Looking for a reasonably priced portable monitor to pair with a smaller laptop? The Lepow Lite H1 Portable Monitor ($199.99) just might be your second-screen buddy. This compact, lightweight 14-inch portable display can be used for both business and entertainment, providing great color coverage at a price that undercuts some competing panels. The brightness levels could use a kick up, and we have a quibble with the control ergonomics, but this easy-to-tote display is a reasonable productivity companion for the many 13- and 14-inch ultraportables that power day-to-day work.
A Compact, Highly Portable Panel
Based in Shenzhen, China, Lepow sells its products in the US primarily through Amazon. The Lite H1 is the second Lepow monitor we have reviewed, after the Lepow 15.6-Inch USB-C Portable Monitor. In Amazon’s product listings, it is not always easy to distinguish one Lepow monitor from another, as they are first identified by features rather than product name; here is the correct Amazon link for the Lepow Lite H1.
Black with silver trim, the Lite H1 measures 8.1 by 12 by 0.5 inches (HWD). The top edge of the chassis is even thinner (0.2 inch), while a protrusion at the bottom, in back, holds the built-in speakers, switches, and ports.
The heart of this monitor is its 14-inch in-plane switching (IPS) panel at full HD/1080p resolution (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. It has narrow bezels on the top and sides and a nearly inch-thick bezel below the panel.
Most of the portable monitors we have reviewed have had 15.6-inch screens, but 14 inches (measured diagonally) is emerging as a second popular screen size. Though smaller, that size makes for a better companion for ultraportable laptops with 12- to 14-inch screens than the bigger portable monitors do. Notable 14-inchers we have reviewed include the Editors’ Choice-winning Lenovo ThinkVision M14, the HP EliteDisplay S14, and the touch-enabled Lenovo ThinkVision M14t.
As is typical of monitors based on IPS panels, the Lite H1 offers broad viewing angles (rated at 178 degrees for both vertical and horizontal). Colors were only minimally affected by looking at sample images at extreme off-center angles in our testing.
The ports and switches face upward in back. They include a power switch, a roll wheel to control the onscreen display (OSD), a 3.5mm headphone jack, a mini-HDMI port, and two USB Type-C ports. Of the USB-C ports, one is meant to provide power from an AC adapter, and one to receive data and/or video.
The Lepow comes with a matte-black protective cover, which folds around the display to shield the front, aided by a piece of foam board cut to the size of the panel. The cover doubles as a foldable stand. One edge contains a magnetized strip that adheres to and props up the back of the monitor. Unlike the 15.6-inch version of the Lepow, whose stand is limited to landscape mode, the Lite H1 contains an extra strip you can use to prop the panel into portrait mode. The included user guide shows you how to rotate the onscreen image to portrait mode in Windows to match the monitor’s physical rotation. (It’s not automatic.)
Although its ability to support portrait mode makes the Lite H1’s folding cover/stand mashup one of the better of its kind, it is still primitive compared with the Lenovo ThinkVision M14t’s hinged metal stand, which allows for smooth movement, easy stowing, and an adjustment range from flat to 90 degrees.
A Look at the OSD: Please Move Your Wheel
You access the Lite H1’s OSD using the aforementioned wheel, which Lepow dubs a “roll key.” In effect, it is a small button on a tiny geared wheel. You can either push the button in (to open the OSD or select a menu choice) or rotate the wheel up or down (to navigate among menu items or adjust values such as brightness or contrast).
The wheel, and the OSD’s menu choices, are very similar to what’s on the 15.6-inch Lepow, but with one important difference: With that display, the roll key is on the panel’s right-hand edge near the bottom, but with the Lite H1, it is in back. I much preferred the configuration with the wheel on the edge. Due to its positioning, I found the Lite H1’s wheel more difficult to manipulate. The wheel’s poor placement is mitigated by the fact that you are unlikely to need to change settings on a monitor like this all that often.
The first OSD menu choice, labeled Brightness, lets you control brightness, contrast, black level, and sharpness over a range of 0 to 100. Next is the Image menu. The first item, called Eco, lets you choose among six picture modes: Standard, Game, Movie, Text, RTS, and FPS. The second, DCR, lets you enable or disable dynamic contrast ratio. The third, Aspect, lets you choose between a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio or the classic 4:3 ratio.
