Duex Plus Review: The Mini Display That Sold Us On Portable Monitors

Sep 10, 2023

What’s the best portable monitor right now? After months of actually using it, I’d say the Duex Plus from Mobile Pixels is a fantastic choice.

If you were to ask me that question a while ago, I’d shrug and be like “but why not a big display if you have the time to sit down and the need for a second screen?”.

Then I had to work a lot on my laptop on the tiniest desk at home… or on my knees in a field somewhere for a video shoot.

Even though I had some portable monitors around the office and studio, and was impressed by some of their capabilities, none of them actually managed to become a gadget I used daily – until the Duex Plus.

Duex Plus from Mobile Pixels is one of the best portable displays I ever used. It’s so straightforward you can’t help but fall in love with it.

The Duex Plus simply sticks on your laptop. It powers up and sends video signals just by connecting it to a regular USB-A port. It also has a vertical positioning option by default, with the stand that comes in the box.

Since I was too used to a dual or triple monitor workstation, it took a while to actually integrate this gadget into my workflow.

And integrate it I did, because I took the Duex everywhere – the office, shooting sets, home, on vacation.

So let’s dive into the Duex Plus review so you can see what exactly this portable monitor has to offer – from specs to actual real-life performance.

The Duex Plus comes with a 13.3″ diagonal screen Full HD IPS screen.

At first glance, the 11.7-inch by 6.5 viewing area seems small but, thanks to the 16:9 aspect ratio, it actually works great whether you watch a full-screen video or you use it vertically for scrolling on social media.

What’s really great is that this portable monitor is plug-and-play with nothing to set-up whatsoever. Just connect it via USB-C to your laptop and that’s it. Another nice bonus is that it charges through the same USB-A port you use to connect it to your laptop already, so this portable monitor doesn’t mean you have to deal with a bundle of cables.

Another great thing right out of the box is that you don’t need a portable monitor stand for the Duex Plus. This portable monitor has a sliding lid that works as a mount to attach it to the back of the laptop for landscape mode or as a prop stand for portrait mode.

When not in use, the sliding lid works as the display cover – great since this is a device meant to be thrown in your laptop bag. Considering the Duex Plus is just 1.3 lbs (590g), you will be taking it everywhere with you, since it adds negligible weight to your backpack or bag.

It’s great that you don’t need a portable monitor stand for it, though Mobile Pixels, the Duex Plus manufacturer, does offer the option of an origami monitor stand with a sleek design.

At a first glance the materials don’t look very premium somehow. It has a matte plastic body and the display appears fragile, a lot more fragile than say a phone screen. However, after spending more than six months with it, the Duex Plus is still in perfect shape and I can say now that this little fragile piece of tech is a monster.

Since I’ve started to play with portable displays last year, I’ve tested a few products in this category for different use cases.

At home, I sometimes have to video edit clips on a tiny desk, so a small and compact display is my only option for an expanded workspace.

This is also the only monitor I could use in decent conditions when working outside in plain sunlight, or on a train… and even on my knees. During those six months, the Duex Plus has been the best portable monitor I tried.

This portable monitor for the laptop helped me do live video coverage edits for Comic Con, big batches of photo edits at the office, relying on my laptop while the workstation was rendering videos, and also as a presentation tool, letting me show off content in both landscape and vertical mode.

As a videographer first, the Duex Plus portable monitor is a fantastic tool if you edit social media-friendly videos, whether it’s TikToks, YT shorts or Instagram reels, since you can use it vertically in its stand.

For events and field work, the Duex Plus also comes in very handy, since you don’t need to power it separately from your laptop – you just have your laptop brick and a single USB-C cable, no extra charging cables or portable batteries and so on.

Whenever we did live stream setups, the Duex Plus went from being a portable monitor for the laptop to becoming a larger video assist for the cameras.

At home, I also ended up buying yet another portable monitor (this model), since I managed to snag a good deal on Amazon and I wanted to keep the Duex Plus as a portable monitor for travel of all kinds.

And lastly, the Duex Plus was also a great portable monitor for fun. On vacation, my kids used it as a display for Switch and Steam Deck, gaming on the go on a bigger display. I also used this portable monitor with my phone – thanks to the included USB-C cable, I had a larger screen to stream Netflix on.

All in all, it was surprising how much I ended up actually using the Mobile Pixels Duex Plus, considering my earlier reticence. It’s a rare thing for me to rave about something but in this case the Duex Plus does deserve praise, having been a trusty sidekick for months.

The convenience of that extra 13-inch display and the multifunctional sliding case might seem like niche use cases but, once you try this portable monitor and see where it adds value to your workflow, you won’t want to go without it. If you’re a content creator, you’re definitely going to put it to good use.

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