AOC I1601FWUX 15.6" USB-C powered portable monitor, extremely slim, Full HD 1920x1080 IPS, SmartCover, AutoPivot (for devices w/ USB-C DP Alt Mode only)

Ive been using this monitor for the past few days. Initial impression: very happy with this monitor. A little background. Im software designer working from the road (random AirBNBs, hotels, public spaces & co-working spaces). My regular work setup consists of a powered standing desk, two 24in external monitors in addition to the 3rd monitor from my 15in MBP. I find that losing the additional monitors significantly lowered my productivity. My requirements for a portable monitor were: 1) Portability. I carry a 20L backpack by Peak Design. My whole workstation setup needed to fit in that pack. 2) Minimal additional gear. I didnt want to carry more stuff with me. I already had too much as it. 3) Seamless performance. The monitor needed to make my user experience better; not detract from it. In the past, Ive tried using my iPad Pro as a second monitor. Even with a wired connection, it had too much lag. Pros: 1) Portability: Its very light with a footprint that is slightly larger than my 15in MBP. It fit snugly into the laptop slot of my pack. Barely notice the addition. 2) Minimal additional gear: The only cable needed for this monitor is a USB-C cable. Power and video flows through this one cable. 3) Ease of setup: For my MBP, it was plug and play. No dongle. No additional software to install. Super simple. 4) Excellent design: The cover/stand is ingenious. The cover becomes the stand (one less thing to carry) and attaches to the monitor magnetically producing flexible viewing angle choices. 5) Performance: No lag. Good picture (Im comparing it the retina screen on MBP). The colors reproduction is acceptable. I plan to use as my secondary monitor. Cons: None yet. Final verdict: I would buy again.

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I purchased this monitor on December 10, 2016 and it worked great for a few months. But on April 10, 2017 it stopped working. When I plug it in the logo appears and then the screen goes blank. It will not do anything. I tried removing the driver and reinstalling it, but that didnt help. When I went to my order on Amazon to return it or get support, I got a message that said the return window closed on January 30, 2017 and support window closed on February 10, 2017. I guess you get what you pay for. I am not stopping here, I am going to Amazon to see what they can do to help me get my money back.

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Ive purchased about eight of these monitors so far to replace an earlier model for users who frequently travel to customer sites and need a second monitor. So far everyone has been very happy with the performance and image quality. Its very light weight, has a solid metal stand and is thin so portability isnt a problem. Three things to note: 1. The neoprene sleeve that is included in the box is pretty thin so while it keeps the monitor frame from minor scratches and bumps it does nothing to protect the actual LCD. It wouldve been nice if the sleeve was firm on one side to shield objects from applying pressure directly to the LCD panel. Best to add a rigid card or other cover to protect the panel while in the sleeve or buy a laptop bag to give it a little more protection. 2. The USB jack is in a better location than the previous version but is still extremely prone to damage. In fact, I just bought one last week where a user accidentally pulled the USB cord out (possibly dropped it while it was connected) and it has damaged the micro USB 3.0 port on the back of the display causing the display to flicker on and off; essentially e-waste. I might try to solder on a new jack if I can find the right part. The jack itself seems shallow so any micro USB 3.0 cable you plug into it doesnt seem to go all the way in and as a result makes for a loose connection to begin with. To improve the longevity and durability of these monitors, I take a few extra steps to adhere the usb cable with zip ties and tie mounts (need to notch out the tie mounts so the cable sits flush) to the back of the display to minimize the change of the USB port snapping off. Tie mount part number is Startech HC102, under $6 for 100 3. Its better to get the original USB display driver direct from DisplayLink http://www.displaylink.com/ I just bought some 6 inch micro USB cables to permanently affix it to the back of the panel so that users wont need to plug and unplug cables directly into the jack itself. Hopefully, this will keep the LCDs working longer.

