I’m sitting in a coffee shop in front of four monitors. One of those screens is just my laptop, a very normal thing to have a cuppa joe next to. The other three are the portable displays of the Aura Triple Aero 15.6-inch Pro Max, a monumental contraption of aluminum and matte glass that’s looming over my computer, giving off Mr. Universe vibes. Nobody seems to care about this very conspicuous tech monstrosity, and that’s a blessing because with all of these screens in front of me, I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m the Worst Person Here.

“Portable” triple-monitor accessories that give your laptop more pixels to work on spreadsheets or whatever multitasking you may require to boost your productivity aren’t new. In recent years, cheap display command centers have been flooding social media as a life hack product. I thought it would be fun to take the Triple Aero out into the wild, both to test its tote-ability and to see how socially capable I am of using it in public. I don’t know why I do these things to myself.

This setup has appeal, especially if, like me, you find the cramped confines of a laptop display unworkable, but sitting in the same room for hours and hours, every day, with your dedicated multi-monitor setup feels a little like hell to you. My usual solution for working away from home is to use my 11-inch iPad Pro as a wireless external display. It’s not ideal, and I always wonder if I can have it both ways.

Functional, Not Fashionable

The Triple Aero features three 15.6-inch, 1080p IPS LCD displays on a folding, height-adjustable stand that put it high enough for me to work with proper computer posture instead of hunched over like a laptop gremlin. The displays are just bright enough that I didn’t have trouble viewing them in a window-filled coffee shop, but you might have trouble seeing if, on a very bright day, one of those windows is behind the Triple Aero. The display casings and stand are black and made of aluminum. There are technically speakers, but they’re harsh and tinny, and you should not use them.

On the bottom edge of the middle display, you’ll find two USB-C ports: one to power the screens and the other to accept video from your laptop, as well as give it passthrough power. There are also three Micro HDMI ports, each corresponding to one of the displays, useful if you want to connect multiple devices rather than just a single computer. The Triple Aero comes with a 65W power adapter that generously features two USB-C ports and a single USB-A port.

This isn’t a pretty device, but that’s not really the point, is it? To buy something like the Triple Aero is to admit that all you’re after is a hojillion displays. Given its utilitarian vibe, it’s irritating to me that, presumably for misguided aesthetic reasons, Aura put its port labels on the back of the Triple Aero instead of the front. I don’t care about that in a stationary desk monitor that I’m only ever going to hook up once, but the Triple Aero is meant to travel, and it’s too unwieldy to spin around to make sure I’m plugging things into the proper ports, so you have to lean around back to see which one is which. Aura also doesn’t label the buttons, leaving you to figure out how to adjust the monitor’s internal settings. I guess I could label everything myself with a strip of tape and a Sharpie, or Aura could just put the labels on the front!

Lowered Expectations

Actually using the Triple Aero is a mixed bag, and I don’t just mean because it feels weird to set it up in public if that’s what you choose to do with it. On one hand, the matte finish IPS displays keep a fairly consistent image, even from broad viewing angles. But on the other, they’re better for spreadsheets and text documents than they are for, say, Oppenheimer. And they’re not even great for that if the software you’re working with calls for a monitor with very good color separation—for instance, in macOS, I had a hard time telling between the gray of an active Safari window and the slightly lighter gray of an inactive one. As a result, I just kept trying to type in windows I thought were in the foreground and weren’t.

It’s not just the color reproduction that makes the Triple Aero unsuitable for more than casual content consumption. Driving the displays requires software—in this case, SiliconMotion’s InstantView—that essentially screen-records virtual displays on your computer, compresses the video for transmission over USB-C, then hardware-decodes it inside the Triple Aero. This is fine for basic tasks, but it takes a decent chunk of CPU power to run, and I’ve never met a version of it that doesn’t needle you with small bugs. It can take a few tries plugging it in before your computer recognizes it; you may have to rearrange the displays every few tries so your Mac actually knows which is which; the display can lag, with your mouse disappearing and reappearing at random. That last one is especially common if you try to watch a high-bitrate movie or play a video game. (Death Stranding was unplayable when I tried.)

Maybe that’s all fine if you’re only using the Triple Aero occasionally, but it immediately reminded me why I gave up using similar tech to add dual display support to my old M1 iMac after just a few weeks. You won’t get these problems if you only use the Triple Aero’s three Micro HDMI ports, but you’d need a computer that supports that many external displays, which many Apple silicon-equipped Macs do not, along with a Thunderbolt dock that sports three HDMI outputs—and again, many do not.

The Triple Aero, with its elaborate form factor, has its perks. I like the foldable side displays, and my neck was grateful for its height. And since you can use the HDMI ports individually, you and two others can each have an external display. Also, I bet having the displays folded back into a triangle would also be a very fun way to game with friends, old-timey LAN party-style. I didn’t get to try that, but I feel it in my bones—show me a few people, a Triple Aero, and three Nintendo Switches (or Switch 2s) equipped with some flavor of Mario Kart, and I’ll show you a good time.

Also in the plus column, the Triple Aero isn’t overly jiggly even with two displays hanging way off its stand. The contraption folds down to about the size of a large gaming laptop, with the stand pulling double duty as a suitcase-style handle. That said, you’ll need to get creative to transport the 7-pound unit, as it’s got the wrong proportions for a laptop case and the box it ships in is too big to casually toss into a backpack. Aura does sell a felt sleeve and a zippable soft case that each accommodate the Triple Aero, but without a hard case I would still worry about pointed impacts to one of the displays, which faces outwardly when folded for travel.

Be Honest With Yourself, Do You Need This?

At $699, the Aura Triple Aero 15.6-inch Pro Max falls squarely in the category of things I think would be very handy to have, but would never buy for myself. I just can’t see paying as much or more than a decent 4K portable monitor like the Espresso Pro, which is priced the same but is far more premium-feeling, judging by reviews praising its image quality and neat iPad-like modularity.

Sure, you lose overall screen real estate with the Espresso, but it sounds like a much more pleasant experience, and you don’t have to screw around with drivers that force external display support that your laptop’s hardware potentially doesn’t do natively. And it probably feels a lot less awkward to use in public.