Choosing the Right Portable Monitor for Color Accuracy

Whether you’re a professional that demands solid picture quality on the go, seeking a great all-round color accurate portable monitor for online or web tasks, our espresso Display range has been created to offer something premium for everyone.

We get that people need a display for different purposes, but when you're choosing a portable monitor, it's important to weigh up when, where, for how long, and which devices or software you'll be using. Whether you're at your desk and work from 2-3 other locations, or working full time on the road, factors like simplicty of setup, portability, durability, and compatability all come into play.

Between design work, editing, spreadsheets, videos, news articles and conference calls, you spend a lot of time immersed in a screen. So, it’s worthwhile understanding which monitor best suits you!

We get a lot of questions about color, color ranges and spaces, and accuracy. In this post, we're diving into the options of color gamuts across our portable monitor range. Below is a breakdown.

Understanding Color Spaces

Before we dive into the displays, let’s break down the three key color spaces used across the espressorange.

All espresso Displays panels produce an excellent picture and are great for general-purpose use, it pays to understand where the product will excel and give you an edge. Whether you’re at the high-performance end with our Pro range, or if you’re seeking a more general-purpose display for web and document related tasks, we got you covered for the job at hand.

Color Space: sRGB

• General use and web content.
• Standard for most web platforms.
• Simple, reliable, and universally supported.

Adobe  RGB

• All-round use, but excels for professional print media.
• A wider gamut with richer greens and blues.
• Ideal for general-purpose content, especially photographers, print designers, as well as creators.

DCI-P3

• Video, film,  animation, visual media.
• Broadest color  spectrum espresso offers.
• Perfect for color-critical motion work.

The espresso Display Range

Let’s map each espresso model to its color space and where they excel. While all our displays are a great fit for their intended purpose, when you get to the high-end of the work-scale, you need to know how it stacks up for the job, and when you compared to your laptop’s screen.

espresso Display 15 + Touch 15

Color space: sRGB 100% (8-Bit & 16.7 million colors)
Perfect for: Everyday productivity, web content, and on-the-go creative work.
More details: These models are calibrated for the sRGB color space, which is the standard used across most digital platforms. If your content is destined for browsers, social feeds, or general productivity, this is the sweet spot. Give it’s also1080p and 300 nits, it will consume less power from your laptop’s battery.

espresso Pro 15

Color space: Adobe RGB 100% (10-Bit via 8+2FRC & 1.07 billion colors)
Perfect for: Professional color for photography, detailed image work, and print.
More details: While an excellent choice for all round work on the go, if your work ends up on paper - posters, magazines, flyers, high-end photography—this is the display for you. The Adobe RGB color gamut offers a broader spectrum than sRGB, with exceptional depth across the color spectrum, but particularly in greens and blues.

espresso Pro 17

Color space: DCI-P3 100% (10-Bit via 8+2FRC & 1.07 billion colors)
Perfect for: Video editing, animation, digital content creation.
More details: DCI-P3 delivers exceptional full spectrum cinematic fidelity, making it the go-to space for professional visual media. Paired with its larger screen size, the 17 Pro is built for the production and immersive content – whether you’re editing, presenting, or consuming video.

How accurate are espresso Displays out of the box?

Every espresso Display is individually calibrated at the factory using a high-spec color emitter. This ensures process ensures three critical things are spot-on from day one:

• ‍Gamma: The intensity of color is calibrated for accurate contrast.‍
• White point: The color temperature of white is true and neutral at 6500k.‍
• Gamut coverage: Each panel meets the target percentage of its color space.

Do I need to calibrate my display 'manually'?

There's no guarantee that the espresso Displays, or any new display for that matter, will magically match up to your laptop's settings. Every laptop and every display is different and calibrated differently. So, if matching the display to your laptop is important - you may need to go into settings for your MacOS or Windows software to do this.

That being said, if you're producing content, you need to consider how your audiences is going to be consuming the content you're making. If they're going to be reading or viewing online via websites, you're essentially making content in an sRGB context. If you're producing highly immersive video content, you're leaning more toward the widest gamut with DCI-P3.

If you're a content professional, you probably know the ins and outs of color calibration. Most professionals run calibrations regularly as, over time, content and settings will change. We have done a lot of work with the great people at Datacolor and cannot recommend them enough. We have also created a video about how you can use a Datacolor product to manually calibrate your display. If you’re a content professional, you may already be doing this as standard practice.

Matching Your Laptop and Monitor

If your espresso Display looks slightly different to your laptop screen - especially if you're using a MacBook- it’s likely because they operate in different color spaces. For example:

·       Most later model MacBooks use a near-100% DCI-P3 display.

·       If you're pairing that with a Pro 15 (Adobe RGB), you may notice warmer tones due to the difference in the fidelity of reds being displayed.

·       Pairing with a Display 15 or Touch 15 (sRGB) will compress the range to match most web content. So again, there maybe slight differences.

Tip: Use calibration tools to harmonise the color output between devices. Most tools offer a "display match" mode so both screens align visually.

So, which espresso is right for me?

It comes down to what you need a display for, what content you're going to be producing or consuming, but most importantly, what is going to feel good to use! Our good friend Martin in Norway has a great detailed round up of the espresso Displays range which can be watched here.

‍

What about display brightness and my workflow?

We have created another article about brightness and portable monitors. You can check it out here.

‍