Portable TV Monitors Review: Cool But Are They Worth It?

I tested the LG Swing and KTC A27Q7 and found some real advantages to using a freestanding monitor.

They can flexibly be placed almost anywhere in your house, no table or furniture required. Since freestanding monitors don’t need to be placed on a desk, TV stand, or other furniture, they can be used differently and more informally than a stationary TV or monitor.

A freestanding monitor can live in a corner, acting as a TV most of the time, but be wheeled out when you’re cooking to follow along with an instructional video or watch a show while your muffins bake. Or, if your desk is in the middle of the room, you could place a freestanding monitor on the other side of the desk and use it as a normal computer monitor. After work, you could wheel it over in front of the couch and watch TV, or put on a YouTube fireplace video near your reading nook.

During testing, I used one in my office as a second computer screen, in the kitchen while cooking, in my living room to help practice music, and in my bedroom as a gaming screen. Those with children might use it as a portable Ms. Rachel device, or DIYers might wheel it to the garage or a room where they need to follow along with digital instructions or a YouTube video. You can, of course, do all of these with a much cheaper device, like a tablet. But watching content on a giant screen is an elevated experience.

Touchscreen controls are incredibly useful. These freestanding monitors mostly rely on their own operating system, so having touch control is an absolute must. I really loved the ability to hit the power button, tap on an app, and hit play on a video to start watching something in seconds. They can be used with remotes, but then you have to find it, point it at the right place on the monitor where the IR receiver is, navigate to what you want to select, and select it. Touch is a faster and more convenient way of controlling the monitors, especially a freestanding monitor that you’re already touching to place somewhere. We don’t think a freestanding monitor without a touchscreen is especially practical.

It’s a unique product that’s difficult to replicate on your own. As I was testing, I wondered if I could build a freestanding monitor setup for much cheaper. So I bought a monitor floor stand, mounted a monitor with speakers on top, and plugged in a Roku Streaming Stick 4K. My DIY model was functional, but when using it alongside the freestanding monitors built by the pros, we found ours sorely lacking. The biggest drawback to our DIY device was how we could (or couldn’t) control it. My contraption didn’t have a touchscreen, a feature I loved on the other models, and the Roku remote couldn’t turn the monitor itself on and off. It’s the worst of both worlds: You have to physically turn the monitor on and off and use a remote to choose what you want to watch. There’s likely a golden formula of a touchscreen monitor and some kind of Android device that would support its touch capability, but those monitors are typically expensive enough that a pre-built freestanding monitor would be cheaper and have better integration among its parts.

An internal battery is a game changer. One model that we tested, the KTC A27Q7, had an internal battery that allowed the monitor to work even when not plugged into the wall. This battery lasted for a few hours, depending on what we were doing, but the ability to not worry about having an outlet nearby meant the freestanding monitor had actual freedom to be anywhere in our home. Conversely, while testing the LG Swing and our DIY model, we found that having to plug and unplug the monitor whenever we wanted to move it was pretty annoying after a few days.