AOC I1601FWUX

amazon AOC I1601FWUX reviews

You don’t need to be limited by the small screen of your laptop if you’re drafting a proposal in your hotel room or presenting to a small group anymore: The age of mobile screens has truly arrived. You can increase your screen space with a portable display like the AOC I1601FWUX USB-C Portable Monitor, a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that weighs less than 1 kg and sits on a stand sturdy, foldable. Note that the I1601FWUX is best suited for work use rather than entertainment, as its colors are somewhat faded. Also, it only connects via USB-C, and your laptop’s USB-C port needs to support the DisplayPort-over-USB protocol. But if your laptop fits the bill, it’s a sleek second-screen solution that requires only a single cable connection for signal and power.

A magnetic, foldable stand

Design-wise, the I1601FWUX is a sleek device with its aluminum back and sides, rounded corners, and the glossy black bezel surrounding the 15.6-inch in-plane switching (IPS) panel. The screen measures 9.2 x 14.9 x 0.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.8 pounds. Like most portable monitors we’ve reviewed over the past year — including the 15.6-inch USB-C Lepow Portable Monitor and two 14-inch displays, the HP EliteDisplay S14 and the Lenovo ThinkVision M14.

The protective cover of the I1601FWUX serves as a foldable stand with magnetized edges for mounting to the console. By adjusting the position where the magnetization strip meets the back of the screen, you can adjust the tilt from 5 degrees from vertical (away from you) to 20 degrees towards you.

It does not support rotation adjustment (which you can easily do manually) and cannot adjust its height, but you can rotate from landscape to portrait (or back) just by removing the I1601FWUX from a stand; rotate it 90 degrees, and reattach to the stand.

While the stand isn’t interchangeable for the kind you get with a non-portable desktop monitor, it’s a decent fit compared to similar portable monitor stands I’ve come across. Best of all, it’s very sturdy – it didn’t collapse once, unlike some other portable display stands I’ve tried.

Connect and control

AOC has taken a minimalist approach to connections and controls on the I1601FWUX. Near the bottom, the left edge of the screen is the power button — which doubles as on-screen display control (OSD) — and the USB-C port.

Pressing and quickly releasing the power/OSD button while the screen is on brings you to a six-item menu (Brightness, Contrast, Acceleration, Low Blue Light, Language, and Exit). Overdrive is an interesting addition; it allows you to speed up pixel response times, although it seems like an unnecessary feature for screens of this type. You cycle through menu items by pressing and releasing the button, then releasing it when it reaches the item you want. You change its settings again by pressing the button. It’s not the easiest way to get around, but it gets the job done.

For navigation, you might also want to try i-Menu, one of many — with one to save power and one to split the screen between windows, which may not be useful for 15-inch monitors — comes on disc with a monitor that can also be downloaded from the AOC Site. With i-Menu, you can control brightness, contrast, and other settings and rotate the image on the screen by 90 or 180 degrees from your computer in software, not by messing around power/OSD button.

USB-C and USB-C only

As mentioned earlier, this AOC console has only one video input: a USB Type-C connector. In this case, the USB-C interface supports DisplayPort over USB, allowing the monitor to power — and receive video signals — from the computer over the USB-C connection.

Because of its versatility in reducing cable clutter and providing “alternative modes” like DisplayPort over USB and Thunderbolt 3, USB-C connectivity has become very popular. (Incidentally, Thunderbolt 3 counts DisplayPort over USB as a subset of its functionality while also supporting greater data transfer speeds.) We see USB-C in many new laptops; in some cases, my Dell XPS 13 has three USB-C ports — the only USB port on the laptop is USB-C. Many new laptops with USB-C ports should support DisplayPort over USB on at least one of them, but this may not be the case for more than a year old models. You’ll want to check; having a USB-C port doesn’t necessarily mean it supports DisplayPort signals on it. Some of these ports are for data transmission only.

