MonitorsUnboxed - Best Monitors For Your Budget 2024: $100 to $1000+ Picks

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Kaladin12543@reddit

He has still not reviewed the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 57 which is arguably the best monitor to buy above $1500. You get a dual 4k ultrawide with DP 2.1 running at 240hz so it's extremely future proof. There is not a single OLED monitor which provides this sharp image along with no burn in concerns.

If you look at the Rtings review, this panel is literally amongst the fastest in terms of response times only beated by the PG27AQN which has to run at 360hz to beat this and thats an esports panel.

As someone who owns the OLED G9 and this Neo G9, response times are damn near close and there is no inverse ghosting, a problem which plagued the Neo G9 49.

You also get a 1,400 nit peak brightness in HDR surpassing any oled out on the market.

I am amazed Tim has not reviewed this flagship so far. He did review the Neo G9 49 but is refusing to try any non OLED panel since they started coming out. There are genuinely fast panels out there

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djent_in_my_tent@reddit

Sorry, anything not OLED in the high end market is dead to me

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OGigachaod@reddit

OLED is crap though, I'm waiting for something better to replace it.

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djent_in_my_tent@reddit

OLED is essentially visually perfect. I don't mind treating my monitor as a consumable. Everything wears, including my own body. Might as well enjoy the best visual fidelity possible while i'm here :)

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Strazdas1@reddit

It may be "vusually perfect" but if i have to throw it out in 6 months because of burnin im not buying it.

And yes, my use case is extreme. Often static elements for 16+ hours a day with no rest for pixel cycling. It will absolutely burn in fast. RTings testing isnt even close to my use case. They are very forgiving.

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djent_in_my_tent@reddit

The secret is to make more money, and then you don’t care about things like monitors wearing out

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kikimaru024@reddit

If I was spending the big bucks, I'd be more interested in Mini-LED tbh

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pomyuo@reddit

probably hard to get in australia, expensive, big packaging, few people interested, that's probably why he hasn't. the channels not a charity.

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Antonis_32@reddit (OP)

TLDR:
Best $100 Monitor - AOC 24G4
Best $150 Monitor - Asrock PG27QFT2A
Best $200 Monitor - Dell G2724D
Best $250 Monitor - LG 27GP850
Best $300 Monitor - AOC Q27G3XMN
Best $350 Monitor - MSI G274QPX
Best $400 Monitor - Gigabyte M27UA
Best $500 Monitor - LG 32GR93U
Best $600 Monitor - AOC AG276QZD
Best $700 Monitor - Asus ROG Strix XG27AQDMG
Best $800 Monitor - Dell Alienware AW3423DWF Best $900 Monitor - MSI MAG 321UPX
Best $1000 Monitor - MSI MPG 321URX
Best Above $1000 Monitors - Asus ROG Swift PG32UCDM, Asus ROG Swift PG32UCDP

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Resies@reddit

I have the $900 monitor, it's pretty nice! Only downside is being an OLED and having to baby it.

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

You probably don't HAVE to baby it.
If you're worried though... dark mode (which I like anyway), don't use peak brightness and MAYBE run a small fan on low behind the monitor.

CRT, LCD and Plasma all had their own degradation which wasn't worried about; and OLED longevity is way better than it was a few years back.

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Strazdas1@reddit

CRT, LCD could work for decades with static images without any real issue other than slighty decreased brighthness. Plasma had big issues with burnin (and powersumption) and therefore we saw practically no plasma monitors. Great visual for movies, would be terribly burn in for productivity. OLED is somewhat between them in terms of issues. Its not as bad as plasma, but also is not an option for quite a few of us due to burnin issues.

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in#/media/File:Screen_burn_screen_off.png

Doing a quick search for CRT vs LCD lifespan I got (via AI):

>while a CRT might last around 20,000 hours, an LCD can last upwards of 50,000 hours, making LCDs the clear winner in terms of longevity

With that said the first link mentioned LCDs lasting up to 100k hours

Doing "OLED lifespan: I got:

>The lifespan of an OLED TV is estimated to be 100,000 hours, which is equivalent to watching TV for 10 hours a day for 27 years. This is based on the assumption of average usage. OLED TVs have a longer lifespan than LCD TVs, which typically last 30,000–60,000 hours.