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I bought this because I travel for work, and working with multiple windows on a laptop sucks sometimes. Its made my life much better away from my workstation, and overall Im very happy with the monitor. There are a few things that make me wonder if I should have purchased an Asus, but unless this thing craps out Ill keep it. Connectivity: The first thing everyone should know about this monitor is that the USB-C connection on this is very limiting. Youll need a machine with a USB-C port AND it must support "alt-mode" for transmitting video. You CANNOT use this with an adapter or a USB-A to C cable. Additionally, The monitor comes with a 3ft cable, but if you need to replace it youll need a compatible USB-C cable, as not all of them support alt-mode. Usability: The monitor comes with a magnetic screen cover/stand. As a screen cover its great. As a stand its okay. When using it as a stand there isnt a lot of adjustment you can make. It sits at a relatively vertical angle, and is fairly easy to push over. Itll definitely do in a pinch, but I would recommend a different stand. I bought a Moko wire-frame tablet stand that I recommend which has been super light and stable. https://www.amazon.com/MoKo-Foldable-Universal-Adjustable-Portable/dp/B017TU2WGS Aside from the USB-C woes mentioned above, the connection on this is on the left, and do is the port on my laptop. With provided software, you can rotate the image and use the screen upside down to make them face each other. Otherwise the three foot cable will be a little short, since it will have to wrap behind the screen. I didnt need to install any drivers on my Windows 10 Dell to make this work. Divers are available on the manufacturers website, or on the provided CD. There is additional software provided that allows you to change things like the brightness, contrast, and orientation, but youll need a CD drive, and the software is not hosted online. You can (slowly) accomplish some of the same things without the software using the one button on the side. The biggest annoyance Ive had with this might not be the fault of the manufacturer. When plugging it into my laptop Windows recognizes this as a monitor with audio, and tries to pipe sound through it. Even after choosing to use my laptops internal components from the sound menu, Skype still wanted to use the monitor for speakers and microphone (which the monitor does not have to my knowledge). Disabling the monitor as an audio device altogether seems to have fixed this, but it was a pain to troubleshoot Skype. Size and weight: I really enjoy the portably of this monitor. It has an aluminum body, so its strong and light. 15.6 inches is exactly the same size as my laptop, so they both fit easily into my bag. It only weighs a couple pounds, so I barely notice it in my bag. Screen quality: I havent watched much video content or played any games on this screen. There is a noticable lag when mirroring the screen, so I imagine it would be bad for gaming. The color and picture dont seem to be great for things like image editing, but thats not what this monitor is generally for. For general office tasks it works just fine, and the resolution is good enough. My overall thoughts are that the monitor has proved great for my purposes, but I wish it was a more universal. I have one laptop with no USB-C ports, so it is incompatible, and even my USB-C phone wont work with it. I can deal with the quirks, but I think having a USB-A or or Micro-B port would have solved many of those issues, and made this a much better device. I think this is targeted more at MacBook Pro users, though, so maybe that was my bad. Even so, there are more and more compatible devices all the time, since USB-C is the new gold standard.

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Ive been keeping my eye on USB displays for a while now, and when I saw this one was going to be released soon I couldnt wait to get my hands on it. I work the majority of my day staring at four displays split between two systems, a Win-based one for work, and a Mac based one for photography/research/etc. Occasionally I have to be mobile, and once youre used to being able to organize your open windows on multiple displays, working in one display can be a bit constraining. This display works great for both systems (Mac drivers not included, but available from DisplayLink site). On a Windows system it automatically detects rotation, on the Mac, it had to be set manually, but for me this is a non issue as I dont rotate my display often. The glossy display is a minor drawback, you might need to adjust the angle until you get rid of unseemly reflections, but the viewing angle is fairly forgiving. Reviews on the former device noted lack of a protective sleeve for transport and storage. This version came with a fabric/neoprene sleeve that fits perfectly, even with the cable tucked into the arm-stand cavity. Which bring up another complaint about the former model, the arm-stand is no longer a solid wedge, it is now a loop which does not interfere with the cable or block the USB3.0 port when closed. The resolution hasnt changed from the former release, but even with the awkward ratio, I find it more than sufficient for a web browser, text editor, or an array of IM windows. and with Auto rotation on Windows, it will probably serve fine for PDF/Doc viewing as well. The device comes with a USB cable that has a power pigtail on it, however, I did not need the pigtail for either my USB hub (which is powered by my Mac Book Pro) or plugging directly into my Win laptop. While my USB Hub is USB3.0 capable, neither the Windows nor the Mac Book are USB3.0 devices, so for those wondering if it was a showstopper, fear not, USB2.0 is sufficient to run this display. Im incredibly happy with this and am relieved to know that on those occasions where I have to work from a hotel room, or other office environment I wont have to go scrounging around for a second display or cramming all my windows into one display. This product would have gotten 5 stars if it had better out-of-the-box support for Mac users. Finding drivers was not intuitive, I went to AOCs site and noted the e1659Fwu did not have Mac drivers listed. I decided to try the e1649Fwu drivers only to realize their Mac Drivers were hosted directly by DisplayLink, which means the drivers are not specific to device itself, which is good news for Mac users. I also would have liked it if auto-rotate were supported in the Mac, but thats something I can ask DisplayLink about.