From the Color Temperature menu, you can choose among Cool, Warm, and a user mode that lets you set red, green, and blue values individually. Then there are three OSD Setting menus, which let you perform tasks such as choosing a language, muting or adjusting the speaker volume, selecting a port (USB-C or HDMI) for the signal source, enabling a low-blue-light mode, performing a factory reset, and enabling or disabling the high dynamic range (HDR) mode.
I tried the HDR mode, which is labeled “2,084,” essentially the HDR10 standard used in nearly all HDR monitors. I went into the Windows 10 display menu and checked the Windows HD Color settings, but they showed no indication that the Lepow could support HDR. This led me to suspect an HDR emulation—that is, various tweaks to color, contrast, and brightness designed to simulate true HDR.
The built-in speaker pair was faint compared with my laptop’s set, but they could be a useful convenience when using a gaming console or other device that lacks its own speakers. Just don’t expect too much oomph from them.
Lepow backs the Lite H1 with a mere one-year warranty, although you can extend it for another 30 months by registering the product. Although we have seen this occasionally with other monitors, registration really should not be a stipulation for the extended coverage.
Testing the Lite H1: Good Color and Contrast
As usual, I performed our color, brightness, and contrast testing using a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ CalMAN software.
Lepow doesn’t give a specific luminance (brightness per unit area) rating for the Lite H1, but instead offers a range: 250 to 300 candelas per meter squared (nits), plus or minus 20 nits. I tested it in several color modes, with brightness set at 100%. It was brightest in Standard mode, but it still mustered just 160 nits in my testing. This situation is not unlike the Lepow 15.6-Inch USB-C Portable Monitor, which was rated at 300 nits but tested at a mere 196. (See more about how we test monitors.)
Still, this is not unusually dim for a portable monitor. Most we’ve tested fall in the 180-to-210-nit range. Exceptions include the Lenovo ThinkVision M14 (280 nits) and the ViewSonic VG1655 (245 nits). The espresso Display (15-inch), which we recently reviewed, had a tested brightness of 202 nits despite its 300-nit rating.
The Lite H1 did better in contrast-ratio testing, where its 1,288:1 ratio exceeded its 1,000:1 rating. It also did very well in its coverage of the sRGB color space…
In testing in Standard mode, the Lite H1 covered 99% of sRGB, the standard gamut for online art and many other applications. (See the chromaticity or color coverage chart above.) Most mobile monitors cover only between 60% and 72% of sRGB. For example, when we tested it in late 2019, the Lepow 15.6-Inch USB-C Portable Monitor only covered 65% of sRGB.
That suggests a higher-quality panel. The Lite H1 is a welcome addition to the handful of portable monitors that have done better in our testing, joining the Lenovo ThinkVision M14 and ThinkVision M14t, which scored about 97% apiece, and the 15-inch espresso Display, which covered a full 100% of the sRGB space.
I also did our usual ad-hoc testing, viewing documents, web pages, video clips, and photos. The panel handled colors in photos and video well, as befitting a display with such strong sRGB color coverage. It also did well with contrast, with a slight improvement in its ability to render detail in dark areas in both still images and video when DCR was enabled. While DCR somewhat enhanced image quality, enabling HDR didn’t help, and it even gave video content a bit of a reddish tinge. As a result, between these two contrast-enhancing modes, DCR was preferable.
Verdict: For the Money, Take Good Color With You
Compact and lightweight, the Lepow Lite H1 Portable Monitor is worth a look as an auxiliary monitor for a small laptop. Its excellent sRGB color coverage makes it usable for entertainment or light photo work, and it is moderately priced for the field.
Its brightness is on the low side compared with other 14-inch monitors like the Lenovo ThinkVision M14 and M14t, and its stand is more primitive, but it provides good value. We still recommend the ThinkVision M14 as our top 14-inch portable monitor, especially if you will use your panel in challenging lighting situations that require a bit more brightness. But with the Lite H1, you get a capable panel with fine color for a bit less money.
