UPerfect UFree V wireless portable monitor review

UPERFECT UFree V: 30-second review

This isn’t the best monitor in the world, but it’s one that should work with almost anything that outputs a display, and it’s easy to carry.

The UPerfect UFree V is a bold attempt to solve one of the most persistent frustrations in portable computing. Specifically, the tangle of cables that tends to follow you everywhere. Positioned as a 15.6-inch wireless portable monitor with a 1080P Full HD display, it comes bundled with a Bluetooth keyboard, all the necessary cables and a power supply.

It’s pitched squarely at remote workers, frequent travellers, and anyone who wants an ad hoc second screen without the faff of setting one up.

The headline feature is UPerfect’s proprietary UFree wireless technology. Rather than relying on Bluetooth pairing or a Wi-Fi connection, the system uses a USB-C transmitter to cast your screen wirelessly, with no drivers, no pairing process, and no waiting around. It is a plug-and-play approach that, on paper at least, removes the usual friction of getting a portable monitor up and running. The wireless signal can operate at up to 13 metres, which should comfortably cover most office and café scenarios.

According to the company, this IPS panel delivers a 1920×1080 resolution, a 178-degree viewing angle, 350 nits of brightness, a 1500:1 contrast ratio, and covers 125% of the sRGB colour gamut. Although my testing suggests some of those numbers are wildly optimistic.

Low blue light technology is also built in, aimed at reducing eye strain during longer sessions.

Portability is central to this proposition. The monitor weighs just 0.79kg and measures a mere 5.5mm thick, making it genuinely slim enough to slip into a bag alongside a laptop. Crucially, an 8,000mAh built-in battery provides around four hours of use on a single charge, meaning you are not dependent on finding a power socket.

Connectivity extends beyond wireless, with full-featured USB-C, mini HDMI, and a 3.5mm audio output, making it compatible with laptops, smartphones, and game consoles. Whether the wireless technology lives up to its promises in real-world conditions is what this review sets out to find out.

If only for its low-price, this is an obvious candidate for one of the best portable monitors.

UPERFECT UFree V: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? $190/£142/€164
• When is it out? It available now
• Where can you get it? Direct from UPerfect or via online retailers like Amazon

The UPerfect UFree V is available from the UPerfect website, and online retailers including Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Direct from the maker, the UFree V is $189.99, £141.53 or €163.55, depending on where in the world you are. However, there is currently a spring sale that can reduce the cost by another 12% off, reducing the UK cost to only £124.55. There are also deals for corporate and bulk purchases, so this hardware can be extremely cheap.

For US customers, it can be found on Amazon for only $159.99, although that version doesn’t include the Bluetooth keyboard. It’s also on European Amazon sites, and from amazon.co.uk, it can be found with a voucher for £129.99.

If you didn’t guess already, this product is also sold under a wider range of brand names, and I can’t say with any certainty that UPerfect is the primary source. However, most other brands selling displays with almost identical specifications are asking slightly more.

This is a slice of the market that the branded monitor makers are staying well clear of, since the margins for a display like this must be paper-thin.

UPERFECT UFree V: Specs

UPERFECT UFree V: Design

• Lightweight
• Poor port placement
• Versatility

What anyone travelling is most interested in is the weight of devices like the UFree V, since carrying it around will ultimately decide whether it’s used.

Thankfully, and somewhat amazingly, even with all the cables and PSU, this device is only a little over 2kg. And if you decide not to bring all the accessories, things become even lighter.

The form factor is basic, with a 15.6-inch 1080p panel that rests in landscape mode on two rubber feet with a folder-out foot determining the viewing angle.

It is possible to use it in portrait mode, although that causes some issues with the cabling due to the placement of the ports and controls.

What I really didn’t care for was that the support covers up the three ports and the controls when it is folded flat, and that could be even more of a problem if you VESA mount the screen, since the foot won’t be able to sit flat. Having the support potentially guillotining the USB-C and HDMI cables when the support is pressed down seems a less-than-ideal scenario.

