20 Best External Display For Macbook Pro (2023 Updated)

Lenovo was honestly not my first thought when it came to looking for a portable monitor, despite most of our computers and tablets being Lenovo devices that we’re very pleased with – I just didn’t think of them being in the marketplace.

But when I started searching, the ArsTechnica review of portable monitors immediately surfaced the M14 as being one of the best – and we are very pleased with the purchase! The construction is very solid but still slim and attractive – the base is well weighted and the hinges are sturdy, there’s no worries that the monitor is going to tip or fall even when used outdoors in windy conditions.

The connections are simple – just plug the USB-C cable into any device that supports video over USB-C and you’re up and running; and if that device can support being charged at the same time over that port, you can plug your power supply into the M14’s second port and provide power to the M14 and charge your device at the same time with a minimum of cables.

In use so far the display has been quite adequately bright, although we haven’t used it outdoors in bright sunlight (any display struggles there, of course) – and the onboard blue-light filtering is a nice touch in darker use situations.

The provided carrying sleeve (almost like a think felted material) is also really nice, although I’ve cautioned everyone in the house to put the monitor alongside their laptop if they’re carrying it in a bag to ensure the display doesn’t get flexed and cracked.

I purchased this for my daughter as a Christmas present as a second monitor for her Microsoft Surface. She had been using a low resolution USB monitor and this was supposed to be an upgrade. Her surface does not have USB C ports so got a cable that goes A to C to adapt to this monitor.

Bottom line is that nowhere in the specs does it say this won’t work but it doesn’t. Apparently it only works if your computer has the latest USB C ports. The worst part is i tried to resolve this with Lenovo tech support but after several calls and going round and round with no sneered I gave up.

I then decided to return it to Office Depot but they won’t take it back because it was purchased more than 14 days ago. Well even when she opened it for Christmas it was more than 14 days old so they are saying they won’t help me.

So Frustrating! I will never purchase another Lenovo product again and I will never purchase anything again from Office Depot! You can have all my reward point back. You are not a good company to do business with.

I ordered two of these for a triple monitor setup. The display is great, very intuitive to use, support for portrait mode is excellent and they’re the same size as my Lenovo laptop monitor. The small improvements I’d like to see: * I had thought that I’d be able to daisy chain these together with my USB-C power to use just one port on my laptop.

Unfortunately that’s not supported so I need to use two, but it does work great as a triple monitor setup running from two USB-C ports. * The USB-C ports are on opposite end of the ends of the monitor stand.

This makes running multiple cables a little awkward and means the portrait monitor needs to be fed from the top. I would’ve preferred if the USB-C ports came off the back of the monitor stand instead to avoid this.

It would also let me put the monitors into their protective sleeves without unplugging the cables.

The monitor (purchased in January of 2021) produces a great-looking image when it works. Periodically, when the monitor has been off for a while and is turned back on, the screen will remain almost completely dark.

If I attempt to tab through open programs, the darkness level will change slightly from program to program. Turning the monitor off and disconnecting the cables for a few minutes will sometimes correct the problem.

The instructions suggest that with the monitor plugged in and the cables disconnected, a diagnostic feature in the monitor will be activated. This feature does not appear until after the monitor is working normally again.

I should mention that I do not use any Sleep features on these computers, but I do use screen-saver features. I disabled the monitor’s sleep feature to see if that might make a difference and it did not.

Dell’s website stated that if purchased at Best Buy, the monitor would need top be brought back there. As I did not purchase any type of extended warranty service, the Ocala, Florida Geek Squad (who were extremely helpful, by the way) wasn’t able to assist me directly, but they did provide me information for how to get in contact with Dell.

I contacted Dell’s customer service department via their chat feature. I described the screen darkness issues to the technician; as I use the monitor with both a Mac and a PC and he recommended that a Windows driver and Mac firmware update be downloaded and installed on the appropriate computers.

After the firmware and Windows driver were installed, I was still experiencing the same issues. I went as far as changing how the Mac and the PC were hooked up to the monitor to see if that would make any difference, and it did not.

I reached back out to tech-support, and informed them that everything has been installed but I was still experiencing the same issues. Tech-support told me that I would need to need to contact Mac support because the monitor was working properly.

I’m not exactly sure how they came to that conclusion but the Dell monitor continues to not work properly. I’m pretty sure that the issue is with the Dell monitor itself; I have an older LG monitor which was going to be replaced by the Dell.

On a few occasions when this has occurred, I’ve immediately disconnected everything from the the Dell monitor and hooked it up to my old LG monitor. The LG monitor works fine… no irregularities with the picture.

