ViewSonic 4104156 Giallo 2017

The ViewSonic 4104156 is a lightweight portable display that nails compactness but misses on almost everything else. Gaming and office performance are both near the bottom of our database, and connectivity is extremely limited. Unless portability is your only priority, there are better options out there.

Performance is where this thing really struggles. It lands in the 22nd percentile overall, which translates to "falls behind most" in our book. The display score is even lower at the 32nd percentile, so you're not getting a great panel here. Colors sit at the 16th percentile, which means if you're doing any kind of photo editing or color-sensitive work, you'll be fighting this screen the whole time. The feature set is also thin, coming in at the 21st percentile.

For gaming, the 13.2 out of 100 score tells you everything. This isn't a gaming monitor, and it doesn't pretend to be. No high refresh rates, no adaptive sync, nothing that would make a gamer happy. If you plug a console into this thing, you'll get a picture, but that's about the nicest thing we can say. The ergonomics are also a weak spot at the 10th percentile, so don't expect much in the way of stand adjustability or viewing comfort.

Stacking this against the competition is almost unfair. The LG UltraGear 45GX950A-B is a massive ultrawide gaming monitor with specs that would make this ViewSonic look like a calculator screen. The ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCDMG is a 27-inch QD-OLED that's built for speed and color accuracy, two things this portable display simply doesn't have. Even the Alienware AW3425DW and Samsung Odyssey G60SD are gaming-focused panels that blow past the 4104156 in every performance category.

But here's the thing. Those are all desktop monitors. The ViewSonic 4104156 is a portable display, so it's playing a different game. The problem is that even among portable displays, the scores are weak. The MSI MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 is another desktop option, but it shows what's possible when a manufacturer actually tries. If you need portability, there are better portable monitors out there with stronger connectivity and better panels. This one just doesn't compete.

Without a price, we can't tell you if this is a good deal or a rip-off. But here's what we can say. The scores are low enough that even a cheap price might not save it. If this thing costs more than a basic portable monitor from a budget brand, you're probably overpaying. The LG UltraGear 45GX950A-B and ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCDMG are in a completely different league, but they're also likely much more expensive. The real question is whether you can find a better portable display for similar money, and based on the 7th percentile connectivity score and 10th percentile ergonomics, the answer is probably yes.

The ViewSonic 4104156 is one of those products that makes you scratch your head when you look at the spec sheet. It's a portable display that weighs 630g, which puts it in the compact category, and honestly, that's the one area where it shines. Our database shows it lands in the 86th percentile for compactness, so if you need something light to toss in a bag, it's got that going for it. But the moment you start asking the questions people actually type into search boxes, like "is this good for gaming?" or "can I use this for office work?", the answers get rough fast.

We don't have a price on this one, which makes value tricky to pin down. What we do know is that the specs point to a display that's built for portability first and everything else second. The gaming score sits at 13.2 out of 100, and office use is even worse at 7.8. That's not a typo. If you're hunting for a portable monitor to get work done on the go, this probably isn't the one.

And here's the weird part. The product description reads like it was written for a Kyocera toner cartridge, not a display. We're not sure what happened there, but it talks about print quality, ISO14001, and climate-neutral toner. So either someone copy-pasted the wrong description, or ViewSonic has branched out into printer supplies in a very confusing way. Either way, we're reviewing the display based on the specs and scores we have, not the toner marketing copy.

Skip this if you need a display for any kind of serious work or play. Office users will hate the 7.8 office score and limited connectivity. Gamers should look at something like the ASUS ROG Strix XG27UCDMG or Samsung Odyssey G60SD instead. Creative professionals who care about color accuracy will find the 16th percentile color score unacceptable. Even casual users who want to plug in multiple devices should be wary, since connectivity ranks in the 7th percentile. The only people who might be happy with this are those who need the absolute lightest screen possible and don't care about image quality or ports.

Should you buy this? Probably not. Unless you need the absolute lightest possible display and literally nothing else matters, the ViewSonic 4104156 falls short in too many areas. The compact size is genuinely nice, and 630g is impressively light. But a portable display that's hard to connect to things and has mediocre image quality isn't solving anyone's problems.

If you're looking for a portable monitor for travel or a second screen for your laptop, we'd suggest looking at options with better connectivity scores and at least average display quality. This one feels like it was designed to hit a weight target and nothing else. The office score of 7.8 out of 100 is one of the lowest we've seen in this category, and that's saying something.