The Monitor Buying Guide - What You Need to Know! [2023]

I'm monitoring the situation it's been three years since my last big monster buying guide which was very popular and I think helped a lot of people so I'm back and things have changed so I'm going to run you through everything you know the basics to the advanced stuff from gaming productivity every kind of Monitor and hopefully it answers your questions if you do have any other thoughts then let me know in the comments as well and if you enjoy the video a like And subscribe would be lovely firstly credit to my producer Pete for setting this up every shape and size of monitor you can buy but the first thing I want to say is there is no such thing as a perfect monitor it completely depends what you're going to be using it for is it for gaming is it just for casual browsing watching a bit of Netflix also professional color editing with that in mind and also your budget you can start to hone in on what the best display is for you think about which nice to haves you might consider like a larger size or faster refresh rate for gaming or maybe HDR or do you want a smart monitor that can mirror your laptop or phone wirelessly all that comes with a ton of built-in apps and features bearing in mind you'll probably be keeping your monitor for several years you don't upgrade these things very often so it is often worth paying a little bit more now up front and that will simply just last you longer the truth is size really does matter I mean just look at the difference here we've got everything from a 24 this teeny tiny little one down here moving up to 27 inches and actually I'd say these two are the most common sizes you can go for but I think this is The Sweet Spot a little bit bigger 32 on the end here but then moving up to our higher tier here we have this 45 inch Ultra wide and then this absolute monster of a 49 inch super ultra wide and actually if we just pan around Pete if I can get you to walk over here over here this is a 48 inch not TV but gaming monitor this is an orgy 48 OLED and we'll talk more about this later on because oh it's delicious now three inches may not sound like a lot but actually going up from the 24 to a 27 gives you roughly 25 more screen real estate so it is significantly bigger and with a regular 21x9 Ultra wide as a supposed to have 16 by nine typical monitor we have roughly 30 percent more screen space horizontally on these guys great for side-by-side apps and on these super duper Ultra wides which is not the technical name I don't know actually what you would call it but it's the equivalent of having two of these two 27 inches for this particular model side by side but without that ugly bezel in the middle but it's not just the size it's also the aspect ratios and also the curve just look how curvy this is not everyone's cup of tea but it certainly does give you that sort of immersive factor in your games it's a good workout if you're gonna be staring at this thing all day and all night possibly for gaming then you want it to be flexible and it's worth looking at whether it has height adjustment pivoting rotating and also tilt and some displays let you fully rotate it 90 degrees so you have this nice portrait mode essentially for your monitor which is great for coding or if you're editing portrait content and it looks kind of cool now I'm shooting this in 4k because I want the sharpest footage possible so you can see my gorgeous old silver cat here in all her glory but the chances are you're not watching this on a 4K screen unless it's your TV maybe the vast majority of displays are 1080p or 1440 4K is more and more common especially since I made this video last time three years ago so we are of course talking about resolution and this refers to the number of horizontal and vertical pixels on your screen the higher the number the more detailed the image now pretty much all 24-inch monitors have a 1080P or full HD resolution which gives you a nice sharp image but the problem is if you jump up to 27 inches that 10tb resolution is then stretched a little bit and it becomes a lot less sharp and if you say close enough you can just about make out individual pixels it doesn't look as good so the rule of thumb for me is 24 inches tntp 27 inches go for 1440p it does cost more but I think it is worth it so 1080 1440 and then 4K like I have with this guy and it's a lot more common on 32-inch monitors you can get 4k at 27 inches but I would avoid that personally I don't think the screen's big enough to really take advantage of that resolution and it is going to impact the frame rate in your games and also cost more but 4K is the sharpest looking by far and generally 4K screen panels are also higher quality 4K gaming is pretty sweet though but because you've got such a high resolution your frame rate is going to take a big hit you need a very beefy PC to get high frame rates at 4K so generally for gamers I would suggest 1080P or 1440 they're your best options although if you're gaming on a PS5 or an Xbox series X I would suggest a 4K screen because most games aim for 4K but with a 60fps cap so a typical 4k60 monitor would be ideal and it is also more common to have HDR with a 4K screen so when it comes to resolution you'll often see a PPI number listed the pixel per inch and that's basically the combination of the resolution and the size the higher the number the sharper the screen while we do have a game up here let's talk about refresh rate and that is basically the number of times the screen refreshes itself every second and the