This monitor works well for me. I work primarily in spreadsheets and in terminal windows at the command prompt. First the pros. I can see all the columns on most spreadsheets without scrolling. No problems shifting computer input to the next.

Easy to display multiple documents on a single screen. I wish I’d gotten a larger monitor sooner. Cons. Although my Linux laptop displays properly there’s no management software. The windows display management application has limited locations for PBP or PIP.

If those locations and tile sizes dont fit your workflow you”re stuck because you cant change them. I don’t use Windows enough to have an opinion about the templates to arrange windows on a desktop. The advertising copy about the monitor makes it sound like you can drag documents from one computer to another, but its not obvious how it works and undocumented (or I’ve missed it in the documentation.

) I hoped to get down to a single monitor for work, but the minimal Linux support and inflexibility of the PIP/PBP templates killed that dream. I’ve defaulted to simply treating this like a normal monitor with a kvm and swapping inputs between my primary & tertiary work machines with the secondary laptop on a separate monitor.

If you work entirely in Windows and the PIP/PBP templates mesh with your workflow you’ll probably like this monitor. If you work primarily in Linix it’s still a nice monitor, but if you already have a KVM it may not be the monitor for you.

1440p 240 hz with 270 hz from overclock, decent color accuracy, very high saturation, good brightness. A great monitor for all-rounder, especially for gaming. 240hz overrated? not really, I would say it is definitely better than 144 hz, 270 hz? can’t feel the difference, if you don’t want to spend the premium, go with 144 hz, you will do just fine.

Response time wise, this monitor is insane, 2 ms grey to grey, it’s absolutely amazing for fast pace games and not have to deal with VA or TN panels. HDR though, only good for content consumption like Youtube videos, don’t expect anything good from it, not great for gaming, you’d need to go HDR 1000 to get any good experience.

This monitor has G-sync compatible, not actual G-sync, it’s basically AMD Free sync, I honestly find it useless. I don’t really get tearing with capping my games FPS to my refresh rate, or even without capping it and when it run lower than refresh rate, I never got any tearing.

It’s a flat screen, even though it’s IPS I honestly think curved screen will still make this 27 inch so much better, I had 24 inch curved and it’s amazing. Overall, I’d say the ROG Swift version is a better buy for the money, but if you have that money and play stuff like CSGO where you run your games at 200+ FPS but also do media creation as a job and what not, this one is not bad at all.

Upgrade from 1080p people, trust me, it’s a whole lot better.

Great monitor from a top of the line PC hardware company. Highest 1440p refresh rate at 270Hz (overclocked) w/an IPS 0. 5ms monitor. Great for high-end/top of the line gaming, while having good graphics fidelity.

Only games I can get to 240Hz consistently is Overwatch at Medium Settings and 270Hz is RainbowSix: Siege at Ultra Settings of the game I play, currently. Great option as your graphics cards get more powerful, since monitors usually last/go through many generations.

I would recommend it for high-end/top of the line players, but not casual. 144/165Hz is just fine for half the price. I don’t notice a major difference between 144/165Hz and 240/270Hz, but there is one.

If you’re not a high-end/top of the line player, then you’ll likely notice even less, if anything at all. My aim is a little more smooth, but nothing major from the prior mentioned refresh rates. I would stick w/lower refresh and/or resolutions, if you don’t also have high-end/top of the line hardware, also.

1080p is easier to run at 240/360Hz, along w/requiring less hardware power at low-settings.

My unit came with excessive backlight bleed. So I’ll be returning it. However, that’s not the only issue with this monitor. ELMB Sync barely works. It’s greyed out most of the time, and when it works you get a terrible double image effect.

It’s not usable. ELMB Sync also caused my display to flicker like crazy if I alt+tab out of a game sometimes. ELMB on it’s own, without feesync enabled, works alright. You need to open the service menu to adjust the Overdrive though, otherwise you’ll get terrible inverse ghosting on top of an unavoidable slight double image effect.

Thankful when not using ELMB, and just using freesync, the overdrive options are not greyed out. That was the main reason I’m selling my Acer XB273U GX. I didn’t get any stuck pixels, but there are to many issues with this monitor for me to keep it.

So I’m going to return it and try my luck with a replacement.

I wish other companies could compete and that Apple would bring some of the XDR’s features to other products like the iMac. Auto rotate is amazing when working in something like Pages, as it gives you so much more room.

The retina clarity at this size is game changing for me. I just wish you could buy a non hyper-bright xdr variant for less. Also, the stand should actually come to the imacs and/or get a vesa adapter such that you can use its stand with other vesa products.

