Interhill is not a brand that many immediately identify with. Based in Huizhou, China. The company builds screens using parts supplied by Hanshi, another Chinese hardware supplier.
Hanshi does all the research, manufacturing and marketing of the products, while Intehill is listed as an "HDMI Adopter" according to the company's information.
The company prides itself on producing displays that are FCC, CE and PSE certified when they hit the market, and there is clearly a push to expand into Western markets.
Products bearing this brand appear on Shopify, Amazon, and Alibaba.com, and today we'll be reviewing a high-end design made for those who need 4K resolutions on the go, the Intehill 4" 17.3K Portable Monitor (Opens in a new tab).
According to the Intehill website, this monitor is available in China and the United States, and the list price is €569.
Part of the problem here is that Intehill doesn't seem interested in giving out the code numbers of their monitors, and they make a range of monitors that are primarily identified by their resolution.
Other 4-inch 17,3K HDR monitors are included that offer different input options, so be careful when ordering one that has the inputs you need.
Intehill 4" 17,3K Portable Monitor: Design and Features
- Great build quality
- many tickets
- Does not include power supply
Taking the Intehill 4K portable monitor out of its box for the first time, this device has unexpected weight and substance.
Weighing 1,2kg, not including the lid, it's a satisfying combination of milled aluminum and glass.
This screen is packaged in the "Smart Case", as Intehill describes the cover, a flexible package that doubles as a stand using magnets to secure it. The display has small protruding feet on one side, most of the inputs on the right, and the OSD menu control buttons on the left.
The only exception to the inputs on the right side is a single Micro-B type OTG input on the left, with more conventional video input technologies on the right.
These include a full-scale HDMI, Mini-DP, and USB-C port, as well as a 3,5mm headphone jack. To be specific, there are two USB-C ports, but one is for powering the display and the other is for those who have USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ports with the ability to use them for any purpose.
It is possible to fully control the panel with Thunderbolt, providing power and signal if the laptop has that port and can provide the power the monitor needs to run.
Along with the display and case, a selection of useful cables includes two types of USB-C to USB-C and a mini-HDMI to full HDMI. There's no DisplayPort cable, but that's not the most surprising omission.
What you don't get, unbelievably at this price, is a power supply.
Interestingly, the case has slots that suggest that at some point in the gestation of this product it was going to include a Type-C power supply, but Intehill chose to omit that.
The problem here is that this screen will not work with the typical Type-C charger power supply that comes with most phones. You need something more substantial that can deliver between 30 and 45 W, like those designed for laptops.
If you have a laptop with this type of PSU you'll be fine, but this reviewer didn't and was forced to part with around $30/$30 for a model suitable for running the Interhill display.
Once the display has the correct power supply inserted into the correct one of the two USB-C ports, it comes to life and works like any other conventional monitor.
Features
Panel size: 17,3 inch
Panel Type: IPS
Resolution: 3440x1440
Brightness: 400cd / m2
Contrast: 1000: 1
Pixel response: 4 ms
Color coverage: 100% Adobe RGB, 93% DCI-P3
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Vesa: 100mm x 100mm
Inputs: USB-C Power (25-45W), DisplayPort 1.4 Mini, HDMI 2.0, USB-C and Micro USB OTG
Weight: 1200g
What's less wonderful is that if you use a less powerful power supply, it seems to wake up, then display a message on the screen about saving power, and shut down.
This will confuse some buyers, just like this reviewer.
If the laptop you are using supports PD mode via USB-C, the monitor can be controlled with a single USB-C cable. But that assumes the laptop's battery can handle that level of demand or it's connected to mains power.
For those who want a sturdier stand than the Smart Case, the back of the display has VESA holes to mount it to a suitable stand. This will hurt the portability of this solution, but it's a nice addition.
A useful option could have been a kickstand like this on other Intehill designs. The smart case is sturdy enough to hold the screen, but negates the ability to mount a small system on the back using the VESA mounting holes and create an ad-hoc mobile PC.