Skimming website summaries, it appears that in the last 10 years (from 2013 to present) OLED life expectancy has tripled from around 30k hours to around 100k hours. Anecdotally I had smart phones with BAD OLED burn in from 2012-2016 (the latter not being THAT BAD) with the blue degrading and the last few phones I've had showed near 0 burn in, even if I look for it.

In the 2012-2016 era I intentionally ran the screen dimmer than I'd like to limit it. The Galaxy Nexus had issues. The Galaxy S6 had issues (far less severe though). The S7 was a bit better. The Pixel 3/4/5/6 are all fine. The Iphone 15 Pro is fine.

Here and now the screens are MUCH brighter and I often find myself NOT running it at max brightness for comfort reasons as opposed to longevity reasons.

My suspicion is that MUCH of the concern is 5+ years out of date.

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BloodyLlama@reddit

My plasma TV burned in if you so much as looked at it wrong. We totally had to worry about it.

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Strazdas1@reddit

Plasma burned in a lot. Much worse than OLED. Theres a reason plasma wasnt used for monitors despite having great color.

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tukatu0@reddit

I have a neighbour with a ... Panasonic plasma from 2008 going strong. It's used 1 hour a week. Thing draws like 350watts so i would never recommend getting one.

At least they strobe so you get 180hz clarity from 60hz output. Pretty neat.

Well either way this is different tech so

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Resies@reddit

Heat affects OLED burn in?

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tukatu0@reddit

Heat and voltage.

Don't put sunlight on these or it will fade within hours

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Resies@reddit

I keep curtains close on that side of the room!

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

Here's my baseline intuition as someone that's sharp but has a negligible background in materials science and organic chemistry...

Chemicals degrade much more quickly at VERY HIGH temperatures.

Going from almost 0 airflow (heat based convection) to some airflow is a night/day difference when it comes to temperatures. Going from some airflow to A LOT barely matters though.

here's an article that I've superficially skimmed to make sure I'm not full of BS

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379677915301193

"Heat generation inside OLED reduces the lifetime significantly"

"dissipation of generated heat is an effective approach to increase the lifetime of OLED"

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Resies@reddit

I'll get a small USB fan and point it up from below the monitor lol ty

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

For what it's worth it also helps with OTHER displays as well and things like AVRs.

It's not worth obsessing a ton over though.

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PaulTheMerc@reddit

What is an AVR?

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

Audio Video Receiver.

It's often used for home theater systems.

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PaulTheMerc@reddit

Thank you

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Resies@reddit

I used one of my old 120mm fans with a USB power converter and taped it behind my avr a few years ago

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Beautiful_Ninja@reddit

It seems like it. My Samsung OLED monitor specifically mentions the improved cooling solution it has as being an anti-burn in measure.

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loozerr@reddit

I have a $400 monitor, I can raw dog the terminal 24/7

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Stingray88@reddit

We need way more ultrawide monitors above 3440x1440.

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kikimaru024@reddit

What a time when you can get a >144Hz IPS for $100 (depending on region)

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Strazdas1@reddit

(depending on region)

These videos are always disappointing to me because every time theres a really nice monitor there i end up finding out its not sold in my continent...

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no_4@reddit

Best $250 Monitor - LG 27GP850 (27", 1440P, 180Hz, IPS)

Note for folks- these have had frequent sales, which makes them a popular one on /r/buildapcsales

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picastchio@reddit

Best $500 Monitor - LG 32GR93U (32", 4K, 244Hz, IPS)

Should be 144Hz.

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BrkoenEngilsh@reddit

The 2 things that stuck out to me, Tim prefers the 240hz woled over the 360 qd oleds, though if you want the higher refresh rate then 360hz models are equally viable.

He also still recommends the ultrawide oled even when the 27" 16:9 oleds exists.