higher the Hertz the smoother the image the vast majority of typical monitors are 60 hertz that's like the standard but then you can get 75 120 144 165 240 360 480 I think we've even seen a 500 Hertz monitor now and of course through our diminishing returns I think 144 is kind of still a sweet spot generally we consider refresh rate just for gamers but as someone who you know edits in Premiere Pro and uses their monsters for work scrolling through the timeline doing everyday stuff with a high refresh rate is noticeably nice so it's a better experience it's one of the reasons I upgraded to the new MacBooks with the pro motion 120hz screen and actually one thing I have noticed and actually I'm using my little MacBook here for my script is that going from 120 hertz on the laptop to a 60 hertz external display monitor feels like a step down so actually for me I kind of prefer going with a high refresh monitor so it matches my laptop of course you are going to pay more for a high refresh but there isn't really any downside for me I think 144 or 165 Hertz is The Sweet Spot this is actually 240 and I think I can just about tell but the issue is not just the diminishing returns of whether you can physically see that smoother refresh rate but you need to maintain that high frame rate from your PC so if you're getting 180 FPS but you've got a 240Hz monitor you're not fully taking advantage of it effectively you're seeing 180 Hertz although it's not quite as simple as that because High refresh rates also generally give you a lower latency which is what you want the goal basically is the highest refresh rate with the lowest latency and fastest response time which will give you the best gaming experience everything will be quicker and smoother and faster and in some cases it can give you a competitive Advantage if you can see things quicker if you can see the enemy come you know through the door faster and you can then click your button and there's less latency and it you know takes a shot more quickly then you may win the game it could be a life or death difference what you could do though before you buy a new monitor is actually use an FPS s counter to see how many frames you're getting right now with your system and that should give you an idea of which refresh rate you need if you're getting 120 frames per second but your monitor is 60 hertz then it's definitely time for an upgrade now I mentioned input lag and response time and they are two different things bear with me here input lag is the amount of time it takes for your monitor to display the most up-to-date signal that comes from your computer while response time is how long it takes for a pixel to change from one color to the next usually measured with one shade of gray to another or greater gray response time measured in milliseconds the lower the number means you get less motion blur while ghosting and ideally particularly for gamers you want anything under 5 milliseconds bear in mind though that some manufacturers claim one or two millisecond response times but these are their best case results and they're tested using extreme overdrive modes that can then introduce reverse ghosting so a different kind of motion blur with multiple supposedly one millisecond displays actually being slower in real world testing so make sure you check reviews first frustratingly it is kind of rare to see input lag figures on a monster spec sheet but you can often find reviews that do measure it and the good news is that high refresh rates do also reduce input lag simply by having more frames more often and also your graphics card may have features like Nvidia reflex or radio anti-lag to remove even more latency from the system but for non-gamers response time input lag don't really worry about it it's gonna be fine the cheaper the Martyr generally the higher the numbers which isn't as good but you're just not really going to notice it unless you are playing fast-paced games like this although if your monitor does have a game mode then definitely use it if you are gaming one more thing to bear in mind for all you Gamers though we have to talk about variable refresh rate or vrr and also adaptive sync these Technologies help to eliminate screen tearing and stutter by syncing the refresh rate of your screen with the exact frame rate coming from your laptop or your graphics card which makes the whole experience feel much smoother and particularly for games running out or under 60 FPS where tearing can be more obvious now the good news is that most new monitors now come with some form of vrr either Nvidia g-sync or amd's freesync g-sync is usually limited to higher end monitors because it's an Nvidia license format which is why you'll generally find more freesync compatible monitors or ones with the open adaptive sync standard now unlike the olden days regardless of whether you have a Nvidia or an AMD GPU graphics card they both support both formats so you don't really have to worry although both formats have a few different tiers with the top end g-sync ultimate coming with a physical built-in module in the Monitor and you will need a Nvidia gravis car to take advantage of it but it's not really that essential with the basic entry level versions doing a good enough job for most of us okay no more gaming for a second let's talk about something that applies to everybody panel types these things and actually this used to be a really boring topic because we just talked about Tien and IPS and VA but now tiens basically disappeared aside from you know really old monitors or