Monitor Buying Guide

General Use Monitors

Chances are, you are quite familiar with these monitors. They are what you likely use at your business or in your home. For many companies, these will be sufficient to meet the visual computing needs of day-to-day operations: surfing the Internet, general productivity, sales applications, and so on. As you would likely expect, given their basic utility, these monitors are the most affordable type.

Ultra-wide

The vast majority of monitors on the market these days are in the widescreen format (with a 16:9 width-by-height aspect ratio). Ultra-wide monitors kick it up a notch to 21:9 and are also physically wider: They often start at about 34" wide but can go into the 40"+ range—sometimes even as wide as 49". Ultra-wide monitors will be most useful for those who frequently work with multiple applications at the same time or require large-scale visuals.

Professional (Graphic Design, Photo, and Video)

Display quality is the most important attribute of these monitors, which are essential for those working in highly visual professions such as graphic design, video editing/production, and digital photography. They typically offer visuals in the Full HD or Quad HD formats (at resolutions of 1920 x 1280 and 2560 x 1440 pixels, respectively), are wider (typically between 27" and 32") ,and may use in-plane switching panels due to the richer colors offered by that panel format.

Gaming

While monitors used for gaming require strong image quality and should likely be larger than general use monitors, the more important attributes are refresh rate (how many times the screen refreshes per second) and response time (the speed at which the monitor transfers from one color to another). The minimums for these measurements should be 60Hz and 5 milliseconds, respectively. Gaming monitors may also use adaptive syncing technology to ensure that there is as little “lag” in visual processing as possible.

Medical Monitors

Hospitals, clinics, private practices, orthodontist's offices, and other medical facilities need high-quality monitors for a particularly urgent reason: namely, to diagnose and treat their patients' ailments and injuries. Ultimately, this will help save and prolong these individuals' lives.

Dynamic images of bones captured on X-rays, CT scans of brain activity, footage of internal organs taken by the cameras used in endoscopies, and all of the other types of imagery common to the medical profession need to be displayed with the utmost clarity and precision to ensure that doctors and nurses see everything they need to see before making any definitive judgments on the situation of a particular patient. Because of this, it's critical to choose monitors with greater brightness and higher-than-average resolution to use in medical settings.

Touchscreen Monitors

Considering the number of smartphone and tablet owners (77% and 58% of the U.S. population, per Census Bureau data), or even just the number of people that have used an ATM or touchscreen payment device in a store in our daily lives, touchscreen interactivity is something most of us are fairly comfortable with. It is a key ease-of-use aspect for many everyday devices—so why not enjoy it with our monitors?

For example, brick-and-mortar store locations that are concerned about losing ground to e-commerce could kick their in-store experience up several notches by using touchscreen monitors as part of interactive product displays or demos. They also offer flexibility for various point of sale operations. Not dissimilarly, these monitors can bring exciting new dimensions to in-office presentations being shown to employees, partner representatives, or existing and potential clients. That said, if you do not have a specific use for touchscreen monitors, they may ultimately be cost-prohibitive, so think carefully before making any decision to buy one.

Signage and Collaboration Displays

The overall category of “digital signage” is very broad, but within the parameters of monitors, it really boils down to four different screen types: large-format displays, large-format touch displays, video walls, and commercial TVs.

Webcams

Although laptops typically come with built-in webcams, those using desktop computers—or who want higher resolution for their video calls—will need to work with an external webcam. These days, most webcams (external or otherwise) offer high-definition video, but there are plenty available with Full HD capabilities as well, or even 4K Ultra HD. Additionally, numerous external webcams you will find are able to capture video at 60 frames per second.

Shop by Accessory: Webcams

Key Considerations and Priorities for When You Buy

Many different factors have to be taken into consideration by any business—be it a small or midsized business, smaller-scale enterprise, or a multinational corporation—looking to make the perfect monitor purchase. It will be prudent to carefully go over all of these ins and outs before making any big purchase decisions to better ensure that you take the most cost-efficient and effective path possible. Reviewing this monitor buying guide is a great first step.

Buying Monitors and Displays for the Office

When assembling workstations for employees whose computer-based roles center around commonplace tasks or involve heavy use of cloud applications that aren’t strictly machine dependent (customer service, sales, marketing, finance/accounts payable, et. al.), it’s reasonable to lean more toward general use and business monitors.

• Since reliable, cost-efficient function is the chief focus in this situation, all that matters is the monitor’s ability to display graphics at a reasonable resolution. The minimum resolution for a 16:9 HD aspect ratio—1920 x 1080—should be sufficient.
• Monitors must also be compatible with workers’ primary machines, via direct connection, docking stations, or at the very least appropriate adapters and similar accessories.

On the other end of the spectrum, graphic artists, video editors, sound engineers, animators, UX specialists, digital photographers, video game designers, and others with highly specialized roles involving dense video, audio, or graphic content will need professional (graphic design, photo, and video) monitors to most effectively accomplish day-to-day tasks.

• In these professionals’ cases, high resolution and compatibility with the most cutting-edge video formats and design engines must be emphasized above all.
• Somewhere in between these poles, coders, and software engineers may be able to sacrifice a bit of visual perfection for more cost-efficient operations, but their monitors must nonetheless be able to render the graphics required for using DevOps tools.