Where it could also work is with the OSD menu, which has relatively few options.
One of those options is HDR, which can be turned on or off. The display technology here is IPS with a maximum brightness well below any HDR standard, and it lacks zonal backlighting. So HDR on this screen is not like on an OLED or Quantum Dot TV.
Intehill 4" Portable 17,3K Monitor: Performance
- Good factory calibration.
- Above average color balance and accuracy
- Not a true HDR panel
Once you get past the hurdle of finding a source with enough angry sprites for this monitor to appear, using it is simplicity itself.
HDMI and DisplayPort are mostly self-explanatory, with the only complexity coming from those using a display over USB. How well this will work on a specific phone, tablet, Chromebook, or laptop depends primarily on how the output hardware has been implemented on that hardware.
Being such a small panel and using IPS technology, I wasn't expecting great color gamut coverage from this 8-bit panel.
But, the panel here is considerably better than expected, with a nice factory calibration removing as much contrast as possible.
In testing, it fell short of the quoted 400 nits, but it was close, and contrast is almost precisely above the 1000:1 ratio.
By default, the gamma is set to 2,2, and the curve precisely follows this profile.
The only real weakness with this design is that the backlight is heavily skewed towards the center and, given the thinness of the panel and lack of a zonal backlight pattern, is somewhat predictable.
The difference between the corners and the center is around 4%, which is surprisingly small for these limitations.
Color representation is generally good, but the suitability of these standards will depend on precisely the level of gamut coverage you expect.
For designers, 100% Adobe RGB might work, though anyone working with color grading videos wants better than the 93% DCI-P3 on offer here. Maybe there's something else to get out of the color profile with calibration, but it doesn't quite get to the 97% or higher of P3 that some panels offer these days.
HDR mode isn't great, mainly because brightness and contrast levels aren't anywhere near what they need to be to deliver true HDR. Oddly enough, on Windows 11, enabling HDR makes this screen much worse than it is when it's off, so avoid it.
Overall, the display was better than expected, but its usefulness for professional color users is questionable. The screen surface is very glossy, which makes reflections problematic, and for gamers, the 60Hz max refresh won't impress.
In use, this display can also be picky about the quality of the cables that connect to it. Intehill recommends using only HDMI 2.0 specification cables for this input, although none are included with the display.
Intehill 4 Inch Portable 17,3K Monitor – Verdict
With the exception of buying or owning a power supply, this monitor is elegant technology that provides a truly portable 4K display solution.
At this point, it is essential to mention that it is generally accepted that the best viewing distance for a 4K display is 1,5 times the height of the screen.
Since the viewable height of this monitor is around 21cm, the optimal viewing distance would be only 30cm or so. If that sounds close, you'll need a bigger monitor than this.
In many ways this product could have been more convenient and potentially less expensive with a 1440p resolution panel, and maybe Intehill would have anticipated that.
Given the relatively high cost involved, it's worth taking a moment to consider the possible use cases for this display.
Since this is an 8-bit IPS panel, not 10-bit, it may not be adopted by photographers and filmmakers. Also, it is too expensive for those who like to play on vacation.
Where this could work is for those who want to offer a sales pitch, allowing them to keep their laptop screen pointed at them while they deliver the pitch using this panel.
Pilots of drones with an HDMI output might love this, especially for reviewing captured footage, though it would require a power supply capable of generating the power needed to operate, and some means of preventing screen glare.
The obvious question here is: do these apps make 4K a necessity? As Intehill makes a nearly identically sized 1080p resolution screen for almost half the price.
For some, like drone filmmakers, it might be.
Like many hardware options, whether this display will work for your specific application depends on price. Frankly, there are so few options with this size, resolution, input range, and portability that it's mostly about paying or rethinking your plans.
Other brands have identified a similar product but want even more money for their version. So it may not be the best possible portable 4K display, but it's available, even if you have to budget for a power supply on top of the asking price.
We have featured the best business monitors.