The Newest And Best Monitors To Level Up Your Gaming—Or Your Office

Size: 32 inches | Type: OLED |Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160 | Refresh rate: 240Hz | Response time: 0.03ms | Curvature: None

Best for: Playing, watching, working—anything you like.

Pros:

• Fantastic image quality
• Built-in AI functions for forward-thinking capabilities
• Super slim design looks fantastic and modern

Cons:

• Expensive
• Lacks ultra-high refresh rates of more gaming-focused displays

It’s always hard to crown a new king, but Samsung’s G80SD might be the most worthy brow for the crown in 2024. It’s a 32-inch display using Samsung’s latest OLED panel technology, delivering unprecedented color richness and inky blacks, thanks to its amazing contrast and high-fidelity quantum dot layer. It gets especially bright, despite its OLED pedigree, but with new AI technologies tracking display temperature, it dynamically lowers the brightness to help prevent burn-in.

As an OLED display, it’s exceptionally fast, with almost no input lag and a response time that’s less than 0.1ms. It also has a high 240Hz refresh rate, giving you the best of both worlds with its 4K display. If you have a graphics card that can run games at these kinds of settings, this display can take full advantage of it. It also has a built-in upscaler for video and games (though Nvidia and AMD’s efforts are probably still better), and it has full support for Samsung’s Game Hub for simple game streaming.

Size: 27 inches | Type: IPS (Mini-LED) |Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160 | Refresh rate: 160Hz | Response time: 1ms | Curvature: None

Best for: Work and play.

Pros:

• Impressive color accuracy for creative work
• Fast and responsive for gaming
• Strong Mini-LED local dimming for HDR

Cons:

• Lacks ultra-high refresh rates of more gaming-focused displays

The 27-inch form factor is a real sweet spot for most PC users. It gives you lots of screen space to work with, but not so much that your pixel density starts to dip, or you have to turn your head to look at a corner of the screen. The best 27-inch monitor in 2024 is the Acer Nitro XV275K, as it’s a true workhorse that can do just about anything you ask of it. Gaming? No problem. With its high refresh rate, fast response time and excellent brightness you get a punchy, responsive picture that makes any game look stunning at 4K resolution.

Creative workloads? This monitor’s color accuracy approaches the levels of professional monitors, making it great for photo and video editing, or 3D design work. It’s perfect for watching movies, too, with its high brightness and strong contrast giving you rich pictures with fantastic colors. Its Mini-LED backlight gives it lots of local dimming zones, too, so HDR can be nuanced and eye-catching without causing much blooming.

Size: 34 inches | Type: QD-OLED |Resolution: 3,440 x 1,440 | Refresh rate: 175Hz | Response time: 0.1ms | Curvature: 1800R

Best for: Showing off the best-looking games.

Pros:

• QD-OLED display produces terrific contrast and rich colors
• Fast refresh rate and response time
• Impressive brightness

Cons:

• Expensive

It took a while for OLED screens to come to PC monitors, but this QD-OLED display from Alienware brings the latest technology to monitors and it blows everything else away. The Alienware 34 AW3423DW uses the same cutting-edge Samsung panels found in some of the best TVs, using its combination of quantum dots and OLED backlighting to incredible effect. This monitor has dark, inky blacks, bright highlights, gorgeous rich colors and some of the fastest response time and input lag of any monitor ever.

While this monitor doesn’t get as bright as Mini-LED screens, it’s not far off. HDR content looks incredible, whether you’re playing a game or watching your favorite film. For gaming, it supports Nvidia G-Sync Ultimate and it has a 175Hz refresh rate for smooth desktop motion. It sports HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 connectors and has a built-in USB hub with fast data transfer.

Size: 32 inches | Type: IPS | Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160 | Refresh rate: 60Hz | Response time: 5ms | Curvature: None

Best for: Professional office and creative work.

Pros:

• Affordable price tag
• 4K resolution looks crisp at 32-inches
• Strong color accuracy

Cons:

• Slow response time and refresh rate isn’t great for gaming

Professional monitors don’t need to be fast, but they need to be accurate, and that’s what the Samsung ViewFinity S80UD excels at, while also being affordable enough that you can kit an office out with these without blowing your budget. At 4K resolution across 32-inches of screen, there’s a lot of screen retail estate to work with, whether you’re managing a video-editing timeline, doing some 3D design or just working on a monster spreadsheet. With over a billion colors supported and high color accuracy, this monitor is excellent for fine tuning your photos and video work.

Although not a portable monitor by any means, the ViewFinity S80UD is versatile, with its Easy Setup Stand making it quick and simple to move your monitor or switch it over to a new workstation. It has a built-in USB hub for USB charging at up to 90W, and a KVM switch for working on multiple systems at once.

Size: 27 inches | Type: OLED | Resolution: 2,560 x 1,440 | Refresh rate: 360Hz | Response time: 0.03ms | Curvature: None

Best for: Playing the latest games at the highest frame rates.

Pros:

• Super fast and responsive
• Gorgeous OLED picture quality
• 1440p resolution looks crisp, while going easier on graphics cards

Cons:

• Lacks detail of 4K

The Samsung Odyssey G6 OLED has a high 1440p resolution, a high 360Hz refresh rate, and it’s built with high-end OLED technology, delivering a rich picture that’s ultra smooth, no matter what you’re playing. It packs a lot of pixels into its 27 inches, making the image quality excellent and on-screen text crisp. With its ultra high refresh rate and low response time, it is incredibly quick and snappy, making your gameplay feel instantaneous when you press a button or click the mouse.

It isn’t as high resolution as some displays, but for most gamers, a high-resolution display that can hit higher frame rates is more important. If you play competitive esports games, every few milliseconds count, and with a 360Hz refresh rate, you can shoot that bit faster than your competition.

Size: 24 inches | Type: IPS | Resolution: 1,920 x 1,080 | Refresh rate: 165Hz | Response time: 2ms | Curvature: None

Best for: Highly responsive gameplay at 1,080p on a smaller screen.

Pros:

• Very affordable
• Fast refresh rate and response time
• Efficient screen size for fast gaming

Cons:

• Lacks detail of 4K
• Limited screen space for productivity

The Acer Nitro XF243Y is a capable gaming monitor with a high refresh rate and a fast response time that makes it feel impressively fluid and responsive for such a budget display. Its 1,080p screen lacks the crisp detail of 4K, but the difference hits less on this 24-inch monitor than it would on a larger one. This monitor’s comparatively compact size also makes it easier to carry around if you want to take it to a LAN party. The stand has ergonomic adjustments, so you can find the right position for your eyes. You can also rotate the screen around 360 degrees, which makes it really easy to access the ports or to share the screen with a friend or colleague.

The fast refresh rate is great for competitive gaming, especially when combined with the 2ms input lag. It also supports AMD’s FreeSync Premium, to mitigate screen tearing. The brightness level on this monitor is less than on more expensive models, so it’s not the best monitor for gaming in brightly lit rooms.