The m1 imacs have a beautiful stand, that is not at all ergonomic (too short). Were it possible, I’d plop a vesa m1 imac on a pro stand for the height. There are stands that have vesa capability out there, they just look like trash.

The pro display is too expensive, but that’s because there isn’t enough competition out there. No other company seems to think retina displays are important, making 4k panels that are too large and prioritize high refresh rates.

Essentially, the market is divided between gamers and bog-standard office workers, neither of which seem to understand or care about resolution. If you work in graphics of practically any kind, this monitor will turn you into Smeagol in less than five minutes as there is simply nothing like it out there (the dell 8k is higher resolution and ppi, but about the same price and housed in garbage plastic).

Oh, don’t buy the nano texture. Look up ebay resale figures for both and you’ll see a trend. For anyone who stares at a screen all day, they are the work truck or shoes – the thing that can make a huge difference in comfort and utility, but is priced that way.

I still have my thunderbolt displays this many years on, only have passed them down to others in the household. Point being – this is a ten year+ monitor.

I did months and months of research between this monitor, some Ben Q’s, Eizo monitors, Asus pro displays, build quality of those products and on and on. Between buttons on monitors, pixles per inch, nit brighness, customer reviews, cable management, icc profile customizations, etc.

Hours and hours of time. In the end I decided to buy this monitor because I wanted something that could give me the best of both worlds between my photography hobby, which I take a little more serious than just a hobby, and being able to change my screen calibrations between photography and my leisure web browsing and other online needs of mine.

Also ease of connectivity and use. This monitor allows for that. Other high end photography monitors have a much lower output brightness (which is obvious to the pro photographer, don’t have to go into that) and are usually meant for just photo editing or video editing with matte finishes.

Basically just a work monitor. There are no buttons on this monitor, which I love! Turns on and off according to my 2019 MacBook Pro computer usage that I have connected to only one thunder bolt cable it came with.

I also use a wireless apple keyboard and wireless apple trackpad to go along with it so that my lap top stays on its stand closed! So the two best things I love about this monitor is its sharpness and it’s colors are beautiful to look at! Working on this monitor is a joy! Editing has become much more fun and enjoyable again.

My photos have a much more better edit than ever before and that’s partly because I was editing only on my mac book pro before. Never the less, this is the nicest monitor I have ever used. It’s so nice just to look at which you’ll be doing a lot of if you’re serious about getting this.

The size is perfect, not too small and not to big. Brightness is adjustable to peaks that you wouldn’t necessarily use, but good to have. I haven’t yet tried any video editing on this since I only use it for photography so I have nothing to report on its dynamic range capabilities at this point so far.

There is one big draw back to this monitor that I don’t like, but is definitely not a deal breaker. It’s the vignetting! If you work as a pro photographer and absolutely need the picture corner to corner perfect while looking at this monitor from all angles, then this monitor is not for you, sorry.

I use Lightroom classic and photo shop, so my photos are always in the middle of the monitor and the vignette is masked by my control panels, so I don’t see the vignette. But while web browsing, I definitely see it around my peripheral.

If you move your head slightly to the corners, then the vignette goes away. It doesn’t bother me enough to not like this monitor or take away a star. My photos are still coming out great. One thing I did notice is the luminance in the oranges pulsating while shifting between the control panel and picture pallet.

This has happened a few times and caught it while editing trying to adjust the brightness. It was oranger one second and lighter the next second and changing constantly. I shrunk the control panel and brought it back out again and it went away.

So that might be a Lightroom cc glitch, I’m not sure. I had to do some customizing, especially the brightness of the monitor. The photography mode that it comes with as a pre calibrated setting is still way to bright.

I had to bring it down to 65 luminance. I did some quick prints at home and photos were coming out too dark at first but the colors came out great. It comes with a list of pre calibrated display settings.

Other high end monitors don’t have the range of calibrations that is monitor can give you although ICC profiles with a color monkey or X-Rite calibrations are not possible at this point, maybe at a future apple update we will be able to.

I have not sent any photos to the lab yet to compare a much better comparison of monitor colors to professional print but will update when I do. According to some reviews the colors are perfect. So another great thing about this monitor is, aside from the power cable, I only need one thunder bolt cable connected to my MacBook Pro for this to work and it’s also always charging my lap top with a trickle like charging that doesn’t diminish my battery life which apple has created in these new laptops.

We live in 2020 and so the compatibility and simpleness is what was another deal winner with this purchase. I didn’t want to have to buy a dock station and some more usb connections and adding my lap top charger etc etc that I would have had to deal with by going with another make and brand.