actually on the super Hand high refresh displays for Esports Gamers but don't worry about that now really it's IPS VA and mini LED and OLED things have come a long way in the last couple of years now the vast majority of monitors have either an IPS or a VA panel there are differences but you can't really go wrong with either IPS or in-plane switching is more common though and it looks great pretty accurate colors and better viewing angles however VA panels offer better contrast and often higher brightness which is great for HDR compared to IPS and also they generally support higher refresh rates in gaming monitors and Ultra wides but it comes at the expense of less accurate colors and also a bit of a drop off in viewing angle quality but this is where things start to get a bit more interesting because IPS VA and Tien are lcd-based panels which are backlit by LEDs which is why sometimes you'll see it listed as an LED LCD but newer pricier gaming and pro monitors are getting the options of mini LED and also OLED displays and so instead of a single large backlight mini LED uses an active array of much smaller lighting zones made up of small well mini LEDs and so many LED screens still use IPS or VA panels but this new backlighting technology is a lot brighter with greater contrast and it's much better for HDR and so essentially the more lighting zones or dimming zones it is often called a display has the better it can dim a darker area of the image next to a brighter one and boost the contrast thing is though the number of zones and how they're controlled vary significantly between different monitors but some of the best gaming monitors out there now like this guy are mini LED with either 165 or 240Hz refresh rate definitely more expensive but they look an awful lot better whether you're working watching movies or gaming and minimally these generally are the best for HDR although that can also vary significantly between different monitors so if you are watching HDR movies or playing HDR games particularly with consoles then this might be worth it but I've saved the best or last OLED now this is the most expensive the rarest kind of panel you can get but it's a lot more common than it was a couple of years ago and this 48 inch 120 hertz although overclockable to 138 Hertz OLED HDR display from Asus Rog is just like one of the most incredible gaming displays I have ever seen and the benefit of OLED is it doesn't have a backlight each pixel is self-emitting it can actually turn itself off if the scene is dark enough so you can get those perfect blacks and we're talking about contrast ratio in the millions versus The Thousands with IPS so a black pixel can be perfectly black and there's no light bleed or blooming the compromise is they can't really get as bright as many LEDs but for vibrant accurate colors fantastic viewing angles and those deep Inky blacks as the cliche goes OLED is King I think 48 inches is probably a little bit Overkill although we do now have a couple of great 27 inch high refresh OLED options and actually what I will do is leave some of my favorite recommended monitors in the description below below and I'll keep updating them as new models come out there is a bit of an issue around oleds which you probably are aware of and it's called burn in AKA image retention but mod no leads come with pixel refresh modes and screensavers and auto power off lots of settings unless you turn everything off and you really abuse it you're not really going to have any issues I don't think burning is a problem at all the biggest issue with OLED is the cost but wait there's more because then we have QD OLED which is an evolution of OLED and gets an extra layer of quantum dots hence the QD and this boosts the color and the brightness meaning even better contrast and better visibility in brighter rooms there's a handful of high-end qdo LED monitors on the market right now with more on the way but again prices are likely to stay high until they become more mainstream but if you do need higher color accuracy for graphic photo or media creation and editing then look for a 10-bit panel and also you're going to want the highest color accuracy and this is usually measured against the srgb Adobe RGB and the DCI P3 gamuts and the closer to 100 the more color see what it is but nothing simple is it because sometimes you may see a 10-bit panel monitor but actually it's just 8-bit plus FRC where if a pixel can't display a color from The Wider 10-bit Spectrum then it displays a shade either side of the intended color to create something like the required shade for serious professionals though you can also consider a 12-bit panel but these are quite rare that's not creepy at all let's talk about high dynamic range HDR it's a standard for all 4K TVs but still a little bit iffy when it comes to monitors and essentially a high dynamic range improves the contrast between the brightest and the darkest parts of an image meaning you get extra detail and brightness a wider color range and just a more as it says on the 10 Dynamic immersive experience almost all recent movies and some TV and plenty of games now have HDR support but just how good your experience is is totally up to your monitor visas display HDR certification levels are meant to be a way of standardizing HDR performance and we have different tiers and you'll often see mentions of this in the product description and actually this is really important because the base tier that display hdr400 certification is actually kind of rubbish it only requires 400 nits of