The Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425) offers a high level of brightness and good color accuracy, making it a great choice for the price.
Pros
- Sleek design
- High brightness
- Color-accurate
- Crisp image
Cons
- Limited ports
- Basic controls only
| Buy From | List Price | Sale Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dell | $369.99 | $369.99 | See It |
Portable monitors have changed a lot over the past few years. Gone are the days when buying a smaller second screen meant choosing from one or two niche options, and spending an arm and a leg. These days, cheap models like those from Arzopa have flooded the market — leaving the likes of Dell trying to make a case for their higher prices. The Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425) is a perfect embodiment of this.
Absolutely terrible name aside, the Dell Pro 14 Plus portable monitor is actually a solid option. But again, it has a higher price than those from the budget brands, and you don’t necessarily get that much better of an experience in return.
Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425) design
The design of the Dell Pro 14 Plus portable monitor is almost identical to its predecessor, the C1422H. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless, of course, you didn’t like that design. I find it to be fine.
The design of the monitor essentially includes the main screen, which is quite thin, and a larger foot, which houses the ports and controls. The display can fold completely flat on that foot, or all the way up to almost 90 degrees (though not quite).
The display portion of the design is pretty straightforward. It has a 14-inch screen, with a thicker forehead and chin than you might expect, and while I would have liked to see a more modern edge-to-edge look, it’s not really a big deal. The bezel is a matte black, and you’ll get to how it looks.
The foot of the display is where you’ll get the controls and inputs — of which there are two. Some might find the input selection to be limited, considering the fact that both of them are USB-C inputs with DisplayPort over USB support. There’s no HDMI (even mini-HDMI), so you might need an adapter to use the monitor, depending on your setup and the output on the device you want to use. I was fine just using a USB output from a Mac Studio. That said, many of the cheaper alternatives, like those from Arzopa, offer more inputs — usually two USB-C ports and a mini-HDMI port. That likely won’t matter to most.
The controls are also on the foot, facing up. They’re easy to access and press, and the buttons are clicky enough, though if you’re anything like me, you’ll set up your monitor and then leave the controls alone. There’s a power button (though most won’t need to use it), along with easy-to-access brightness controls. There’s also a button to lock rotation, which can come in handy for those who want to rotate their screen in their operating system instead of through the monitor.
Generally, the design of the monitor is perfectly fine, and it’s higher-quality than the cheaper models that use a flimsy kickstand to prop up the screen. The hinge is solid, and the fact that you can fold the monitor flat means that it is indeed nice and portable. It even comes with a nice carry pouch, which is handy.
Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425) display
The screen on the monitor is 14 inches, and it has a resolution of 1920 x 1200. It’s an IPS display (not OLED), which is to be expected in this price range. It has a 60Hz refresh rate.
Despite being somewhat low-tech, the screen looks quite good — though how you experience it might depend on whether you’re using it next to a much higher-quality monitor. I used it right next to an Apple Studio Display, which obviously looks quite a bit better — but I got used to how the Dell screen looked quite quickly.
One of the best things about the display is how high the brightness and contrast are. The display gets easily bright enough for most situations, and there’s plenty of contrast. The image was decently crisp too, and I found it detailed enough to be able to read even smaller text. Most with decent eyesight will have a similar experience.
The display was colorful too. Sure, colors weren’t as vibrant as they are on more expensive screens, but they were very accurate, which always helps.
So how does the display quality compare to the cheap screens you can buy on Amazon? Well, it’s complicated. The Arzopa Z1RC is a whole lot cheaper than this Dell screen, but it has a higher resolution and a bigger display size. What it can’t do is get quite as bright, and its colors are far from being as accurate as this.
Conclusions
The Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425) is a very solid portable monitor in its price range. Its advantage here isn’t necessarily its resolution or its refresh rate — it’s the fact that it gets bright, and offers accurate colors. It also offers a relatively sleek design, and is easily thin enough to fit in a backpack for on-the-go usage.
The competition
So should you buy the Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425) over a cheaper screen from the likes of Arzopa? Well, it kind of depends. Those cheaper screens often have a higher resolution and a larger display than the Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425), so if those things are most important to you, then it’s worth saving your cash and going for them instead. That said, they typically don’t get as bright and don’t have the same color accuracy.
Should I buy the Dell Pro 14 Plus (P1425)?
Yes. It’s a solid portable monitor in its price range.