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TheAgentOfTheNine@reddit

no 27" 4k monitors on the list? :-(

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mapletune@reddit

Gigabyte M27UA (27", 4K, 160Hz, IPS)

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TheAgentOfTheNine@reddit

Oh, I missed that one. Nice.

I still would put those miniled 4k over the 900 and higher ones.

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Nicholas-Steel@reddit

Best $100 Monitor - AOC 24G4 (24", 1080P, 1080Hz, IPS)

That's a very fast monitor for $100!

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cronedog@reddit

I hope we eventually get high frame rate greater than 4k monitors. I'd love a 32 inch 6k 90 hz monitor.

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

I don't think there's a huge need for THAT high of a resolution at 32"

I could TOTALLY get behind 6K at 48" though (equivalent to a 2x2 grid of 24" 3k monitors)

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cronedog@reddit

I can still see the pixels on my monitor. I'd love for that to not be the case and to run at 6k with no upscale and no AA. Maybe I'd need 8k for that, but I'd like to experience an intermediary to see if its good enough.

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

once you're at around 300 pixel per inch at a 10-12" viewing distance the eye can't really resolve any additional detail.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/hs7ioc/viewing_angle_resolution_viewing_distance_monitor/

Going off of this - a 55" 4K display is at about that limit when you're 3.5' away... a 27" 4K display is about there at 1.8' away. 32" and 5k would be about the same at 27" at 4K though in practice people tend to be a bit further back.

I'm currently about 30" away from a 32" 4K display and it's fine. I will admit I can see a difference vs the 1440p display 27" next to it so there's still an argument for going to 4K. I can see individual pixels if I get to around 8" away but I have to go out of my way to notice it and it'll be white on a black background.

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You're either making out with your monitor with your eyes open, or you have super human eyesight.

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Strazdas1@reddit

Well thats clearly wrong because i can totally see denser pixels.

or you have super human eyesight.

Are those calculations based on 20/20 eyesight? because many people have better eyesight (especially young people).

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

They are based on 20-20.

The "we should go with 6K at a low screen size" comment is close to 25-50% higher than kind of the baseline for "people stop being able to tell a difference"

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For what it's worth, WB did a double blind test for 4K vs 8K on an 88" screen at relatively short viewing distance. Most people couldn't tell.

https://www.techhive.com/article/578376/8k-vs-4k-tvs-most-consumers-cannot-tell-the-difference.html

>This study supports the notion that 8K is only marginally better than 4K in terms of perceived detail—and only with good visual acuity at a relatively close distance from the screen. Otherwise, 4K offers as much detail as the vast majority of consumers can perceive.

It was viewed at either 5' or 9' away.

88" at 5' away is analogous to 44" at 2.5' or 32" at a 22" viewing distance.

At this point the resolution is so fine that light bleed from one pixel to the next (as perceived by the eye) is legitimately a thing.

At this point whether or not someone has glasses on or used eye drops or the time of the day is a thing.

There will be people who benefit from sharper displays and there's use cases for it. I want a higher resolution screen myself mostly for the sake of consolidating multiple monitors into one.

I don't think there's a big benefit from text being THAT much sharper on a 32" display. I don't think there's a huge benefit from games being that much sharper (DLSS and FSR to combat aliasing helps). I do think there's a benefit from just... having a bigger display with the same pixel density even if you need to move your head or your eyes to the side to view it all. More screen without the resolution (measured in pixels per arcminute) dropping is nice.

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cronedog@reddit

I sit about 30 inches away too ( I measured once years ago but going off memory). I won't claim I can see the grid structure and count the pixels in every situation, but I sure can see the stairstep pattern on all edges.

I'd like to not be able to do that, for all elements to appear natural and smooth. You really can't tell the difference between 4k native no AA and with AA?

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tukatu0@reddit

Problem is modern games don't have a no aa option.

But either way yeah he is wrong since he assumes you can't see detail between degress of vision

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cronedog@reddit

That's a good point

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tukatu0@reddit

Fortnite does have a no aa mode but it breaks shadows (intentional because of deffered render). I really like it even at 1080p.