Case in point: It’s time to do a color and brightness test of the I1601FWUX; I can’t get our tested PC to recognize the console when I connect a cable between them. After troubleshooting, trying different hubs to connect the monitor, laptop, and signal generator, I checked the laptop’s USB-C port. I found that it only supports data transfer and does not must DisplayPort over USB. To test the screen, we had to install the test software on another laptop. So, before you buy this monitor, make sure the computer you’re going to pair it with supports DisplayPort over USB-C.

Good resolution, light colors

I performed our brightness and color tests in standard mode using a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, an X-Rite i1Basic Pro 2 color profiler, and software. Portrait Displays CalMAN 5. AOC rated the maximum brightness of the I1601FWUX as 220 nits (candelas per meter squared); in our testing, it fell a bit short of that, reaching 182 nits, which is still a decent brightness setting for a portable display.

In our color testing, the I1601FWUX covered only 61.4% of the sRGB color space. The triangles represent colors, including sRGB — essentially, all colors can be created by mixing different percentages of red, green, and blue. The white boxes show the locations of the data points for a full sRGB display.

Some of our test scores — the black circles — are within the triangle, which shows that the panel can display less than two-thirds of the sRGB colors, especially for the spectrum’s red/purple/blue section.

The overall pattern of the histogram is very similar to that of Lepow’s 15.6-inch USB-C Portable Monitor, which is also a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS panel, which has the same blue point outside of the sRGB space, and The color gamut is cut towards purple. Lepow did slightly better than the AOC, covering 65.4% sRGB, but we rarely see desktop monitors covering less than 90% of sRGB. These types of portable panels are usually intended for production use, not Photoshop goodies.

We’ve reviewed two other 1080p portable IPS panels. The HP EliteDisplay S14 shows the same general color pattern in its color chart as the I1601FWUX and Lepow. (At the time of our review, we couldn’t measure its percentage of color coverage.) In contrast, the Lenovo ThinkVision M14 displays a much wider color gamut (97 percent of the sRGB color space), and it does vivid colors in viewing photos, videos, and web pages.

Live test

I did most of my testing with the I1601FWUX using my late Dell XPS 13. I use the monitor to view office documents, surf the web, and view selected photos and video clips. Test results from the previous section are shown when viewing color images. Color often lacks breakthrough; this is most noticeable in red (looks orange) and purple. That will not be a good choice for photo editing. There are similar color issues in the video. In one clip, the screen amplified an artifact — a sky interwoven by a series of regular, faint curves — that was clear from the original video but barely visible on the laptop screen.

Overall, I rate this monitor as good for business documents and web surfing and decent (though not ideal) for casual photo viewing and light video viewing.

AOC offers a three-year warranty on the I1601FWUX, a typical display warranty.

A mobile screen for backpackers

Mobile screens need to be lightweight, and this AOC model fits. The i1601FWUX has a good mix of screen size (15.6 inches) and native resolution (1080p) while downsizing at less than two pounds. Provided your laptop has a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort over USB, you’ll appreciate this console’s one-cable convenience. (If not, look for a model with an HDMI input.)

However, AOC’s limited color gamut and often slightly muted colors are best suited for business use. It can fill up for recreational use quickly if you’re not too picky. In contrast, the Lenovo ThinkVision M14 covers almost the full sRGB color gamut and is our current top pick as a portable monitor for business or personal use.

However, the I1601FWUX does give you some extra screen space, and it might just drop down to the screen size of the laptop you plan to pair with your portable console. A 15.6-inch laptop screen might look better than another 15.6-inch screen for similarity, with two 14 inch plates. For basic productivity use, that can be a bigger determining factor than the subtlety of color reproduction.

where can you get a AOC I1601FWUX online

AOC I1601FWUX 15.6″ USB-C powered portable monitor, extremely slim, Full HD 1920×1080 IPS, SmartCover, AutoPivot (for devices w/ USB-C DP Alt Mode only): Buy it now

AOC i1601fwux 16-Inch IPS Extremely Slim USB-C Powered Portable Monitor, 1920×1080 Res, 5ms, Smart Cover/Stand (Renewed): Buy it now