick them, and even then, I have to reach around, unplug two cables from the monitor, and then move them, which is a hassle to do every time. Not to mention, they take another one of my outlets, when that space could be used for something else.

With the portable monitor, getting it on the desk and moving it out of the way is completely trivial. A 16-inch screen is still perfectly fine for doing the work I need to do, but it's much smaller, especially since it doesn't need a base. It fits perfectly next to my laptop on the desk space I have, and it makes for a more harmonious look if I want to take a photo with the two devices, too. Not only that, but I can easily switch the position of the laptop and the screen, which would be much more troublesome with a desktop monitor. And when I'm done, I just need to unplug a single cable (as a bonus, USB-C is much easier to unplug than HDMI, too), flip the cover over the portable monitor, and put it on a shelf. It looks far less intrusive.

I'm not limited to my office

Perfect when I need a change of scenery

As much as I love my home office, sitting in a small room by myself for eight (or more) hours a day can get pretty tiring, so one thing I sometimes want to do is moved to my living room while I work. This gives me a different view, different chair, and I can use the TV for some background noise if I so wish. Plus, it allows me to be less isolated from my family, which is also nice.

Of course, doing that with a desktop monitor would be more of a hassle for similar reasons to what I just described. It would take more space on the living room table, be harder to move, and take up another outlet in addition to my laptop, making it that much harder to find a place where I can even use my setup in the first place.

With a portable monitor, it's much easier. I can bring both the laptop and the extra screen with me with one go, including all the cables I need, and even my mouse. And I only need one outlet to charge the laptop itself, so finding space is much easier.

It helps that this is a fairly solid screen, too. With 2560x1600 resolution, I get a pretty big canvas to work on, so I don't feel that limited in what I can do compared to my main setup.

It's a perfect travel companion

It's saved me on multiple trips

Finally, because it's portable, of course this monitor is also a fantastic second screen by default when travelling. Long before it replaced my desktop monitors, this portable monitor was my second display when I was travelling. In fact, I bought it and had it shipped to my partner at the time before I was travelling to spend a month in her home country, where I still needed to keep working. This screen was a lifesaver during that trip, and it's been there for others, too.

I've used it as a second screen when I traveled to CES in 2024, as well as IFA later that year, as well as smaller trips. A while back, when I knew I had to drive my wife to and from college an hour away, I ended up just spending the day outside the home and working with these two screens. That's where articles like this one were written, and you can see the portable monitor in the featured image there.

Even when it's not a second monitor, it's very helpful. Last yeat, I participated in a "game jam" with some friends and I took a laptop with the portable monitor for some of the basic work I was doing. But then I had to create some visual assets, and that was easier with my Mac Mini, so I just brought it over and used the portable monitor as my main screen for image editing. It would have been a bit harder to fit a monitor in the crammed, shared space where the event was happening.

A portable monitor is invaluable

Unfortunately, the specific portable monitor I got seemed to go out of stock very shortly after I bought my own unit, but thankfully, there's no shortage of alternatives. Arzopa itself makes plenty of them, including some with similar specs. I've linked a unit below that has the same overall specs — 16-ich size, 2560x1600 resolution, and 60Hz refresh rate — but there are other options out there. This newer model is also much cheaper than what I paid for mine back in 2023, so I have no trouble recommending that you at least give it a shot.