If you can afford it or make payments on this for a year, go for it. You will not be disappointed! Apple Mac book pros 2018 and newer will give you the 6k display. Older versions of apple will decrease the display settings.

If you want HDR content, then upgrade your graphics card! Oh and the monitor itself is beautiful as well. The bezels are approximately a quarter inch big. And the aluminum and the cheese grater is even nice to look at from the back lol.

It definitely says quality all around! I have this connected with the essential apple vesa mount adapter and using it on a Ergotron 45-295-026 LX Desk Mount LCD Arm. It’s perfect!.

This monitor is groundbreaking when comparing the competition in the industry. Similar monitors can cost easily over $10,000 in the professional industry. Anyway, this monitor is not for the average joe.

I’ve tested this one at my job and it is extremely impressive. If you’re looking at this post and seeing the entry-level price as being ridiculous then this monitor was not aimed for you. Apple targeted the professional industry and my review — along with a vast amount of tech video reviews on the internet concur.

Please DO NOT get this monitor as a casual monitor. I would not recommend it for regular use (browsing the internet, reading emails, and/or listening to music) but if you’re a content creator being serious about your profession DO NOT hesitate! Great for Photographers, Developers, and Movie Studios.

I can’t tell about video gaming just yet but I look forward to being able to see those 3D graphics on this computer soon!.

Connects to my MacBook whenever it feels like. It takes at least 10 times of unplugging the 2 wires and plugging them back in every time I want to use this monitor. The screen is large and clear.

This monitor was perfect to use in addition to my laptop to upgrade my study space. It is super portable and easy to use, it is a bit heavy in my backpack with my laptop but totally worth it.

This is a great little portable screen and has a few inputs so it will work with lots of computers

So I loved the idea of this, I researched options, and went with this model for all of the positive reviews. When you look at the compatibility section of the FAQ they say ONLY that it is compatible with “all sizes” of laptop, sans 11″ which will require the kickstand.

What they do not tell you is that this will NOT stick to all laptops. I have an ASUS ROG Zephyrus high end laptop that I use for mobile music and other production. It has the SLIGHTEST bit of curve to the back side of the screen and there apparently is no tolerance engineered into the product to handle this.

They do not even warn you or have you check for compatibility first. When I say slight curve, however I really do mean slight. it’s so slight I never would have noticed it were it not for this being unable to stick.

Upon contacting support, the response was to tell me that I could go buy the kickstand for it. If I had room for that while traveling, I would not need this. I was unfortunate enough to pay full retail, hefty price to then be told I have to spend more to even use it.

The stand-up thing to do (no pun intended) would be to verify my laptop make and model, and send me a kickstand so I can get at east partial use out of it without spending more $$ that I should not have to.

It’s unconscionable to for them to know about large brand relatively ubiquitous laptops in the creative space (people who can especially benefit) out there that are NOT compatible with this and to say nothing.

It would be a simple addition to the FAQ, save a lot of heartache, but apparently they would rather bait and switch this subset of their customers while also wringing some more $$ out of them for an additional stand, which I refuse to pay for out of principle.

I will design and 3D print one if I can get over the sick feeling I get thinking of how they are intentionally obfuscating this fact for $$ when I look a it. So, other than the lack of company morality, it’s a reasonably well built device.

The resolution to size might leave some with trouble reading it, and a serious lack of space if pixel doubling to enlarge the on-screen elements. I started at 0 stars for screwing me over as a customer, gave them two for having a pretty good realization of a neat concept, but took one away when I realized that this display also has no sense of being on the left side.

If you were to use it on the left they have instructions to use Windows or OSX internal screen manipulation to flip it over. The end result is a somewhat wonky power up when you get to try and read the firmware’s graphical elements upside down, or figure out the OSD, upside down.

This is also bad news for anyone running non-mainstream *NIX OS’ which may not support flipping of secondary displays. I hope they decide to moral-up and put someting in their FAQ, however I doubt that is going to happen as long as they can continue to dup this subset of their customer base and get away with it.

For the price, this is a great screen. However, each time I want to use it I need to unplug it and plug it back in for it to recognize my laptop. Not sure why this is the case but it’s really annoying.

Once it’s on and working though, it’s great.

This monitor pales the competition, in terms of rich colors, clarity, and port speeds! I returned the first one due to a problem, which also exists with the second one I ordered, and is the one major flaw of this monitor.

