Unboxing a 2K 14-inch Portable Monitor for Just Over 300 Yuan: How's the Value?

Preface

Yesterday I was too lazy and forgot to keep writing the unboxing article.

After I resumed posting recently, readership has gradually recovered too, but I see most of it comes from recommendations and search — the share of old readers is very low, which is a bit sad 😭

Anyway, I'll still keep updating. Compared with caring about the numbers, I still mainly want to share and record life; traffic and such can just be extra rewards~

At the end of the article I'll explain how to control brightness from the computer when the monitor doesn't support DDC/CI.

The Product

So today I'll continue unboxing another portable monitor.

The 2026 aigo 14 last time left me very disappointed, so I then picked up another portable monitor, one recommended by people on Zhihu.

ithink 2K portable monitor, bought on JD for 376 yuan.

It even came with a carrying case (though I haven't used it)

I think this price is pretty decent — after all it's a 2K screen. All the portable monitors I bought before were 1080p; this is also my first time using a 2K portable monitor.

Packaging

This packaging is pretty similar to the aigo one's.

No wonder there's talk online that this ithink is OEM'd by aigo. Of course I can't vouch for that — I haven't verified the source.

Unboxing

Open it up and there's a user manual.

The way the screen is packed is basically the same as the aigo one.

Accessories

One HDMI-mini HDMI cable, and one C to C data cable.

Stand

This stand is much better than the aigo one. The back is completely flat, so it won't cause accidental keypresses when placed on a laptop keyboard.

But this stand, like last year's aigo, is hard to pry open — very stiff.

The Screen

The screen looks like a matte panel; anti-glare might be a bit better than a glossy screen.

Display Quality

I used it as an external display for my laptop; it looks pretty decent.

But I found a problem: this Jige laptop of mine actually can't drive two external displays at the same time…

It can't even beat a MacBook Air 😂

Wrap-up

I've taken this portable monitor out a few times; it feels pretty okay. Rated brightness is 400 nits, which is enough for most scenarios.

As for outdoors, I haven't tried it; it should probably still be readable.

Although it has built-in speakers, the sound quality is even worse than this Jige laptop's own speakers, and it can't even begin to compare with a MacBook. You could say this portable monitor's sound quality is like those dinosaur toys kids play with 😂 — never mind just hearing something, you can't even make out the lyrics.

In short, don't count on the sound quality.

As for the DDC/CI protocol used to adjust brightness and contrast, it doesn't support that either.

In fact, for most portable monitors, when I asked customer service they all said they don't support DDC/CI (though I suspect customer service might not even know what that is 😂)

But this time I used a magic tool to solve this problem.

How to Control Brightness Without DDC/CI Support

In the previous article I said I'd found a way to adjust monitor brightness without going through DDC/CI; I'll introduce it here.

The tool used is ClickMonitorDDC, which you can download from this address: https://clickmonitorddc.com/

This tool seems to control things at a lower level, so even if the monitor's control panel doesn't support DDC/CI, you can still adjust brightness, contrast, and other settings.

After installing and opening it, it looks like this. You can select different monitors to control; PM1402 is this portable monitor.

After using it I found a problem, which is pretty much a common issue with portable monitors.

Maximum brightness only goes to 35%; going any higher does nothing.

The few DDC/CI-supporting portable monitors I bought last year were the same. It's probably a driver board issue — I don't really get it either.

But it's usable enough.

In actual use it might not have the claimed 400-nit brightness, but I don't have professional equipment to test, so I can't really say. Anyway, indoors with the lights on you can still see it clearly.