Oiiwak 14″ Portable Dual-Monitor Extender Review — Maximized Utility

2020 was a massive acceleration for the work from home concept. COVID changed the landscape, and jobs that would “one day” become remote, or could “never be” remote, suddenly were not only able to be handled from home, but were also deemed essential. The economy ground to a halt, limping along as companies scrambled to figure out how to facilitate the sudden shift. More employees suddenly needed to build home offices, approximating what they had back at their corporate building. People suddenly found themselves traveling more and needing to carry their office to their destination – I was one of them.

My mobile workstation is an Acer Predator Triton 500 – an RTX 2080 Super-powered laptop with a 15.6″ LCD screen. Using a second screen means lugging out a full-sized monitor, complete with power and connectivity cable. A third monitor is completely infeasible. I’ve used magnetized secondary monitors that slide out, attached with adhesives, but the heat from the monitor rendered the sticky materials on the adhesive unsafe after a few months. There’s nothing quite so invigorating as when your second monitor suddenly flings itself off of your laptop, threatening to take the laptop with it! I needed a better solution. Oiiwak makes a monitor extender that not only uses a mechanical connection rather than an adhesive one, but also bumps the number of monitors up to three. Could this be the holy grail of portable multi-monitor productivity? Time to find out.

Unboxing the triple setup, I was floored at just how compact and simple it all truly is. The box for the device has a magnetized cover. Opening it reveals a soft pad with a faux leather-bound case underneath. If you were imagining that there would be a complicated list of crazy items, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Beyond a bevy of assorted cables, that’s the end of the list, beyond a small instruction manual.

Unpacked, you’ll find the OK14 Dual Monitor and case, of course, as well as two USB-C to USB-A, two USB-C to USB-C, and two HDMI to Mini HDMI cables — enough cables to connect this device to literally any configuration you could readily imagine on PC or Mac. We’ll get into specifics when we talk about configuration, but I was surprised to find all of these cables. The USB-C to USB-C cables have a 90 degree angle on one side – developer Oiiwak has given a great deal of thought about how these might be used, and how to keep things as compact as possible.

Opening the magnetized cover latch, the aluminum chassis will open via the central hinge joint, revealing the two monitors on each side. This chassis has two D-rings on the rear which you’ll use to open the spring to stretch it to fit your monitor. This model will fit anything from a 13″ to a 16″ laptop screen. On the rear of the case you’ll find a kickstand as well. On the top of the chassis you’ll find two small arms that will open, resting the device on top of your central monitor. Unfolding the screens and using the D-rings, I was able to easily unfold and place the entire device without an issue. Let’s talk about the kickstand because, surprisingly, it’s a stroke of genius.

The kickstand is aluminum and reinforced with very solid hinges, but that’s not the magic. It opens, allowing the pressure to be alleviated from your laptop’s hinges. This works perfectly if you are using the laptop sitting on a flat surface. I personally use a small stand to create a bit of an angle and allow airflow underneath. The kickstand doesn’t reach, and I immediately was concerned about stability – at least until I realized that the whole assembly can unlock and slide downward! With this kickstand extended, all of the pressure is alleviated from the laptop, providing stability across the entire assembly.

On the side of each monitor are two USB-C ports, and a Mini HDMI for video. If your laptop has a USB-C 2.0 port or better, you’ll be able to use that port and a single cable to power the device and carry a video signal. In the case of my Triton 500, it has only one USB-C port, so I’d have to use an alternative connection method.

Connecting the USB-C cable, that monitor immediately sprang to life without the need for any configuration. I connected the micro-HDMI cable to the left side of the laptop, and then to the side of the device – you’ll need connectivity on both sides, after all. This revision of HDMI doesn’t provide power, so I used a USB-A to USB-C cable to do exactly that.

There are other options beyond simply connecting them to your laptop. You can orient the monitor vertically, connecting the standing monitor only. This is useful for webpage coding as you’ll be able to view the results of your work from top to bottom in real time. Similarly, since the device doesn’t actually care about what’s connected to it, you can wire it up to your phone, a Nintendo Switch, a PlayStation 4 or 5, an Xbox One, X, or S, or even your Steamdeck if you are so inclined. For the most part, if it can connect via USB-C or by utilizing an HDMI port.

The monitors are IPS screens running at 1200P resolution, which means it’s a 16:10 aspect ratio running 1920×1200 resolution. I was surprised to see that they are also 100% Adobe RGB, 74% NTSC, and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, as well as full HDR compliant. This results in a color reproduction that was not only great, but solid enough for me to color grade video footage! Combined with 400 nits of brightness, a 1500:1 contrast ratio, and a 2 ms response time, these are easily on par with my 32” Dell freestanding 1440p monitors in terms of color preservation. The 178 degree viewing angle means I can effectively place them anywhere I wish – a surprise for an IPS monitor.

Specs aside, the real question is around utility, and it’s one you have to answer for yourself. I personally like having DaVinci Resolve in two monitors, with the third holding my email or additional information I need for video renders. It’s handy to have additional real estate for being able to see more of my timeline, or having my audio master controls on one screen while working with the waveform panel on another. Similarly, I found a great deal of utility in having…well, this document open in my center screen, with Discord open on the second panel, and my email open on a third. It takes a bit of practice to use three monitors effectively, and you’ll have to figure out how best to divide your workflow. That said, once you do, you’ll hate going back.

There is only one real complaint with this monitor extender. When not in use, you have to completely remove it from your laptop – it will not fold up and out of the way. Other single monitor addition solutions can tuck behind your screen to be used another time, but the space doesn’t allow for folding. I might be asking for too much on this, but frankly I’m just being nitpicky – I’ve also not found a good reason to remove it once it was in place.

When it is folded up, the portability is unmatched. Even single monitor addition solutions tend to be larger than the Oiiwak when folded up. Once you’ve figured out which combination of cables works for your solution, you can leave all of the rest behind.

If you travel for work, you know the feeling of getting tucked into your hotel in whatever town, only to feel like you are operating at something less than full capacity. Being able to replicate a triple monitor solution when you are stuck at a Marriott for a week helps you continue to be efficient at your work.

I was thinking that the two additional displays would eat battery life like candy, but the IPS panels are lower power displays. I saw no appreciable difference in battery usage – a welcome surprise, to be sure. I was also concerned about adding heat with the additional monitors, but the aluminum chassis dissipates any heat that might have been being generated – this thing runs ice cold.

The last two questions, as it always is in hardware reviews, are warranty and price. The warranty on the Oiiwak 14” Portable Dual Monitor Extender is a year. That said, they do offer an option to purchase an additional two years, and if your device dies outside of warranty after that first year, and you don’t have the extended warranty, they are nice enough to extend an awesome 50% off your device replacement. I’ve never heard of that level of support on hardware, and it shows that Oiiwak has a lot of faith in their product.

The price on this device is not for the faint of heart – $699 at the time of writing. There is a $105 off coupon available on Amazon, but that’s still pretty steep. I think about the utility I’ve already gotten, at home and on the road, and for me it’s very much worth that price. The fact that it’s usable on this device, my next, and the one after that is equally as encouraging – this is an investment that’ll pay dividends forwards into the future.

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