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GeChic On-Lap 2501M 15.6" Battery-Powered Monitor, Tested

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Do you ever wish you could watch video on something larger than a smartphone when you're on the road? GeChic thinks it has an answer with the On-Lap 2501M portable monitor. We benchmark the display to see if its performance matches its convenience.

Battery Life And Conclusion

Battery Life

To test the battery life, we’re using the same parameters as GeChic’s spec sheet. The brightness is turned up to maximum and the speaker volume is set to 10. Content is fed via HDMI from a standard Blu-ray player, allowing us to simply loop a movie until the battery is completely drained. The panel is fully charged, of course, and the test starts promptly after we unplug the charger.

The On-Lap 2501M manages to handily exceed GeChic's specification in our testing. At seven hours and twelve minutes, the low-battery indicator came on and we called it quits. At this stage, the On-Lap automatically lowers its brightness and audio volume to stretch the battery as long as possible. Since this is more than an hour longer than we were expecting, we're satisfied with the result. You can extend the battery by not using the speakers at all, or by turning down the brightness.

An Interesting Product, In The Right Context

The On-Lap 2501M is a unique product. While it doesn’t knock our socks off in terms of performance, there really isn’t anything else like it out there. What the On-Lap has going for it is excellent battery life and a thin, lightweight form factor. You can easily carry the thing with you in a laptop bag or backpack. And, with a full set of cables included, it can be used with a wide variety of sources right out-of-the-box. The On-Lap is one of those products that you buy for one reason, but then discover a half-dozen other uses for it.

Then again, for $270, it might make more sense to consider a few other portable products, such as a $250 Chromebook. And there’s no escaping the fact that desktop monitors of this size sell for less than $150. Plus, you'll need to decide whether tethering a smartphone or tablet to another device is even practical when integrated solutions exist.

That's not to say this product is without merit; it's just marketed all wrong. Since the On-Lap lacks a touchscreen, you aren't actually turning your smartphone into a large tablet. You still need control everything from your source device. And seeing as how GeChic prices the 2501M higher than some of last year's most popular 7" tablets sell for, it's simply a hard sell in the consumer space.

Busy professionals, on the other hand, can justifiably benefit from this product. Let's say you're a road warrior, and you want to fully utilize that desk in your hotel room. Using the On-Lap, you can add a second 15.6" screen to your laptop's display and create a mobile multi-monitor configuration. After all, the On-Lap is certainly more portable than any desktop monitor. This could have come in handy for those of us who stayed up late writing CES coverage this year in our hotel rooms, flipping between Word, Excel, Outlook, Skype, and Firefox. Additionally, a wide variety of ports and an integrated battery pack make the On-Lap an extremely portable display for mobile PC techs troubleshooting no-video issues.

So, in the right situations, GeChic's On-Lap can be a useful complement to your mobile arsenal. But at $270, it's hardly a gadget accessory.

Christian Eberle
Christian Eberle
Contributing Editor

Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He's a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors. Christian began his obsession with tech when he built his first PC in 1991, a 286 running DOS 3.0 at a blazing 12MHz. In 2006, he undertook training from the Imaging Science Foundation in video calibration and testing and thus started a passion for precise imaging that persists to this day. He is also a professional musician with a degree from the New England Conservatory as a classical bassoonist which he used to good effect as a performer with the West Point Army Band from 1987 to 2013. He enjoys watching movies and listening to high-end audio in his custom-built home theater and can be seen riding trails near his home on a race-ready ICE VTX recumbent trike. Christian enjoys the endless summer in Florida where he lives with his wife and Chihuahua and plays with orchestras around the state.

16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1
    So even though the hardware itself is excellent, the final product is too niche-y to sell ?
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    A portable monitor at the conveniently low price of an entry level tablet or chromebook... I see real utility here.
    Reply
  • Fulgurant
    I might be interested in something like this at some point. Nice review.
    Reply
  • Senor Kalyan
    http://us.aoc.com/monitor_displays/e2251fwu
    Reply
  • warezme
    It is an industry artificial block in my opinion. All they would have to do is include a little extra circuitry to the existing pads for an HDMI input and viola, you could use your pad as a monitor to another device. Most pads have at least that resolution on some even better. I would never buy this item unless it was under $150 or less. It is a one trick pony with a low resolution screen.
    Reply
  • groundhogdaze
    I'd love to have one of these portable monitors. I've go a bunch of headless PC's that I need to check every once in a while and don't want to lug a regular monitor around nor hunt for a power socket for the test monitor. If only the price were a little lower...
    Reply
  • Fulgurant
    warezmeIt is an industry artificial block in my opinion. All they would have to do is include a little extra circuitry to the existing pads for an HDMI input and viola, you could use your pad as a monitor to another device. Most pads have at least that resolution on some even better. I would never buy this item unless it was under $150 or less. It is a one trick pony with a low resolution screen.I don't disagree that tablets could easily include an input, but to be fair, this product is far bigger than a tablet. It may only have a niche use, but it is clearly better suited for that niche use than a tablet screen would be.
    Reply
  • Fulgurant
    FulgurantI don't disagree that tablets could easily include an input, but to be fair, this product is far bigger than a tablet. It may only have a niche use, but it is clearly better suited for that niche use than a tablet screen would be.Come to think of it, laptops should include inputs too -- but to my knowledge, they never have.
    Reply
  • g00fysmiley
    interesting concept but would be nice if bluetooth connectivity wee there unless i am missing somethign it s hdmi only. touchscereen i know is pricier but again would add to utility. interesting product just as it is looks very limited
    Reply
  • RedJaron
    Senor Kalyanhttp://us.aoc.com/monitor_displays/e2251fwuNice product, except it doesn't have its own power supply and can only take a USB signal over a DisplayLink driver. Makes for a nice quasi-mobile secondary monitor for computers, but it won't connect to most types of mobile devices like the GeChic will.
    Reply