NOTE: Do not waste your time reading this paragraph if you are not placing your monitor near a window, as this flaw will not affect you, and please skip to the Pros and Cons below. The flaw is that if you use “Automatic Brightness”, found in your Display settings, (this is controlled by the “ambient light sensor” at the top of the monitor), the “sensor” goes wacky, (screen gets brighter or darker), randomly! This is caused if your monitor is near a window, and sits perpendicular, to it.

That is, (with one edge of monitor facing the window). After investigating further, and through trial and error, I found the light sensor in the monitor sits too close to the front of the monitor bezel (frame around the screen).

Therefore, it picks up a much wider range of light in the room, then if it were just “sensing” the ambient light focused in “front” of the monitor. So, if the light in the room is “slightly” brighter near the window, then the rest of the room (for example, mornings and evenings), the sensor can’t tell if it should adjust to a brighter or darker setting, and it randomly goes back and forth.

This is EXTREMELY annoying! The sensor is so sensitive, that even if move in your seat one way or the other, the screen gets brighter or darker, based on what part of the room your body is blocking the light! If it weren’t for this flaw I would have rated the monitor with 5 stars.

If you “manually” set the screen brightness, then this is not an issue, and the screen brightness does not change. However, one of the selling features about this monitor, is that it is supposed to “automatically” adjust the brightness all day and night, to accommodate the ambient light in the room, making it easier and more comfortable on your eyes! Ok, now for the pros and cons: Pros: 1.

The picture quality (colors and clarity), blows the competition away! It has rich colors and is extremely sharp, right out of the box! No need to fuss with changing the settings, unless you just want to do that.

I compared this monitor to 3 other monitors of the same size, and none came even close to the rich colors and clarity of this monitor. 2. It probably has the most USB-C ports, and fastest, port speeds of any other monitors, as it has 2 Thunderbolt, and 3 USB-C ports.

Most other monitors do not have Thunderbolt ports, or offer these data speeds). 3. All monitor settings are done from your Mac or PC. There are no obtrusive or annoying buttons to push on the monitor to control its settings.

Cons: 1. If you are placing your monitor near a window, please read the paragraph above! 2. It would be nice if there were a Display Port(s), and HDMI Port(s), as well, so you do not need special USB-C to DP or USB-C to HDMI cables, if you are connecting to other devices with those ports.

3. Even though it has great colors and clarity, it is pricey. This is the same price as a new Mac mini with the M1 chip! However, if those features are important to you, then it’s worth it. Overview: The best features of this monitor are the rich colors and clarity of the screen, as well as the quantity of the the Thunderbolt and USB-C ports.

If these are the most important features you are looking for, then this is a great monitor and worth the price.

I was using a 4k 32″ Dell U3219Q monitor for work, which has an excellent picture but was fixed 60Hz. I knew I couldn’t go down in panel size or resolution once I experienced that, but I was worried about the compromise in picture quality in going for a 144Hx VRR panel.

I viewed both panels side by side with a duplicated display for comparison. The out the box settings weren’t great, the picture was way too warm and dim, but after a few hours trying out different settings I was able to get the colours to better than what I was had on the Dell.

Red was reduced to 92% and Green to 86%, and brightness increased to 90%. There are also six colour channels and I made some minor changes to hues and saturation in some of those but that’s a personal preference.

The only issue is white text on a black screen isn’t as white and crisp as it is on the Dell, the whites aren’t quite bright enough. and nothing I tried could fix that. Also sharpness could be very slightly better, but only noticeable when having the two screens side by side.

It’s the compromise that has to be made at this kind of price point. The VRR works well with my Nvidia 30 series GPU, no complaints there, though apparently it doesn’t work below 48Hz. I don’t tend to touch the other settings, though I’ve turned Overdrive off.

I noticed in MS Flight Sim there was massive ghosting on the clouds. It mostly disappears when I set it to Picture Quality, but I don’t play superfast games so I just switched it off completely. Build quality is good, but the large v-shaped feet are bigger than they need to be, preventing you from getting the keyboard as close I would like.

The rough plastic effect gives it a bit of a cheaper fill, smooth would have been better. Also the ‘chin’ at the bottom of the panel is too large, it would have been better if they’d used the same slim bezel at the sides and top.

Otherwise the design is nice and simple, no unnecessary fancy lights or features at the back. The OSD has a comprehensive set of functions such as the six channel adjustments mentioned above, though this is not available in all modes, so I used one of the three Custom modes for my preferred settings.

The joystick at the back of the panel can get a bit tiring to use if you’re spending more than a few seconds making adjustments, which is where the OSD Sidekick software is useful. You’ll also need that to update the firmware.

Note, if you want to use the KVM I believe you can only do this with a laptop that supports video and peripheral signal via a USB-C cable, like a Macbook Pro, and you’ll need a Thunderbolt cable to do this, and these are not cheap.