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tukatu0@reddit

That post is wrong. Or rather ennificient. You should be looking at ppd not ppi First, determine the resolution (R). Next, determine the field of view (FOV) in degrees. Next, determine the distance (D). Finally, calculate the Pixels Per Degree using the formula PPD = R / (2 * tan((FOV / 2) * (π / 180)) * D).

Apple aims for 120ppd in their desk displays. If you want to top it out and reach the limits of humans until they get cyborg eyes 100 years from now. Then aiming for 200ppd is where displays should aim for decades from now.

Which would be like 8k at 27 inches.

I dont actually have a source so ill end this here.

Oh right tvs. In my opinion it doesn't matter. I can't get closer than 5ft to a 55 inch tv. None of that ppd stuff matters and 4k is probably fine as an end goal. Maybe i could benefit from 8k for a 100 inch screen sitting about 10 ft away. But it's such a distant future i dont even want to bother thinking about. You would need to rely an ai upscaling like topaz ai doing 12k upscales for it to be worthwhile. I guess it could happen within 5 years but eh who knows.

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Thradya@reddit

Additional detail no, aliasing absolutely. Why comment about things you know nothing about?

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

300 PPI has generally been accepted as the point where people with 20/20 vision can't perceiving material increases in image quality. It's been used for print for ages. Apple did a whole campaign about "retina resolution" and there's truth to it.

I have to get within about 8 inches to pick out pixels/aliasing on a 32" 4K display. At that point I have to look for it. I literally did this while writing the prior response. Yes, I measured.

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If you're using OSX, enable sub-pixel rendering. If you're using windows it's on by default.

If you're playing games at 100,000 FPS, turn on AA or downscale from a higher resolution.

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tukatu0@reddit

That article is just assuming you can't see detail between degrees of vision. Which is not true. Or rather it doesn't really mention it. I know my eye sight is far worse than average yet i can still with near certainty can tell the difference between a 1080p phone and 1440p one.

Can you tell me at what distances this looks like to you? https://testufo.com/aliasing-visibility

At the distance of around 60ppd (same thing as 1minute arc) for the average person. I have to move back about 4x for the aliasing to dissapear. Which would something like 10k resolution for 32 inch monitor. Double your estimate

If you ever have had an 8k tv or something who has an 8k tv talk about how it's not much better than 4k. You can assume that is bevause the screens are not actually 8k. Some sort of weird angular subpixel structure means having 6000 3000p ish resolution. I do not know since no one has ever counted.

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Strazdas1@reddit

Im totally fine with 4K at 27", so id say for 6k 32" would be normal. Actually i can still see individual pixels on a 1440p 27" and it takes 4k not to, so im probably more sensitive to resolution density than most.

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Strazdas1@reddit

The issue there isnt a lot of >4K content. 4K TVs only got popular when we started having 4K bluerays and 4K consoles. There needs to be a certain amount of market for manufacturers to bother making it.

5K monitors do exist, but are mostly for productivity.

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cronedog@reddit

Video games, my dude

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Strazdas1@reddit

The amount of people who would pay enough money to play above 4k arent enough to support a production line for the panels.

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cronedog@reddit

There's hundreds of monitor sku's right now. I think there'd be enough of us to add one more.

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Forgiven12@reddit

Same here. I've been eyeing a 120hz 5k2k UltraSharp U4025QW. Need none of that gamer-y bells and whistles.

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ChickenwingKingg@reddit

Is Mini LED in any way worth a thought?

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zombieautopilot81@reddit

I had the Q27G3XMN for two weeks. The local dimming died on me. Whenever HDR was on, there would be an area that was always dark and wouldn't light up. Looked like a big Tetris L block in the center of my screen. It looked great when it worked tho. Starting up Doom Eternal nearly blinded me.

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tukatu0@reddit

Yeah sort of. It allows much higher brightness. Alot of people were praising rtx hdr or auto hdr. When in reality all that stuff does in increase the brightness.... So maybe hdr enjoyers are mostly the kind of people hwo think louder music = better. Which is true. But it's also not the same thing as louder = higher quality. That is wrong.

