MPS Lens

The default set of Windows features doesn’t offer just a pretty, customizable interface to install different applications or games, but helps with development and other activities, and proof are Paint, Sound Recorder, and more. There’s also a built-in magnifier, but third-party alternatives like MPS Lens provide even more features.

The application starts off directly in the tray area, so you might want to look there if you keep wondering why nothing shows up on the screen. There’s no actual main window, and interacting with the tray icon either enables the magnifier, or bringing up a menu with various lens and profile configuration options.

By default, a box is brought up near the tray area, magnifying the region over your mouse, and it also moves to a different location so you don’t hover the cursor over it by accident. Unfortunately, you can’t change the behavior of the magnifying box, in case you want to include it in a recording session in a custom desktop position.

As mentioned above, there’s the possibility to customize several features. For instance, the magnifier itself can be set to common, pro, and reading, where the pro enables a grid for easy color picking, and reading displays a lengthy magnifier, with a guideline in the middle, for easy reading.

Magnifying factor can be set to a maximum of value of 10, and the box itself to different size specifications. You can keep multiple settings saved under five different profile sets, but you can’t rename them for easy identification.

You need to interact with the tray icon every time you want to bring up the lens, because there’s no built-in hotkey support. Moreover, the color picker can’t save or copy the color values to clipboard, with no corresponding screen capture tool, for more comfort.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that MPS Lens is a powerful magnifier, coming in handy for different types of activities like reading, or color picking. It could have used hotkey support for a faster approach, and possibility to take screenshots, but configuration options, and multiple profile slots make it worth at least a try.