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There’s no such thing as too much space, and that applies to screen real estate as well. While a secondary screen isn’t exactly a necessity, it’s something that’s very good to have if you want to up your productivity —- trust me, I know. Before I got myself a secondary laptop, it was either clicking back and forth between 20,000 tabs or splitting my already tiny 14” screen into two when I’m trying to work on more than one thing or just plain researching stuff.
Now that I have an external monitor, I honestly cannot imagine living without one, despite having to every now and then when I’m working out of home or the office. So when I got the opportunity to review the portable PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 16, I took it.
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Design & Build
Suffice to say, the Nomad Ultra 16 is an interesting product to review. It’s a portable monitor, which means unlike a regular monitor, it’s light, compact, and doesn’t have to be fixed to one place; on the other hand, it’s also much smaller than a typical external monitor, being only 15.6”, just a smidge larger than my laptop’s screen.
A smaller monitor means smaller ports: that means the Nomad Ultra 16 connects through a Mini-HDMI or a video-enabled USB-C, both of which came with the box.
The Nomad Ultra 16 lives up to its name as a portable monitor, being slim and lightweight enough to actually carry around without feeling like you’re carrying your entire workstation with you. In fact, with the silicon protection colour, it really just feels like a large tablet (that you can’t use on its own, unfortunately).
We also appreciated the matte finish and rounded edges, as they also make the monitor easy to carry around.
Display
The 15.6” OLED monitor has 150% sRGB with a peak brightness of 400cd/m². That’s just bright enough to use comfortably in a lighted indoor setting, though you wouldn’t want to use it outside in bright sunlight.
The aspect ratio of the monitor is a comfortable 1920 x 1080 with FHD resolution, but what really makes it stand out is the OLED panel. Having an OLED at a price below RM1,500 is hard to believe, but believe it you’d better, as the Nomad Ultra 16 has the vibrant colours and deep blacks that you would expect on an OLED.
However, with a “regular” resolution, the monitor doesn’t make the most of the OLED panel it has. The pictures it produced were okay, but not exactly stunning in any way. There’s still a “low resolution” feel to the display despite the vibrant colours, so honestly, I wouldn’t use it for anything graphically challenging like, say gaming or video editing.
There is a 4K model of the Nomad Ultra, which should fare better if you’re a professional creative working on the go. If you’re a gamer, well… it might be better to just go for an actual gaming monitor.
Connectivity & Audio
One thing that actually disappointed us in the Nomad Ultra 16 is that it doesn’t have an in-built battery — but given the price point, it’s fair enough. This meant that the monitor has to actually be plugged in somewhere in order to work, which kind of defeats the purpose of being portable.
As aforementioned, there are two input sources on the Nomad Ultra 16: USB-C (two ports) and a mini HDMI. The former doubles as a power source, so when we plugged the monitor into the laptop with a video-enabled USB-C cable, there was no need to have a separate power source. This is great if your laptop has multiple USB-C ports, not so great when you only have one and it’s your charging port.
If you’re using the mini-HDMI, though, you’ll need to plug the monitor into a power source through the USB-C, which is another annoying cable to add to the tangle on your table.
Audio-wise, the Nomad Ultra 16 did pretty well. Not mindblowing or anything — just decent, and in the greater scheme of things, who’s going to be playing audio out loud from their external monitor’s speakers? Honestly, just use your laptop’s, or put on some earbuds.
Conclusion