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

"close enough to OLED" image quality and there's reduced need to worry about leaving it on.

downsides: if ONE LED dies... it's not nice and probably worse than OLED burn in. Responsiveness is also lower.
I'm currently rocking a mini-LED TV and it's solid.

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vfl97wob@reddit

How likely is that?

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masterfultechgeek@reddit

It happens. It's still somewhat rare that there's total failure of an LED in an LCD display but if you have thousands of them... it's a non-0 risk. Also the LEDs slowly get dimmer AND they get dimmer in non-consistent way where some are worse than others.

IPS based LCDs for example have their own kind of "burn in" (misnomer) where after about 10,000 hours they're significantly darker and the backlight isn't as uniform.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/longevity-burn-in-test-updates-and-results

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Nicholas-Steel@reddit

Well, it's a lot better than regular LED LCD backlighting.

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juGGaKNot4@reddit

Paid 150 for 240hz 5 years ago, nothing better now?

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MatchDry6277@reddit

If resolution, response time, and display type mean nothing to you, then you are set for life.

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Gippy_@reddit

I just want an OLED that can be used for desktop work without seeing a burn-in ghost after a few years. For now I use an IPS for desktop work and an OLED TV for video.

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g6b785@reddit

Then just get an OLED monitor. I've had my Alienware for over 2 years and it has no issues. Just gotta do the refreshes when it tells you

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kikimaru024@reddit

Are you simply unable to google?

There are 480Hz IPS & OLED monitors, as well as 540Hz TN.

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Kathryn_Cadbury@reddit

Of course those exist, but I can see what they are saying to a degree. I got my LG UG 27" about 4 years ago (165hz gsync/freesync 1ms) and I don't actually need anything better, so if someone was looking to upgrade but not been keeping up with things they might think there hasn't been that much movement in the sector, but there has if you know where to look (OLED, higher refresh rates etc, better connectivity etc)

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juGGaKNot4@reddit

For <200$. Who cares about stupidly priced parts?

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kikimaru024@reddit

Well then: it depends

What was the MSRP of your monitor? Did you get it on deep discount?
Is it TN, IPS, VA?
What size are you comparing to?
What resolution is it?
How accurate are the colours on your monitor?

That said, 5 years in monitors is enough where same-price usually blows what you have away for picture quality.

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OGigachaod@reddit

Yeah monitors seem to have stagnated.

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Kiriima@reddit

Last Xiaomi miniLED monitor is $300, has 1000+ dimming zones and 1200nit full screen peak brightness. 1440p 180gz last gen IPS panel. It has no competition in this price bracket.

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cadaada@reddit

These videos are interesting... but does anyone review the monitors durability? Most monitors that i see i could buy, basically have problems out of the factory, like the 24GN60R-B (or 24GN60F-B, dont recall) that i was going to buy lol.

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TerriersAreAdorable@reddit

The failure rate on monitors is so low that even an LTT-sized YouTuber could never get enough of them to get good data on durability across many models.

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Strazdas1@reddit

Depends on what you consider failure. I consider dead pixels a failure. Manufacturer disagrees.

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tukatu0@reddit

Rtings has a test on tvs which says otherwise.

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cadaada@reddit

Failure rate, you mean as dying? Because the two i mentioned have constant comments about backlight spots.

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Pity_Pooty@reddit

You get higher blacklight spots in cheap monitors for obvious reasons. Also, there are no monitors without black spots I think.

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Strazdas1@reddit

RTings is the best that i know off in temrs of long term testing.

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Gippy_@reddit

Longevity tests are all about the panel tech rather than specific models, so you can look at Rtings for that. OLED still has low durability and that will probably never change.

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MarkElf2204@reddit

Not a huge fan of the $400/500 recommendations. I'd rather stick to 1440p for performance (5800X3D + 4070 TI) than randomly jumping to 4k / 32". The other cost recommendations all go back to 1440p and 27" so why they went with 4k or 32" for these price points, I don't know. I remember they made some other recommendations in their November update that seem like better recommendations for the $400-500 price range.

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