On the left are two USB-C ports and one HDMI mini, and a cable is provided to enable a full-size HDMI to be connected to the latter. The USB-C ports are multifunctional: you can use USB-C as a display connection from two sources, and they can also power the panel and charge its internal battery. If you use HDMI as the display connection, the screen must use either battery power or the provided USB-C PSU.

For most screens, that would be plenty of inputs, but the Ufree V also supports a wide range of wireless connectivity, such as MiraCast, so it’s entirely possible to arrive only with the screen (battery charged) and use it without any cables whatsoever.

That makes this a truly flexible solution, since you can connect a phone or a laptop, and with the provided Bluetooth keyboard, you could even use something like a Raspberry Pi on this display.

From a design perspective, it would have been better if the inputs and the OSD controls had not been covered by the stand. And, I should also make note that placing the inputs on the left was a poor choice over putting them on the right. That’s because the majority of laptops put their USB-C and HDMI on the left also, forcing the user to put the Ufree V on the right of their laptop.

I realised that UPerfect identified their mistake when I noticed that one of the accessories they offer beyond what’s in the box was a USB-C female to male adapter in a U-shape. This adapter allows the connecting USB-C cable to come from the right side of the screen instead of the left.

Despite the port placement issue, this is a highly flexible design that provides an additional screen, and by using the built-in battery, it also doesn’t drain power from the host system.

UPERFECT UFree V: Performance

• Better than 300 nits
• 80% sRGB

Given the price of this screen, I wasn’t expecting anything special about the quality of this IPS panel, and it delivered almost exactly what I predicted.

The results were also oddly familiar, as they were almost identical to the KYY X90E I reviewed, as I presume they both use the same underlying panel.

In terms of colour representation, this isn’t great, managing only 80% of the sRGB gamut, but on the upside, brightness and contrast are decent.

I should also say that testing this panel with the Datacolor Spyder X2 Ultra proved more difficult than usual, as the panel only steps its brightness in ten levels. Since the brightness testing asks for 25% and 75%, that part of the testing was slightly fudged.

Also, operating the OSD menu with four buttons you can’t see is a royal pain, and you really need to develop an app or add a joystick control to this device. The menu is something most users will likely use only once because it’s so annoying to navigate.

The weaknesses of this hardware are a mediocre tone response and poor white point. And with all these lightweight panels, luminance uniformity is a major low point. The brightest part of the screen is the middle, and each corner is at least 10% darker; in one instance, 20%.

For those not in direct sunlight, it’s good enough to work with, but it’s hardly a cutting-edge display.

How high you set the brightness is the critical factor in how long the 8000mAh battery onboard lasts, with UPerfect quoting up to four hours of use. I set the brightness to 10 (100%), connected a phone via Miracast, set a 30-minute timer, and left the battery at 98%.

Amazingly, after 30 minutes of running a YouTube video from the phone, it had used only 11% of the capacity. That would infer more than four hours running with the brightness at max, which is an excellent result.

UPERFECT UFree V: Final verdict

There is an odd contradiction about this hardware where relatively few aspects are in the middle, and most are either wonderful or dire.

In the plus corner is undoubtedly the low asking price, the input flexibility, being able to run from an internal battery and the great portability. Opposing that is a kick-stand that wants to cut off the cable and obscure the controls, a panel where the backlight isn’t evenly distributed, and port placement that didn’t take into account current laptop designs.

Yet despite how many points are on the wrong end of this scale, there is something wonderfully freeing about a device this flexible and so cheap.

I wouldn’t normally suggest that a hardware maker raise their prices, but perhaps what would be acceptable is for UPerfect to revamp this design with maybe a better panel, a bigger battery, and a kickstand that doesn’t obscure ports and inputs. Because if they did that, then they could ask for more money and still get a significant number of sales.

The Ufree V isn’t perfect by a long way, but for those on the move, it could be the flexible second display they need and can afford.

UPERFECT UFree V Portable Monitor: Report card

Should you buy a UPERFECT UFree V?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy if…

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