Zion Pro AMOLED UHD Portable Monitor: A Gorgeous Portable Picture

The Zion Pro is a portable 15.6-inch AMOLED monitor with Ultra HD Resolution and a stunning image.

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It’s not fair to compare the Zion Pro to gaming monitors as it lacks Adaptive Sync and runs at 60 Hz. But I’ll include my response and lag tests, so you’ll know what to expect when gaming on this portable panel. And as you already read above, I was pleasantly surprised by its performance in practice.

The comparison group includes the other two OLEDs I’ve reviewed, Aorus’ FO48U and Alienware’s AW5520QF. I also added three very high-contrast screens: Philips’ 559M1RYV, Asus’ XG43UQ and Acer’s CM3271K, which is another 60 Hz model.

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

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Zion Pro
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

16ms is a typical draw time for a 60 Hz LCD, but the Acer is a bit slower than that. The Zion Pro shows soft edges around moving objects with a slight black ghosting artifact. But it is smoother than a 60 Hz LCD panel in that motion does not stutter. Overall control lag is 69ms, which means you won’t be winning any frag contests unless your opponents are casually skilled like me. Exploring first-person environments is best done at a walking pace so you can enjoy the incredible color and contrast. Rapid movement is not the Zion Pro’s forte.

Viewing Angles

While OLED panels typically have better viewing angles than LCDs, the Zion Pro’s AMOLED screen looks more like a premium IPS monitor. You can see a slight red and green color shift with a 20% drop in brightness. Detail remains clear with no apparent change in gamma. The vertical plane is where OLED’s advantage is clear. Brightness is reduced by around 20% and there’s a barely visible color shift, but gamma remains accurate, preserving image detail.

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Zion Pro
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

The Zion Pro couldn’t quite keep up with the other two OLEDs in the screen uniformity test. Like those monitors, I had to measure a 10% gray field since blacks are too low for my meter to register. I observed slight hotspots on the left side of my sample panel. These were not visible in content. It seems that OLED’s greater contrast makes flaws like this harder to spot. Color uniformity was visually perfect at all brightness levels.

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.