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Have owned two AOC monitors. This monitor and the previous model. Very much "babied" both monitors. Both broke within 8 months. Both monitors broke where the wire connects to the monitor. If you buy one of these monitors and do not travel with it then it is a nice monitor. One feature that it does have is that when you move it from the landscape to the portrait position the content also assumes that configuration. This a nice feature when you are working on something like an XL spreadsheet. If you want a monitor to use for travel or if you are going to plug unplug this monitor on a frequent basis then my guess your monitor will break in 8 months.

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I was super excited about this monitor from the looks of it online, but was extremely disappointed upon receiving it. The monitor would simply turn on and say "no signal." After about 3 hours of troubleshooting and searching online forums for solutions, I finally found the explanation. Someone in one of the forums where they were having this very problem said that they called into to AOC technical support and they were told that the monitor was meant more to be used with MACs, and was only usable for usb-c ports that are thunderbolt enabled (which virtually no windows laptops under $1000 are). And that was only the first issue. They really havent updated the drivers for this these monitors since windows 8, and if you search online you can see that most people who had these have had nightmares with them after switching to windows 10. I wasnt able to find a single one of them who got the usb-c connector one to work. If you have a MAC, you might get it to work (cant guarantee it though), but if you have a windows 10 laptop of any price or quality you are better off not spending your time or money on this one, cuz you will be returning it after 1 day of frustration as I have. I think AOC is guilty of some deceptive advertising here to be quite frank. Their website is a nonsensical jumble two, and I had to jump through hoops for 10 minutes on there just to find where to download it. On top of that, they compressed the drivers as .rar files, which meant that I had to find and download another program to even get the files downloaded, and even when I finished all that, they didnt work. Their website, support, and promises have all been garbage so far. I would recommend a portable monitor that actually has an hdmi or display port input. These usb monitors always have issues with drivers and updates. Even if it means one more cord, at least it actually works simply.

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I like this monitor so far! Its very very light weight and thin. I was a little worried that I wouldnt be able to download the software onto my Mac (2017) because of no CD drive, but I plugged in the monitor and it started working right away, so that was nice. Be sure that your computer has USB-C ports, or you can probably use an adapter. Pros: -Light weight, thin -Easy setup -Movable back so you can adjust the position -Large screen Cons: -Not great customer service, got sent to voice mail after being hold for less than five minutes -Screen could be a little brighter, but not a huge issue -The "case" is just a cover for the monitor, I would recommend getting a large case to put the screen in -On a mac, the screen only works horizontally (may be using it wrong and dont know how to get it to be vertical) Overall I intend on keeping this monitor and there havent been any issues yet.

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I was really happy with this purchase for about a week. After a week, white spots started forming all over the screen. At first it wasnt bad and barely noticeable. They have now gotten much bigger. I really did enjoy the extra screen real-estate this provided. I definitely got more done and was able to complete my work faster. Working from a laptop as my main workstation has been a pain until I came across this. I tried to take some pictures but the camera doesnt show it right. They are way more viable than what is shown.

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Pros: Full HD resolution (so windows move seamlessly across from my main laptop display), and great viewing from multiple angles with the IPS display technology. Driver is easy to install from the included disk, or from the AOC website. The built in stand is great - much, much better than the displays that try to use the case as a stand... This stand actually works! USB cable included. Case is decent for basic protection from scratches, etc. Its not designed to prevent flexing if you bend the display. Cons: I had no issues with any sort of screen lag - mouse, video or any other motion that I could detect. However, the color reproduction on this display is not particularly good. It really doesnt reproduce blues very well. There is an obvious difference from my laptop. Its not a big deal for me as full HD and IPS viewing angles at this price are a great deal, but if you are trying to do something that is color critical, I wouldnt recommend this.

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