Aura Triple 15.6 Aero Pro Max Monitor Review: A Letdown for the Eyes, a Hazard for the Fingers

Aura Triple 15.6 Aero Pro Max

Pros & Cons

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  Clever design for triple-display setup
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  Three monitors work off single cable

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  Needs external power from the included GaN charger
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  Low display quality
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  Weak speakers
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  Big, heavy and not protected for easy portability
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  Stand is potentially dangerous

A portable monitor is a neat idea, giving you extra screen space on the go, even if the performance is nowhere close to what you’d get from a typical desktop monitor. But what about two portable monitors in one? Or, even better, three? That’s what Aura Displays went for with the $599 Aura Triple Aero 15.6 Pro Max. It combines three 15.6-inch 1080p displays and a metal stand that all fold up into a portable package. 

However, as I’ve seen with other multidisplay options, trying to do so much with one product can lead to serious shortcomings in even its most basic functions. In this case, it means Aura’s three screens aren’t very nice to look at. Plus, despite all the engineering that went into building a clever, robust stand, some important safety testing appears to have been missed. So even if I wanted to recommend this setup for its displays, I’d be obliged to warn you away from it because of how dicey it can get around your fingers (more on that to come).

To be clear, the Aura Triple Aero 15.6 Pro Max does get some things right. Aura took advantage of daisy-chaining, so the three monitors can all get their video feed from just one USB-C connection to a computer. HDMI is also supported. Power is a different matter, with the setup requiring a power adapter to drive all the displays. Fortunately, Aura included a little GaN charger to get the job done. The monitors will even pass some power through to a connected laptop, though it may not be enough for higher-power systems. The metal stand is sturdily built and can hold its different positions well.

There is a critical flaw in the design of the stand, though, and I found it to be a dangerous, potentially gruesome one. Adjusting the displays requires some force, and the various hinges are firm enough that you’ll need to grab hold of the stand somewhere to make adjustments; otherwise, the whole setup can move around on your desk.

The mechanism that holds the displays at various angles, however, releases with just a slight lift. While I was holding one side of the base and trying to adjust the displays, my upper hand slipped just as the lower mechanism released. The whole assembly swung down, very nearly catching the tip of my finger in a scissoring motion. Given the solid metal construction and top-heavy design — the whole thing weighs 8 pounds — I have little doubt that a finger in the wrong place could be severely injured.

That’s not a danger worth risking, especially since the displays on the Triple Aero 15.6 Pro Max didn’t prove very worthy. Not one of the three was what I’d call a quality screen. They had a useful antiglare coating, but they generally fell short in other areas. None of the displays hit the 350-nit rated brightness, with all three sitting between 260 and 290 nits. All of them reached only 96% sRGB coverage, a bit shy of the rated 100% coverage, falling into the “close enough” range I see on many portable displays. They all had terribly cold white points at upwards of 9700K. Plus, they shared an unsightly 1.1 gamma curve that distorted the visuals horribly. I checked different picture modes, but none were especially good. They had color accuracy issues, too, with an average delta E 1976 of over 10. Oh, and the stereo speakers weren’t very good either.

Aura suggests the setup could work for various tasks such as graphic design, video editing and photo editing. But the quality of each panel means you can’t do meaningful work in those fields without having a color-accurate monitor elsewhere in your setup to check all your work. For tool panels or other non-color-critical applications, they’re sufficient.

Given the low quality of the three displays, the weight and size that limit portability, and the risk of injury if it isn’t handled carefully, I have to recommend steering clear.

How we test monitors

Measurements for the Aura Triple Aero 15.6 Pro Max were taken with a Spyder X2 Ultra colorimeter using DataColor’s Spyder X2 software for SDR. Color accuracy measurements results are reported in Delta E 1976 using Datacolor’s 48-color patch test.

On the most basic models, we may only test brightness, contrast and color gamut. With more capable displays, we may also run tests of user-selectable modes for gaming or color-critical usage, uniformity and so on. We may also run tests to verify how white point accuracy varies with brightness. We also use Blur Busters’ motion tests to judge motion artifacts (such as ghosting) or refresh rate-related problems that can affect gaming. 

Keep in mind that individual results can and often do vary from a manufacturer’s reported results for a variety of reasons.