A normal USB-C charging cable won’t work.

TL;DR: Great monitor, problems with multi-monitor setup and nVidia graphics card/drivers (probably not the monitor’s fault) This is truly one of the best 4K monitors on the market right now, while also being one of the most affordable.

The picture quality and color accuracy are outstanding and my panel had almost no backlight bleed (that I could notice anyway). The KVM is helpful for anyone trying to add more than one device. The high refresh paired with a powerful graphics card allows you to experience high refresh rate gaming in 4K, but it comes with a huge caveat that ended up leading me to return the monitor.

To get that high refresh rate, both the DisplayPort and HDMI ports require Display Stream Compression (DSC) and there is a known issue with nVidia’s drivers where there are issues having multiple displays if any of them use DSC.

This has led to me getting random black screens that last a few seconds every time I’m on the computer. I’m not sure if AMD cards suffer the same sort of issues and from what I saw online single-monitor setups don’t have as many issues (if any).

Some people have reported that you can also turn down color settings and/or lower your refresh rate to keep the display bandwidth under the point where DSC gets enabled. However, that didn’t work for me.

If Gigabyte had gone with a full-bandwidth HDMI 2. 1 port instead of relying on DSC, it would be a non-issue because I could still use that port without DSC kicking in. Hopefully they implement it in the next generation.

Due to Best Buy’s amazing return policy, the best thing for you to do is get this and see if you like it in person with your set-up. Personally, it checked all my boxes and sated my want for a monitor that could output all that my PS5 could muster.

Now the one complaint I do have. There is 1 dead pixel that I did not notice until about a month after I bought it. I will say though, I havent noticed it again since the day I saw it. but still for 700 OOD, I would have expected something like that to have been caught by any competant QA at Gigabyte.

Unfortunately, it seems to be somewhat common and getting a perfect panel is something of a lottery. That said, if it has 3 or more dead pixels, your eligible for a replacement through Best Buy’s protection plan (which I highly recommend for something like this monitor), so I’m not upset about it.

I do get why some people would be pretty ticked off though, as some people WILL notice it everytime they look at the screen. All in all, get this monitor for gaming, you will not regret it BUT check for dead pixels the second it is plugged in on an all white/black/ and colored background.

If it passes, you won! If not, get an exchange until Gigabyte finally knocks the dust off their QA department and dead pixels aren’t the norm.

I know it’s not a cheap monitor, but you still want to be able to use your eyes when you’re 80, right? So do your eyes something good and get good display gear. Less fatigue in the evening, too. I was looking specifically for a monitor from Dell’s UltraSharp series and this model fit my requirements: Good resolution, friendly for my eyes, works with Mac, can simultaneously charge while displaying and the best price at Best Buy.

When you use USB-C to connect to your Mac, Monterrey claims plain HD resolution (1920×1080) as “default for display”. That may be the “default” but it ain’t the “native” resolution. I suspect it wants to save some USB bandwidth with that choice.

Once you select “scaled” you do get the various higher resolutions. The best: None of them looks scaled. No pixelation or weird blocks. Just crisp picture. I like the middle “scaled” option 3008×1692 as compromise between readability and screen real estate.

Even its native resolution of 3840×2160 looks great, but counter-intuitively you need to select it via the “scaled” setting. I’d advise against auto-activating the Dell DDM software on a Mac. I have it installed, but configured its JSON to disable auto-launching.

The monitor had some weird sprites with the DDM active, so you’re better off without it.

I’ve been eyeing on replacing my aging monitor which was slowly dimming out after 7 years. This one was on the list to consider when I saw it on sale for $369. First one was DOA as it simply wouldn’t turn on.

Sent back for replacement which took about 10 days and the replacement came in with tape seal missing and one corner of box taking beating. Thankfully screen itself had no dead pixel and monitor had no visible damage, but it wouldn’t play nicely with my work laptop via HDMI (laptop recognized input, but monitor wouldn’t show anything).

No such issue with other computers. However, upon placing it on my desk, I noticed the screen would tilt slighly to left, just enough to be bothersome. As it doesn’t have rotating function, I tried to reseat the screen but with little success.

As I don’t know if another replacement will fix this issue, I’m adding little wedge under right side to take care of it. Power/Function button is behind the screen and that was inconvenient as I have to reach out behind just to turn it on/off.

Power button should be on the front. No flickering so far. Color from photoshop looks accurate even without calibration.

