Review: The GEEKOM PM16 is no frills FullHD 16" portable monitor for under $150

GEEKOM is a name known to us here at Neowin, you may have seen that I have reviewed a few of their Mini PCs. Well, they recently added a portable screen to the mix, and I was invited to test it.

Before we dig in, here are the specifications of it.

Before you baulk at that price, I should mention that at the time of writing GEEKOM has it discounted by $100 to $149. For that you can get the 16" FullHD variant, and only in one color which is a pleasing light metallic blue.

By the way, it's unlikely you'll ever have to fork out $249 for this screen, because that MSRP is not even listed on Amazon.

What's in the box

• 1 x 2-in-1 Smart Case Stand
• 1 x USB-C to USB-C Cable
• 1 x USB-C to USB-A Cable
• 1 x Mini HDMI to HDMI Cable
• 1 x Power Adapter (5V 3A)
• 1 x User Manual
• 1 x Thank You Card

In case you were looking for more specifications, like I did, although the instruction manual is very thorough on setting up and using it, there is nothing beyond the specifications I've listed in the above table.

When I load HWInfo, it tells me that the panel is a GEEKOM-DP1, but after reaching out to my contact, I was told that the panel is sourced from HKC, which is a European company based out of Ireland.

Design

The back of the monitor feels cold to the touch as it is an aluminum casing, aside from the manufacturer sticker, sadly there are no VESA-compatible mount holes or anything else at all on the back of the display.

The front is pleasing with a minimal bezel around the top and sides, and the bottom bezel makes up what looks like a single piece of plastic around the front of the display with the GEEKOM branding in reflective silver lettering.

The sides are less than one centimeter, coming in at 83 millimeters which is just under a third of an inch. Upon holding it and pressing in different areas, I'm pleased to report I didn't hear any creaking, or see any joints that were giving way. It is definitely a sturdy build for something so light and thin. The bottom bezel also allows for gripping without getting the screen dirty with fingerprints.

On the right side, you have a mini HDMI port and two Type C USB ports. On the left of the screen, we have the power indicator (which pulses red when it is on standby, and blue when it is on) the power button also controls the full OSD, and the plus button below it can be used to open the volume control, and the button below it selects the brightness.

About halfway on each side, there are holes for the speakers, more about that later.

It is possible to connect the screen via either of the two USB Type C ports if the device you are connecting to supports it, meaning you get power and a picture over one cable, brilliant!

Usage

It's not disclosed anywhere what level of HDMI it is, not in the OSD or booklet, but my contact tells me it is HDMI 1.4, which is fine for what the display is capable of.

There are no drivers for this portable screen, however, it is installed in Windows as a Generic Monitor (GEEKOM DP-1) which is more than can be said for some high-end monitors that require a driver to be identifiable in Device Manager.

There's no HDR or other gimmicks loaded with this screen. It is just a 16-inch FullHD IPS LCD display. However, we're going to see how movies look in it because the ZSCMALLS portable screen we tested had a lot of backlight bleed, let's see what happens here.

In the daylight example the colors pop, and although it is difficult to see here, the screen is almost matt, it is not reflecting the amount of light on the display that the phone is picking up. The backlight bleed into the movie is minimal, but again for a screen you can currently pick up for just $149.99 we should remember to keep our expectations in check.

And here is a shot with all the lights off in a dark room, which isn't the ideal viewing scenario. However, the backlight bleeding is minimal which is impressive. My phone picks up more light than can actually be perceived, but I have to say I am impressed. The colors are good too.

Here is a comparison between the two screens in the same setting. The ZSCMALLS colors are colder, despite claiming to be 100% SRGB, and it's obvious there's less backlight bleeding with the GEEKOM PM16. Let's also remember that only one of these screens has an HDR certification.

This monitor also comes with stereo speakers, one on each side around halfway, pointing outward. Although I had the volume up 100%, I could hardly hear anything, not even the loud noises in Quake Champions registered enough, so I grabbed a pair of Bluetooth headphones instead. You can take it from me that the speakers in this thing may as well have been left out because they are pretty useless.

Gaming

I did a bit of light gaming via my main PC and although it took a while to get used to the smaller 1920 x 1200 screen resolution, there was a bit of ghosting in the few Quake Champions team deathmatch rounds that I did. I wasn't able to win a single round of the five matches I played. I normally game on my 5120 x 1440 Ultrawide, so there's definitely that.

Overall, I like the colors and there are no annoying reflections so whatever protective film they used for the display is certainly doing the job.

The viewing angles are good too, I mean I usually don't spend an awful lot of time sitting off to the side of a screen I am watching, but say you had two or three people watching a film or some cat videos or something, you can all easily follow the action without having to sit directly head-on.

As mentioned earlier, the specifications for the display are minimal. For example, nowhere in the specs or on the website is it listed what the response time of this screen is, so I attempted to manually check it using the UFO Test, and came to the conclusion that it is 9ms, not great, but also not bad.

Conclusion

I'm just going to say it, it's a good screen for what it costs. You can operate it with just one cable. The colors pop, and really there's not much more to it than that. Yes, it's definitely old-tech with its HDMI 1.4 and 60Hz, and It's not as bright or vibrant as a full-sized monitor, but what can we expect with cheap portability like this?

I think it's a shame that VESA mounting and headphones pass-through weren't included, but these are not deal breakers for me.

With an MSRP of $249, maybe it is hard to justify that cost for what you get, but as of writing the official site has it down to $149, but you can also get an extra $10 off if you enter the following coupon code on the official website neowinpm16 while checking out.

On Amazon, it is listed at $169.99, but you can get an extra $20 off when you apply the in-page coupon bringing it down to $149.99, for that you can't really go wrong. It's a thumbs-up from me.

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