Not sure of the quality of the monitor but to speak to the topic of nits, 250 nits is not enough to do justice to HDR. I wouldn't consider anything under 1000 nits HDR capable.

ccronk wrote on 2024-03-10, 02:55:

It used to be the case that a larger monitor was linked to higher productivity. This is obviously the case generally. I just thought maybe if I had a really big monitor I might be more inclined to get computer related stuff done (I have mountains). The Acer was advertised as a gaming monitor afaik. Don't care about games. Just want a really nice display that's easy on the eyes.

If we're talking a 32" curved, I assume this is an ultrawide? It wouldn't be my first choice. Much better to look on craigslist for something like a cheap 24" or 27" HD or better yet, 16:10 monitor. Something like the HP e243i wouldn't be a bad choice. The place modern monitors tend to suffer on for productivity is vertical height - 16:10 is still widescreen, but it's a little closer to the old square monitors. Personally I'd prefer a modern 4:3 monitor in a 24" size, but I think I'm in the minority unfortunately.

Don't want anything smaller then 32".

I don't like ASUS much since they screwed me on support but the specs on this monitor are fabulous:

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Display-Mini-LED- … 351f41cffb&th=1

ccronk wrote on 2024-03-10, 02:55:

I was in Best Buy the other day. Someone please talk me out of buying a new monitor. There was this 31.5" curved Acer unit. Under 150$. I think it had 250 nits. To me it looked pretty nice. By comparison what does a 2017 low end 17.3" Lenovo laptop lcd/led have in that regard?

Probably about 400, on average - I saw anywhere from 300-500 the last time I was laptop shopping. But nits isn't a direct measure of quality, just brightness. A lot of monitors and laptops can get blindingly bright, but they're not very good panels in any other way. A lot of the best panels aren't really that bright, because those who want good panels (professionals doing photo or video work, for example) aren't usually looking for high brightness. If you want any sort of color gamut or accuracy, that almost always reduces brightness as well because the panel needs to start filtering the light more.

That said, 250 nits is pretty dim by modern standards even for high quality panels. If that monitor is 31.5" and it's under $150 *and* that dim, my guess is that it's just not a great monitor in really any way. It could still be better than what you have now - LCD and other types of flat panels are one of the few things in computing that have just gotten exponentially better overall even to this day, such that you can often buy a pretty low end monitor that'll be bigger and objectively better than a more expensive monitor you may have bought five or ten years ago.

It used to be the case that a larger monitor was linked to higher productivity. This is obviously the case generally. I just thought maybe if I had a really big monitor I might be more inclined to get computer related stuff done (I have mountains). The Acer was advertised as a gaming monitor afaik. Don't care about games. Just want a really nice display that's easy on the eyes.

Most monitors advertised as "gaming monitors" are advertised that way because they do one thing well, and that's speed. There's obviously variation even in that metric among advertised gaming monitors, though. But generally you still give up a bit of everything else for that speed. At $150 you're probably giving up some actual quality too, so you might get light bleed, uniformity issues, etc.

I don't know what you have now so it's hard to say whether this monitor would be an upgrade or not. But for me, a monitor is something I'm staring at for long periods of time - I want a reasonably good one. I'd normally recommend spending a bit more, or saving until you can. $150 for a monitor that size almost can't mean it's a high quality monitor relative to others currently out there.

LCDs didn't always improve. The early LED-backlit models had horrible color quality due to using the cheapest cool white LEDs available, and they also tended to have worse contrast and black levels than even 1990s active-matrix panels. Black was gray, yellow was white, red was dark, and everything else was blue. Today, things have improved, but there are still the horrible cheap ones in the Walmart bottom-feeder segment (with "100000000000000000000000000000:1 contrast ratio" printed on the box), especially in laptops.

I might be unusually sensitive, but I find that monitors are actually too bright. My main monitor is a modern business-class Dell P series, and I have the brightness turned all the way down to 0% in what I think is a well-lit room. Even under normal office lighting, the brightness needs to be set low. Of course, I would never recommend any Dell products after my experience with them at work. It was just the cheapest 1440p monitor with a VESA mount in 2018.

There are also problems with the OSD on consumer monitors not giving you the correct adjustments to make the monitor usable. I remember an Asus monitor with presets that gave you access to some settings, but not all at once. Depending on which preset you chose, you could either have the brightness forced to 100% (the brightness adjustment was grayed out) or the colors set to some weird and unnatural state (again, grayed out). It was absolutely impossible to make it look decent without burning your eyes out due to the high brightness. All of the business monitors I've seen have full control, but they cost a lot more than gaming monitors while having slow response times and worse color accuracy (although I don't understand why gaming monitors need professional photo/video color accuracy - business monitors already blow away all of the non-gaming consumer stuff I've seen).

Quality do matter. I purchased Samsung PX2370 with LED backlight back in the day, around March 2010. And was pretty good for early LED-lit panels. I also purchased LED-backlight TV also by samsung around that time too, 32". Still going strong. That was in the era of CCFL panels. I don't want CCFL due to mercury and limited life-span and how it looks, slow panels too, first one was 19" with slow panel during the early era of CRT to LCD transition.

Don't purchase any Acer, not even a monitor, yes that includes Acer. Hinge issues and motherboard not as reliable. Nor the Asus due to parts too hard to get after few years, even 3 years.

Best ones is always ones that has average specs with accuracy and reliable. I like HP for computer and notebooks.

Cheers,

HPs business class desktops and servers are very good. Their consumer grade itemd, including laptips, are crappola in my experience. I commend the good luck you've had with them though.

Acer isn't top notch I'll grant you. But 140$ isn't a big expenditure, I'd buy nearly any brand of monitor that looked good at that price. The discount has ended 🤣, it's a moot point. But I will repeat the unit looked really nice.

Something will turn up. I even swore off having anything to do with curved monitors. Until I saw that one.

ccronk wrote on 2024-03-18, 22:51:

HPs business class desktops and servers are very good. Their consumer grade itemd, including laptips, are crappola in my experience.

I don't think that kind of generalisation is valid. The ~£1200 Probook x360's I've used were garbage, while the £700 Envy x360's have been stellar (We bought two Probooks and have had problems with both, 25 Envys and problems with maybe 4). Things vary between models at any company - there are good and bad.

But anything much below the £700 RRP range I wouldn't touch with a barge pole no matter what brand. My general rule of thumb is "An £1800 RRP laptop bought three years old for £400 was at least once, an £1800 laptop. A £400 RRP laptop has always been a £400 laptop."

There are rare exceptions, but they are, rare.

Whatever you do, don't buy curved. Intentionally introducing gross physical distortion to the image? Why bother actually *paying* good money for that abomination?

Stick with an OLED non-curved 16:9 monitor, and you'll get fine outstanding image quality with a lot of nits. Yes, go for at least 1000 nits to do justice to UHD content.

Good luck, and enjoy your purchase.

1000 nits would cost a phenomenal amount of money.

A curved monitor brings portions of an image that appear at the periphery of your vision and pulls it in. Arguably lessens eye strain. But what do I know. I'm not an optometrist.

This is a great deal for $599 right now. But its only 27".

https://www.amazon.com/INNOCN-Monitor-Compute … 0BCK1Z5FD/?th=1

Here is a 32" version, not quite as fast but close:

https://www.amazon.com/INNOCN-Computer-Monito … e/dp/B0BCK1K44F