Viewsonic VG1656N Portable Monitor Review: If, and Only If, Wireless Is What You're After

Pros

• Over 3 hours of wireless operation
• USB-C connections on either side

Cons

• Low-quality display
• Worse wireless performance
• No battery meter
• Too expensive

• Viewsonic VG1656N Portable Monitor Review: If, and Only If, Wireless Is What You're After
• Viewsonic VG1656N Tested Results
• How we test monitors

The Viewsonic VG1656N is a unique option within the portable monitor market due to its wireless capabilities. While other monitors include a handful of cables to wire them up, the Viewsonic VG1656N includes a small USB-C dongle that transmits video wirelessly from your computer, phone and even some gaming devices. However, that's about all that it has to make it stand out. It seems that feature alone contributes to VG1656N's decidedly premium price of $339. 

Even the "wireless" aspect of the monitor comes with caveats. The VG1656N still needs power. Its internal battery lasted 3 hours and 33 minutes in my testing, but there's no way to see the battery level. So you'll always want to keep a USB-C cable handy. 

Then there's the fact that the monitor operates worse when connected wirelessly. There's more latency and noticeable compression in the image. The latter makes everything from videos to photos, even simple text, look less sharp. That's a problem since the visuals aren't all that great to begin with, even over a wired connection. 

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The VG1656N offers a paltry 65% coverage of the sRGB color space (50% DCI-P3) and only hits 268 nits of brightness (though that's helped visually by a matte display coating). The 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution and 60Hz refresh rate are fairly basic. That would be fine on a $100 monitor, but this is a $330 monitor. For comparison, the Arzopa Z1RC may lack that wireless connection but is otherwise just as big, sharper (1600p), more colorful (100% sRGB), brighter (368 nits) and far cheaper ($150).

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The rest of the experience isn't so hot either. The extra capabilities make the VG1656N slightly thicker than average for a portable monitor, at 9.6mm (14.8mm with the case), and heavier than average, at 872 grams (1,390 grams with the case). The speakers are somewhat weak at their default, 50% volume. Cranking them up, they get a little louder but sound bad. They distort slightly and are grating to listen to. The settings menus are simple but tedious to navigate (and, no, they don't show the battery level). 

Mark Knapp/CNET

Worse, the monitor doesn't automatically switch sources, and it's aggressive about powering down. In practice, this means that if it was last used with a wired connection and you try to power it up and use a wireless connection, you may get stuck. I could not get it to power up and open the input selection menu before it would power itself right back down (even on AC power). I had to go back to wired video, change inputs to wireless and then switch to the dongle. So again, you'll always want to keep a USB-C cable handy. 

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To its credit, the VG1656N at least comes bundled with a few accessories. One is the folio cover that doubles as a stand. It's a necessity though, as there's no VESA support or kickstand built in. The other is a 60-watt charging brick, though it's awkwardly large for a portability-minded product.

With only one standout feature to its name and quite a few major drawbacks, including issues stemming from that standout feature, the Viewsonic VG1656N winds up hard to recommend unless your circumstances demand a wireless monitor. 

Mark Knapp/CNET

How we test monitors

Measurements for the ViewSonic VG1656N were taken using a Spyder X2 Ultra colorimeter using DataColor's Spyder X2 software for SDR. On the most basic monitors, we may stick with testing just brightness, contrast and color gamut, while on more capable displays, we may run tests of most user-selectable modes for gaming or color-critical usage, uniformity and so on. For color, we may also run tests to verify how white point accuracy varies with brightness. We also use Blur Busters motion tests to judge motion artifacts (such as ghosting) or refresh rate-related problems that can affect gaming. 

Keep in mind that individual results can vary from a manufacturer's reported results for a variety of reasons, including using a different colorimeter, monitor settings (manufacturers rarely provide the OSD settings used for their tests) and so on.