Performance

Before fully jumping into testing I do want to run through the specs of the AOC 16T2. As the model name indicates it is just a touch under 16 inches diagonal at 15.6 inches. It runs at 1080 x 1920 which is 1080p and has a refresh rate of 60 Hz. It’s an IPS panel with WLED or white LEDs for backlighting which gets it a 700:1 static contrast ratio and a brightness of 250. All of that can also be confirmed with what the monitor picks up in widows and with Passmark’s Monitor Test. The only exception to that is they have the screen size listed at 15.5 inches. It is also a touchscreen with a 10 point capacitive touch recognition.

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With the specs out of the way, I wanted to check out the 16T2’s menu system. To access it you have to press the menu button on the left side. I had to mess around with it a few times to figure out the controls because I initially thought maybe they were touch screen given the button like design. That didn’t work so I had to run through the buttons and interestingly the menu button does almost everything in the menu. You press it and bring up the full menu, then you have to keep pressing it to switch between options. Once you get to what you want, you wait and it will flash then open up. From there you can use the menu button to scroll up through the options or up through a setting bar, resetting at the top to the bottom until you stop on what you want. The lighting button backs you out. Adding one more button would make this much easier and it could also give the 16T2 dedicated volume up and down buttons when not in a menu.

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All of the normal menu options are there like contrast and brightness. HDR mode was an interesting find but the 16T2 isn’t listed as an HDR monitor. The mode just increases the dynamic range, but not up to full HDR levels from what I can see with moves for movies, games, and pictures. 

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Once I had the 16T2 up and running I ran it through our normal tests. I wasn’t expecting a gaming monitor or even a full editing monitor. This is still a portable monitor. But it did perform well. The test pattern has bright colors, good contrast between black and white, and straight lines. Gradients did have some lines in the middle of the greys and on the left side they didn’t fade into black as slowly as I would like. Sharpness was as good as you can expect for a 1080p monitor but there was some screen door effect that is noticeable when taking up-close pictures. Then for gamma, I tested it at 1.4 even though the Passmark specifications had it listed at 2.2.

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Response times were, well what you would expect for a low refresh rate monitor.

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The best thing about the IPS display is of course the viewing angles. I was able to use the 16T2 from any angle including laying flat on the table.

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Beyond all of the normal testing, this was my first experience with a portable monitor, how did it work out for me? Having the ability to double my desktop real estate on the go is huge in some situations. This isn’t something that I would want to bring with me on small trips. But when working remotely which I have been known to do it is very useful. People on the road doing business will benefit. The touchscreen worked well for me, but like with the touchscreen on my laptop, I don’t use it very often. I can see this being useful for someone who doesn’t have a touchscreen on their laptop and wants to use it for basic artwork. I did have one small complaint with the cord and the placement of the type-C connections down low. When you have your laptop next to the 16T2, the Type-C plug is very long and gets in the way, not letting you put them close together. But if you plug the cord in on the far side of your laptop, it isn’t long enough to also reach the far side of the screen as well to avoid the conflict.

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The other issue in my specific situation was with the overall size. It is extremely close to fitting into my 13-inch laptop bag. Most people have a larger bag and this won’t be an issue, but when looking for my laptop bag I wanted one that wasn’t much larger than the laptop for portability, and sadly as you can see the 16T2 sticks out at the corners. I can still bring it when needed this way, but it is extremely tight.

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