The Espresso Pro Portable Monitor is a revolution in remote working

Most tools are repetitive in the value they add to our lives. the 15.6-inch portable Espresso Pro monitor It’s different, as I completely changed the way I work remotely during the last month of testing.

You see, I spend a lot of time working from my truck, which makes me miss my dual-monitor setup at home — it’s hard to adjust to a single 14-inch laptop screen after regularly working on a pair of 27-inch monitors. The Espresso allows me to zoom into this setup in tight spaces with a much thinner and lighter screen than the one Optimizes your Mac or Windows laptop. It is connected via a single USB-C cable.

I’m writing this from the “office” of my truck, where Espresso’s 4K (3840 x 2160) LCD touchscreen with 1.07 billion colors (100 percent Adobe RGB) hovers above my MacBook Pro on a small table — images being processed on one screen while I type these words on another. At night, I can replace my MacBook with an iPhone 15 Pro (or Android phone) to create a relatively large, shareable screen for watching movies in bed.

in $699 / €799 It’s not cheap, but after my laptop and Starlink mini internet connectionEspresso Pro is the tool I find myself relying on for remote work.

But then again, I don’t have an iPad.

the Espresso Pro 15 Surprisingly lightweight for its size. It measures 360 x 225 x 9 mm and weighs 800 grams. (It is also available in a larger size 17-inch model is $799.) The aluminum-coated screen feels somewhat hollow, and flexes when pressed between the fingers, as if it could still shed a few millimeters. However, it has survived weeks of abuse, including tipping over the screen, falling onto a carpeted floor, and hours of jostling its case due to driving on gravel roads.

As a companion device, it consumes 13 watts at a maximum brightness of 550 nits, or about 9 watts when dimmed to 300 nits. This is nothing compared to a traditional monitor, but it’s enough to cut my laptop’s battery life by almost half.

When connected with a single USB-C cable to my MacBook Pro, I can go about five hours before the laptop’s battery needs to be recharged—it usually lasts a full 8 to 10 hours a day. Fortunately, the Espresso Pro has two USB-C ports that support pass-through charging, so running a second USB-C cable from Apple’s wall charger to the display also charged my MacBook’s battery.

The Espresso Pro comes with a sturdy mini stand + stand that’s long enough to raise the screen over an open laptop, yet folds up very small. The versatile little stand almost justifies the price you pay for espresso monitors. It attaches to your Espresso Pro magnetically and is fairly secure. It’s fine for most desks, but with two people and a dog moving around inside my truck, I needed a solution that couldn’t fall off the table by accident. So, I had to get creative.

I bought this Kuxiu Magnetic Table Stand for iPad. But since its magnet was incorrect for the Espresso Pro, I ended up sticking the Espresso $49 VESA adapter To the iPad mounting plate. It’s a bit inelegant, but it allows me to securely mount and view the screen from a variety of angles inside and outside my truck. It is also stable enough to leave it attached to the table while driving.

I also installed the EspressoFlow app on my Mac to make the setup process a little easier. It helps capture and arrange windows on Mac and Windows, but is not required.

I don’t find the Espresso Pro’s touchscreen capabilities particularly useful with macOS. In fact, the touchscreen proved to be more annoying than useful when interacting with the screen. Then again, I haven’t tested it Espresso pen accessory.

Using the Espresso Pro with my iPhone was great for watching Netflix, Plex, and YouTube videos on a larger screen, but it has some limitations.

First, my iPhone 15 Pro isn’t powerful enough to power the Espresso Pro Display without connecting another USB-C cable to power. The Espresso also doesn’t support vertical screen rotation with my phone, so it’s not great for watching social videos on TikTok or Instagram. I also wish the Espresso Pro’s two downward-facing speakers were louder to make co-viewing more enjoyable, and I’ve found apps like DAZN — which is generally buggy, anyway — refuse to stream NFL games when connected. The on-screen controls for brightness, contrast, and volume are finicky, requiring several frustrating swipes to activate.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the 15.6-inch Espresso Pro’s ability to augment my otherwise weak laptop screen. Having a second monitor that I can set up virtually anywhere is a game-changer for my type of remote work.

Here’s the rub: Why should anyone buy a 15.6-inch Espresso Pro when, for an extra $100, you can own a new $799 13-inch iPad Air — a price that drops to about $639 if you’re willing to live with a refurbished model from Apple? You’re giving up a small screen but getting a much more capable device that can be used as a second display with the Apple Sidecar, Duet Display, or Luna Display for Windows PCs and older Macs.

On the other hand, it’s nice to have a device specifically designed to do one thing well, without any distractions. I can read e-books on my iPhone, for example, but it’s a much better experience on a Kindle. Sells espresso a 15.6-inch display for just $299 If you can live with a dull 1080p display.

Using the espresso monitor inside my small office for the past three weeks has been transformative, improving not only my own workflow, but my wife’s as well. Every morning, we make our case to whoever needs to use it the most, leaving one of us sad and one clear winner: Espresso Pro 15.

Photography by Thomas Ricker/The Verge