I travel quite frequently for Appleosophy to various trade shows, product showcases and press events. My setup on the go nowhere near matches my 3 monitor home setup. I’m able to spread my workspace across the monitors and have a clear overview of the tasks I’m working on and
When I travel, my productivity grinds to a halt, constantly having to resize tabs or ALT + tab my way between applications which I’m working within. It’s inconvenient. It’s slow. It’s clunky. I usually find myself working single-mindedly until I can afford to close tabs and applications to ease the strain of being limited to just 1 screen.
After visiting Las Vegas in January of 2025 for CES 2025 with the rest of the Appleosophy team, we were introduced with the team at espresso. Their portable displays have been on our personal radar since their inception, following their social media for several years before being able to meet the team at their stall at the Venetian Expo Center in Las Vegas.
After meeting with one of the founders, Will Scuderi and getting introduced to Nick Healy – head of marketing – they were able to kindly hook me up with an espresso Display 15 to test drive before taking several trips around the world, by plane and by car and train!
When I was in the airport lounge, I was still busy digesting all the meetings, photos and videos taken from the event when I remembered about having my second display. Despite the airport lounge being quite a tight space full of people, I was able to get the espresso Display out and stood behind my MacBook with the included espresso Stand+ magnetic mount which was a godsend for my productivity for the several hours I was waiting for my flight back home. Despite the space constraints, I was able to keep things moving with my editing workspace on one screen and my extra screen real estate dedicated to my video playback. This kept my productivity on a roll when I would have otherwise been consistently “ALT [Command] + Tabbing” my way between applications in my workflow. I was able to simply drag my windows around and position them in my usual locations to make the most of the wait time. When my gate showed on the screen, I was able to unplug and fold down the display and place it all in my backpack before heading out, with just a single cable to put away. No clunky adapters or chargers to fiddle with.
Later in the summer, I was also traveling by car with my family and decided to test out the operation of the espresso Display 15 in the car. I was actually quite impressed with the flexibility it had, first being placed on the seat next to me, before being adventurous to try and wedge it in the headrest of the seat in-front of me. The magnetic mount enabled me to play around with the best way to keep the display steady whilst in the car. I had my MacBook in my lap and I was again, able to really make the most of my time by switching between applications. This also highlighted the sheer thinness of the display, as it almost sat flush with the seat, making it easy to position to my liking and also fitting into my backpack along with my MacBook!
About half way through the trip, I was even able to put some YouTube videos up on the espresso Display and continue working with my AirPods in, almost similar to being on an airplane with the infotainment system. At this point, I had also experimented with screen mirroring, so I could get my phone to wirelessly mirror to my MacBook, and then duplicate the display to the espresso screen. Despite this method not being recommended on their official compatibility guide, it was cool to be able to explore how to make this possible for future reference.
When we got to the destination, it was another seamless experience of folding everything up, replacing the case and going about my business!
Most hotels have desks with a space for doing work and making the most of doing business on the go. Having the espresso Display with the magnetic stand also kept my setup portable while traveling and even meant I could move around without stressing about my extra display or how many cables I would need. A few people even walked up to me and asked me about the espresso Display, impressed with how thin it was and what it was doing next to my MacBook Pro.
However, when I wanted to work on more sensitive work, I didn’t have to worry about prying eyes seeing my work in the hotel’s business center or in the common areas. I simply picked up my MacBook and espresso Display and went back to my room, where I could continue to work from the desk. It was reassuring to feel like I was at home with my second display, just on a slightly smaller scale. (My monitors at home are 28 inches)
This is an awesome product and I really value the extra screen real estate it provides when I am traveling or just wanting to escape my regular work environment and work from a coffee shop for example. It’s a great tool to have in my roster and I highly recommend it as a quality product. I also hope to acquire the premium models of the espresso Display(s) to be able to try out the touchscreen capabilities and additional screen sizes and pro features.