I work with high-end monitors for DCC at work all the time, so image quality is right at the top of my list. It’s hard to find a large (32″) monitor that ticks enough boxes for both work (especially image-creation work, where colour accuracy is important) and gaming (hey, we’re in work-from-home times.

sometimes you have to blow off some steam and play some games!) where refresh rate and input lag are really important. It’s also hard to find a 1440p monitor alongside those requirements – usually you have to go to 4k – but modest GPUs like my 2060 can’t push 4k.

So I was really impressed with this FI32Q-X – colours are absolutely fine for DCC, resolution is ideal for gaming and still perfectly fine at 32″, HDR performance is solid, input lag and refresh rate are the real killer features – 240Hz! It just makes sense.

It’s a gaming monitor yes, but it also doubles as a solid and not-too-flashy-looking work monitor. Build quality is great, it comes out of standby really quickly. Price is reasonable too. What’s not to like?.

After just one day of using it on a certain application with slow moving and very limited animations, my eyes went bloodshot, and I now have eye strain so severe I have trouble seeing or having to focus on anything without feeling heavy strain on my eyes.

It’s so bad that glasses do nothing to help alleviate symptoms. I’m also noticing now that it is blurry in general, and the high frame rate is basically useless for anything except increasing eye strain.

The blue light reduction causes MORE eye strain. Terrible product. Almost as bad as the old LG monitors that they had to put on clearance because nobody wanted them. $400 for physically damaging eyesight equipment is unacceptable, whatever the reason.

Also the stand is excessively bulky and heavy. As is the monitor itself, especially for an IPS monitor.

IšverstiShow in original languageRight out of the box, this monitor looks fantastic. I have been using computer monitors since the early ’80s spanning many brands, form factors, panel types, resolutions, intended use cases, etc.

The Samsung Odyssey G5 (S27AG500PN) stands out as one of the best display options that I have experienced, especially if you have an interest in gaming. The Odyssey G5 sports a laundry list of premium features including HDR support, 2560×1440 resolution, Nvidia G-SYNC, AMD FreeSync, 1-millisecond response time, DisplayPort 1.

2 support, as well as 165/144hz refresh rate (DisplayPort/HDMI). This is an excellent monitor for those searching for premium performance from an accessible price point. Regarding the performance of the monitor, I have tested it in three circumstances: gaming, media-viewing, and productivity.

On the gaming front, I was impressed. The monitor provides a crisp display and vibrant colors while maintaining a lightning-fast response time and framerate, provided you have the hardware required to drive games at this resolution and framerate.

From first person shooters to strategy games to rhythm games, the speedy performance of this monitor is outstanding. I experienced no input lag at any point, including gaming with a controller. However, one minor issue presented itself: the contrast and light-balance of the panel.

Given the fact that this is an IPS panel, it is understandable that it would not be capable of producing the insane contrast provided by the likes of OLED/QLED panels, but I found that the black-balance and viewing angles of the monitor left a little to be desired.

On this point, I would recommend against using this monitor if you consistently have sunlight shining directly on your setup, as it does succumb to some glare in the presence of exceedingly bright light.

However, for myself, and I’m assuming many others, this does not pose much of a downside. Regarding media-viewing, the minor image-quality issues outlined above persist, however, I feel that it is worth noting that this criticism only holds up when comparing the monitor to OLED/QLED panels.

Speaking strictly in terms of IPS panel performance, this monitor offers a very pleasing image; and if all this talk of OLEDs, QLEDs, light balancing, and panels sounds confusing, you likely won’t take any issue with the monitor whatsoever.

Getting back to the performance, I was impressed with the vibrance and clarity of the image, especially when viewing HDR supported content. On the topic of productivity, I found that the Eye-Saver mode made for a much more comfortable user experience in the realm of bright, white, high-contrast user interfaces often found in business applications such as the Office 365 Suite.

Regarding the physical attributes of the monitor, the stand provides a sturdy stature and a small footprint while allowing for a range of ergonomic adjustments in height, tilt, and rotation. Additionally, the stand includes a small strap near the base which helps quite a bit with cable management.

Visually speaking, the monitor gently straddles the line between ‘professional monitor’ and ‘premium gaming apparatus. ’ There are no RGB accent lighting features, but the small Nvidia G-SYNC insignia as well as the finishing pattern on the rear of the monitor subtly indicate the horsepower hiding under the hood.

Overall, I believe that this is an outstanding monitor and provides excellent performance in gaming, media-viewing, and productivity. I would recommend the Odyssey G5 to anyone looking for a premium performance package.