brightness in HDR content without any kind of local dimming and the result is pretty far from the HDR you may have experienced on your TV and actually display HDR 500 is a much better standard to hit requiring 5 brightness a wider color gamma and crucially local dimming with lower Black Level luminance and then it gets even better from there with anything over a thousand nits or higher providing genuinely impressive HDR plus OLED panels get their own true black certification which highlight their even deeper black levels bear in mind though that basic vrr adaptive sync Tech isn't actually usable with HDR enabled so you'll need to go for one of the more premium VR options like g-sync ultimate now one thing that is relevant to everybody is the connectivity the poor the port and pretty much every single monitor will have at least one HDMI two Port very recent ones will have 2.1 which is significantly better and allows you to have like high refresh 4K or super high refresh Quad HD not really relevant for most of us unless you're playing games and also DisplayPort HDMI and DisplayPort are two most common although as you can see with this guy we have a USBC more recent and also more expensive monitors and laptops support USBC which is like the best port ever because if this supports display out and you can connect your laptop to it it'll also charge your laptop so you only have one cable for your whole setup although not all usbcs are the same and some higher models support Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 which are basically higher bandwidth and unlock High refresh high resolution combinations but basically if you're using a gaming PC you'll probably want to use a display port like this guy if not HDMI for laptops most of you guys will probably be using HDMI unless you have a USB C port in which case I'd recommend that and finally if you have a 2.1 for both the display and your laptop or PC or console then well use that to give you an example my MacBook Pro 16 here the latest model has three USBC ports and they all support the higher Thunderbolt 4 specs but actually one issue I had been running into with my old MacBook which only supported HDMI 2 not the new 2.1 is that I couldn't get the full high resolution High refresh rate on some of the more premium gaming monitors I was using and they didn't have a USBC or Thunderbolt Port so I was kind of stuck there but with the upgraded 2.1 on the MacBook and we do see that on quite a few new laptops these days you basically have the best of both worlds and finally just a bit of consumer advice if you are going to drop your hard-earned money on a new display check what the manufacturer warranty is different brands offer different lengths of warranty and also you know it breaks how well it'll be supported so it is worth bearing in mind what kind of guarantees you get and breathe we did it we made it to the end but I do want to finish with some buying advice and just for your average productivity office no fills monitor then I will go with either 24 inch 10tp or 27 inch 1440p this would be my preference if you can stretch your budget a little bit and don't worry about anything else except maybe ports if your laptop does have a USBC with display out then I would try and get a monster with that as well alternatively how about a monitor that doubles as a TV with streaming apps with its own remote browser screen mirroring and apple AirPlay and even Microsoft Office and all without having to plug in a laptop or a PC then maybe you consider a smart monitor like the 4K Samsung M8 it's not a full all-in-one like an iMac but it has plenty of extras that make it a cool Standalone device for work or just kicking back with a movie or show for your creative lot then definitely have a look perhaps further over here to the 4K 32 inch section and also keep in mind that color accuracy the srgb Adobe and P3 and also the panel type you want a good IPS or even maybe a mini LED or an OLED especially if you care about colors for gamers refresh rate is obviously very important and also input lag and response time keep those things in mind especially when you're reading reviews and for top end game Gamers well it kind of depends what you want you want that immersive factor with an OLED 4K or do you want the fastest refresh rate with the lowest latency very different kinds of Gamers but for me I still think a 27 inch 1440p 165hz IPS or VA is absolutely ideal unless you're playing on console with the PS5 or series X in which case I would go 4K 60 and focus a bit more on the HDR and that is it we're done if you've got any other questions let me know in the comments below I'll do my best to get back to you I will leave a list of some of my recommended displays in the description as well and as you can tell from my horsey voice this did take quite a long time to film so if you did enjoy it a like And subscribe it would be lovely and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat

Channel: The Tech Chap

Views: 73,237

Keywords: monitor buying guide, best monitor, best gaming monitor, best work form home monitor, ultrawide monitor, the best productivity monitor guide, lg monitor, productivity monitor guide, best home office monitor setup, gaming pc, what monitor should i buy, pc gaming, gaming monitor, best gaming monitor 2023, best productivity monitor, best work monitor, best productivity monitor for mac, best mac monitor, best pc monitor, best ps5 monitor, best xbox monitor, monitor setup 2023

Id: ptUchraop3c

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2023