Review: PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 13 & 16 OLED displays

Review units on loan from PRISM+

Singapore company PRISM+ has added two new displays to their Nomad series of portable displays: the Nomad Ultra 13 and Nomad Ultra 16 OLED displays.

I've actually reviewed the Nomad 16 portable LCD and the Nomad Ultra 4K 16 portable OLED display a few months ago.

PRISM+ actually does a lot of influencer marketing but this is not a paid review. Since I review many portable displays on my blog and Youtube channel, I was interested to find out how good the two new Nomad Ultra OLED displays are. I reached out to the company and they sent two review units on loan over.

I'll just present my findings in this review and you can decide if they are worth the money.

These are the prices for the various models at the time of this review:

• Nomad Ultra 13 (OLED) - SGD 399
• Nomad 16 (LCD) - SGD 369
• Nomad Pro 16 (touchscreen LCD) - SGD 469
• Nomad Ultra 16 (OLED) - SGD 499
• Nomad Ultra 4K 16 (touchscreen OLED) - SGD 999

Things included

These are the items included in the box:

• mini HDMI to full-size HDMI cable
• 2x USB-C video cable
• USB-C power adapter
• User manual
• Flip case

This is a good looking display. When I first took the display out of the box, the flat sides and rounded corner reminded me of the iPad Pro.

The bezels are quite thin, thicker at the bottom with the PRISM+ logo in mid-gray.

The included flip case and stand provides some protection on all sides and the back.

Ports on the left are mini HDMI and two USB-C.

There are two side facing speakers and audio quality to me is 3 out of 5 stars. You may think 3/5 for audio is bad but it's actually way better when compared to other portable displays with small back-facing speakers.

Design on the back is clean and simple. The back is a matte textured metal surface.

There are cutouts for the buttons and speakers. The display is compact and portable even with the flip case on. Both Nomad Ultra 13 and 16 are portable so portability isn't a big deciding factor between which size to get.

Nomad Ultra 13 weighs 0.55kg alone and 0.8kg with the case. Nomad Ultra 16 weighs 0.75kg alone and 1.1kg with the case.

Here's the size comparison of the Nomad Ultra 13 & 16 with my keyboards for scale. The actual display size is 13.3-inch vs 15.6-inch.

You can use either HDMI or USB-C for video connection.

For HDMI video connection, the display has to be connected to a power source with the USB-C cable and power adapter. HDMI does not transmit power.

For USB-C video connection, you can use a single cable as long as your computer's USB-C port can provide enough power to the display.

The display is quite reflective with its glossy glass.

PRISM+ claims the display support 150% sRGB, 1 billion colours, 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a maximum brightness of 400 nits. Unfortunately my Spyder5Pro colour calibrator does not work with the display so I can't measure the colour support and brightness.

Based on what I can see, the colours do look terrific out of the box, and the colours were able to match my Macbook Air display before calibration. When the claim is 1 billion colours, AdobeRGB coverage should be above 90% which means this display, when calibrated, will have good colour accuracy.

Real world brightness is usually less than the marketed brightness. I've no issues with the brightness as I'm using the at just 60% brightness and that's sufficient for the bright room I'm in.

Resolution on both displays is 1920 x 1080 pixels, aspect ratio is 16:9. There's noticeable pixelation on both displays when working from one arms length away. Pixelation is less noticeable on the smaller 13.3 inch display due to the slightly higher pixel density. Anyway, 1080P resolution is still very usable even on a 15.6-inch display.

UI on Nomad Ultra 16

UI on Nomad Ultra 13

Since both displays have the same resolution, if you use both at native resolution, user interface elements will appear smaller on the 13.3-inch display. I won't say it's uncomfortably small, but I definitely prefer the larger 15.6-inch display. You can of course scale the UI elements on the smaller display to 125% or 150% larger at the expense of reduced desktop space.

If you are going to read a lot of text, I recommend getting the larger display. If it's just for gaming, watching video or as a secondary display, 13.3-inch should be alright. But of course, the larger the display, the more enjoyment you'll get. Prices are SGD 399 vs 499. Between the two, I'll probably spend the extra SGD 100 for the larger display.

These OLED displays look more vibrant and contrasty compared to LCD displays. This display is great for watching videos and gaming (60Hz).

Conclusion

The PRISM+ Nomad Ultra displays are beautiful, compact, portable and have solid build quality. They have fantastic visual quality with vibrant colours and high contrast ratio. The audio quality is serviceable.

Here are the downsides. The audio quality could be better as it's been shown that it is possible have good speakers in tablet form factor. 1080P resolution is alright but higher would be better, of course. If the display actually uses 16:10 or 3:2 aspect ratio and reduce the thick bezels at the bottom, the design would look even sleeker.

One area of concern is OLED burn in. Unfortunately, testing for OLED burn in takes time so I can't really say much about that.

Not having touchscreen is not a downside for me. The Nomad Pro 16 portable LCD is SGD 469 and comes with a touchscreen. The Nomad Ultra 16 portable OLED display is SGD 499 and does not come with a touchscreen. Between the two, I may actually choose the LCD even though the OLED is supposed to have better colour gamut and much higher contrast ratio. Reason is my colour calibrator does not work with OLED and I don't feel like spending more money just to buy another colour calibrator. A good LCD and still look good too.

The difference between the Nomad 16 vs Nomad Pro 16 LCD is the touchscreen. The touchscreen is convenient for changing OSD settings especially if you plan on using the display in different locations where lighting conditions are different, and hence need to adjust brightness frequently. If you plan on using the display only at home or in the office, how often do you adjust your display's brightness?

Availability

You can find the PRISM+ Nomad portable displays on PRISM+ online store, Shopee SG and Lazada SG.