IšverstiShow in original languageI’ll begin with the pros. I like the styling, build quality and gaming performance of this Samsung G5 monitor. The pros include solid constructed and ease of use features that include a wide screen that slides vertically on the stand, swivels right to left and rotates 90-degrees.

It also has built-in cable management, intuitive controls, and a small desktop footprint for the base. Gaming performance is good with snappy fast response and no noticeable ghosting or lag. Fast paced racing games like Forza Horizon 5 have smooth, clean, fluid motion when played through my G-SYNC enabled Nvidia RTX card.

Even when driving past scenery at over 300 mph in Forza H5, textures and graphics render quick and cleanly. Desktop performance is equally well with no lag whatsoever when opening, minimizing or maximizing files and windows.

Spreadsheets and documents have good sharpness with no jaggies on the edges. Gaming and desktop performance are nicely balanced for mixed use systems. The matte screen is excellent for avoiding harsh reflections and glare from nearby users, windows, and bright light sources.

Color and brightness seemed a little lacking out of the box but I was able to quickly adjust the display to a satisfying level without using a screen calibration tool. A panel that started out somewhat dim with washed out colors now has good brightness, popping colors and rich saturation.

HDR looks good when enabled and although it does improve graphical quality of most games, it is not quite as stunning a difference as my primary gaming monitor. The G5’s viewing angles are also somewhat shallow which results in a shimmering effect with even slight shifts off center.

The effect is more noticeable in darker gaming environments. There is also noticeable light bleed along the lower left side of the screen. Like the shimmering effect, the light bleed is most noticeable on dark backgrounds and in darker environments.

This display utilizes a proprietary power cord and brick that is far less convenient than the universally swappable standard three prong monitor power cord. If a pet chews this cord or some other mishap strikes, get ready to shell out bucks for another cord and power brick versus grabbing a spare 3-prong off an old monitor or desktop PC or for a few bucks online.

Overall, the G5 is a decent gaming and desktop monitor. It has good brightness and saturation, albeit after some fine tuning. Gaming and desktop performance are also both quite good. The screen orientation and position can be adjusted in just about any manner desired and the controls are actually asy to use, which isn’t typically the case with monitors.

On the downside, he G5 does have some noticeable light bleed, narrow viewing angles, and a proprietary power cord. It’s not perfect but still pretty good. Solid four out of five.

This was a nice idea but if you have a Windows 10 laptop, the software is not compatible with AOC drivers. I don’t have disc player on laptop so I needed to download drivers, instruction manual etc. from AOC website.

There were all. zip files. I didn’t have the proper software to open and utilized the files once unzipped. I spent 40 minutes with AOC support- they were helpful – trying to access the drives. Finally he admitted that AOC has been having problems with customers who have Windows 10 operating systems.

The software is not compatible with Windows 10.

I use this on the road with both my 2018 15 Dell XPS and my 2019 MacBook Pro 16 and have had zero issues. It’s immediately recognized and works without any issues. In the short time I’ve had it (a few weeks now), it’s traveled all over the country.

It’s very thin, even with the magnetic cover on it; roughly the thickness of a larger tablet like an iPad Pro or Surface Pro. I can easily fit my two laptops and this in the laptop section of my Everki backpack (unrelated: Everki makes amazing backpacks for these types of purposes, if you’re in the market).

I love that it’s bus-powered. One cable and done. Primary uses are business, not creative, so I can’t render opinions on color accuracy, etc. What I can point out is it has the blue-light adjustment settings, which I definitely appreciate when I’m working longer hours.

I’ve set it to about the middle tier on that and find it easier on the eyes without being distractingly yellow-hued. In retrospect, I kind of wish I’d gotten the touchscreen version. so if you’re on the fence and don’t mind dropping the extra coin, it might be worth it to you, but I obviously can’t knock the product rating for not doing something that it specifically says it doesn’t do.

It does what it claims to do and does it well. If that feature isn’t important to you, it’s a slam dunk.

Hi I purchased this for work and it works fine with excel files but the colours are absolutely shocking. I won’t not recommend this monitor for anything other than word processing or excel. You know the typical yellow highlight colour in Microsoft Office.

It displays as a dull yellow at best, everything is washed out. Colour asside the build quality seems decent. Could be a little tougher. I’ve had it for 2(?) months are it’s already showing wear.

Pros: I’ve owned an E1759FWU for 5 years and this is much better built, much better resolution and easier to use. Fantastic as either a second screen, or for presentations to a client, where I tap away on a laptop and they get to see the same on their screen.

Pros: None Cons: Didn’t work with my laptop and AOC weren’t very helpful when I contacted them for advice. Returned and purchased a cheaper ASUS which works perfectly!