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A Reliable, Cheap Monitor
Asus 24-Inch Full HD Monitor
A Budget Gaming Monitor
Dell 27-Inch Curved Gaming Monitor
For Creative Professionals
BenQ 27-Inch QHD HDR Monitor
A 4K USB-C Monitor for Your Laptop
Monoprice 32-Inch CrystalPro 4K USB-C Monitor
You might not think about your monitor too much, but whether you’re working or gaming in your home, that array of pixels blasting light at your face is important. A monitor can vastly improve your productivity if you’re currently working off a laptop, and a dual display setup can take things further. The folks on the WIRED Gear team use these large external screens every day in a variety of arrangements as we write our reviews, and naturally, we decided to review those too. These are our favorite monitors.
It’s difficult to count the number of monitors out there, which means we’ll be including more recommendations as we continue to test. We’ve also included monitor buying advice at the bottom for any jargon you might not know, and be sure to check out other guides, including the Best WFH Gear, Best Laptops, and our advice on How to Use a Second Monitor With Your Laptop.
Updated August 2023: We’ve added the Ricoh Portable Monitor, the Monoprice CrystalPro 4K, and the Arzopa G1.
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Photograph: Asus
A Reliable, Cheap Monitor
Asus 24-Inch Full HD Monitor
WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu has been using this 24-inch Asus IPS monitor for years without issues, which is about the best praise you can get from a monitor at this price. The 1080-pixel resolution is well suited to the 24-inch screen size, so it looks sharp. Colors can look a bit oversaturated, but you can tweak this in the display’s settings. The included tilt-adjustable stand does the job, but since it supports the VESA mounting standard, I recommend putting it on an arm mount to clear some space on your desk. It even supports AMD’s FreeSync if you have an AMD graphics card on your computer, so you can take advantage of the panel’s 75-Hz screen refresh rate for smooth gaming.
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Photograph: Dell
A Budget Gaming Monitor
Dell 27-Inch Curved Gaming Monitor
Some of our favorite keyboards and mice have the “gaming” moniker attached to them, but that doesn’t mean only gamers can use them. This curved gaming monitor from Dell packs a 1440p LCD TFT display, which is about the minimum you’d want from a 27-inch screen. That makes it great for anyone looking for a higher resolution without shelling out the big bucks. The stand isn’t too obtrusive here, and while you can VESA mount it, you’ll need to do some finagling since the mounting holes are recessed.
There are gamer-friendly features, like the 165-Hz refresh rate (with AMD FreeSync support), which will make games appear more fluid-like and smoother on the screen, provided your computer is powerful enough to dish out the necessary frames per second. It lacks HDR support, which is a bummer, but if that’s not essential for you, this is a great gaming monitor at a reasonable price. It’s often available for $300 or less, so try to catch it on sale.
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Photograph: BenQ
For Creative Professionals
BenQ 27-Inch QHD HDR Monitor
If you do any kind of visual creative work like graphic design, video editing, or VFX, then color accuracy matters a lot more to you than most people. This is where monitors like this one from BenQ can excel. WIRED senior editor Michael Calore says the 2K-resolution display is gorgeous, with highly accurate color reproduction. It covers 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut with color accuracy rated at Delta E ≤ 3. If you know what that means, then you probably already know whether this monitor is good for your needs.
For everyone else, it’s still really pretty. The stand is versatile since you can rotate the screen to portrait orientation, or you can VESA mount it.
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Photograph: Amazon
A 4K USB-C Monitor for Your Laptop
Monoprice 32-Inch CrystalPro 4K USB-C Monitor
4K monitors are a curious beast. They cram a ton of pixels, but whether or not that’s useful heavily depends on the size of the screen and how far you sit from it. TVs benefit from 4K panels because they’re huge and you don’t sit too far away to not notice the difference. Meanwhile, phones rarely have 4K displays because the pixels they cram into such a small frame are so close to your face and are already imperceptible.
A 4K monitor like this one from Monoprice would need to be pretty big to be worthwhile. Fortunately, the 32-inch frame does the trick. It’s limited to 60 Hz but produces crisp, vibrant picture quality. It also packs a USB-C input and can act as a hub with two extra USB-A ports to connect peripherals like a keyboard and mouse. This makes it extremely useful as a laptop workstation—leave your peripherals connected to the monitor and just plug the single USB-C cable into your laptop when you’re at your desk. The spacious 32-inch screen gives you plenty of room to squeeze in tons of apps, making it a nice counterpoint to your cramped laptop screen.
★ A smaller version: We have also tested and like the smaller Monoprice 28-inch CrystalPro 4K ($360). This one actually supports HDR and its colors are suitably vibrant. WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu used it in both a Mac and Windows setup and says it worked great in both. He VESA mounted it, but do note that the mounting holes are recessed—you can use longer M3 screws to make it work.