Last but not least, consider mobility:

• If your company’s workforce operates mostly on laptops and some staff spend most of their time running in and out of different meeting rooms, machines tucked carefully under their arms, you may not need to buy monitors for all such workers.
• That said, when these pros are at their desks, they may want to work with extended or ultra-wide displays, so it's wise to have some floating monitors available to accommodate such requests.
• Along similar lines, you might want to use touchscreen monitors as interfaces set up throughout the office so staff members can work anywhere.

Medical Monitor Considerations

Shopping for the best medical monitors on the market will require taking factors into consideration that are not relevant to standard, large-format, or touchscreen displays:

• Monitors must be able to display the graphic types most germane to a particular practice and its most common procedures (X-ray photos for orthopedists and orthodontists looking at bones or teeth, CT scans for proper study of the brain, ultrasound for OB-GYNs, MRIs for examinations of muscle and ligament structure, PET for the body’s organs and issue, and so on).
• Grayscale medical monitors are essential for X-ray and CT scan images, whereas color displays are necessary for optimal examination of ultrasound or MRI imaging. Some monitors can only support one of these visual formats, while others will display either one. Yet given the gravity of the environment and the resultant importance of analyzing medical imagery with 100% certainty, purchasing separate monitors for each color format may be the best course of action.
• Brightness must also be much greater than that of standard computer monitors or even large format displays. A common spec on full-color medical monitors is 1000cd/m², while 720cd/m² is typical of grayscale models.
• Resolution should be greater than that of standard monitors—at least 3280 x 2048 for grayscale and QHD 2560 x 1440 for color monitors—but does not have to match the capabilities of monitors necessary for 4K Ultra HD or HDR.
• Graphics cards will be necessary for the proper dispersion of medical imaging visuals from a primary monitor across multiple tertiary displays, for optimal visibility by all personnel in physician’s offices, surgical suites, conference rooms, and any other medical setting.
• Medical personnel who are constantly on the move, meanwhile, may want to opt for smaller touchscreen monitors that provide the same information as traditional patient charts—and a great deal more valuable data as well—without potentially interfering with the operation of critical medical devices the way that smartphones or tablets might. These will also be particularly valuable to telemedicine operations, the popularity of which has been steadily rising in recent years.

Choosing the Right Monitor: Double-Checking All Factors

Let’s say you just decided on a particular monitor and are satisfied enough with its basic specifications that you’re ready to order it at scale for your entire organization (or a particular department within it). But no matter how you slice it, this will be a significant budgetary commitment—so you can’t pull the trigger on the purchase right away before taking another look at each of the following factors. The meticulousness will be worth it in the long run; trust us on this.

Resolution and Image Quality

If purchasing standard-sized monitors (between 15" and 27") for a business in which all or most computer users perform daily duties using typical CMS and CRM applications or cloud-based platforms and don’t require high-echelon graphics, products with standard resolution capabilities are all you need: 1024 x 768 is the bare minimum; 1280 x 1024 and 1920 x 1080 are more ideal.

Those numbers presume users will not be working directly with video, graphic design content for publishing layouts or infographics, digital animation for video game design, 3D visualizations, or medical imagery. For those situations, not only will larger monitors be necessary (30" and up) but a greater resolution is also required—2560 x 1440, 3280 x 2048, and in some cases even 3840 x 2160. Dot pitch must also be considered: Monitors should measure no more than 0.28 millimeters by this metric, and lower (something around 0.2 mm or less) is better.

Finally, be sure the connected devices can support your desired resolutions.

Video Format

4K Ultra HD has been all the rage for a reason during the past several years: Using 8 million pixels (as opposed to the 2 million required in standard or “Full” HD) creates a remarkably clear image with colors much more true to life than those seen in all lesser video formats. When employed in a monitor alongside HDR for better contrast, the final result is remarkable. It's also reasonable to choose 4K or HDR alone, though monitors that feature one often feature the other.

If your business needs to regularly showcase visuals in 4K, HDR, QHD, or another similarly high-level format, keep in mind that you will need a monitor large enough to showcase them in a way that truly makes a difference: at least 40" wide, or much bigger (55" and up) for digital signage displays. Smaller displays and standard computer monitors can certainly run 4K videos, but the full impact won't be visible.

Performance Specifications

How monitor manufacturers choose to identify monitor performance, apart from resolution, brightness, aspect ratio, size, and so on, varies case by case, so it’s essential to know all of the major pertinent metrics.

Some will only list the dot pitch in the product specs, and while this is certainly worth knowing (low dot pitch = higher image quality), it may not give you enough of an idea of day-to-day performance. If possible, locate the response time and refresh rates instead. Since the low-end figure for this spec is 10 milliseconds, a monitor with a response time of 5ms is considered fairly strong, while 2ms or 1ms is quite remarkable. Refresh rate, a measurement of similar capabilities, goes in the opposite direction—higher is better. For standard monitors and PCs, 60 hertz is perfectly fine, but dealing with high-performance graphics in gaming, video, animation, and 3D machining can require at least twice that rate: 144Hz or even 240Hz.

Need Additional Assistance?

This guide is not intended to be a comprehensive resource, and there are a number of factors not covered that may impact your situation. If you need help finding the right displays to meet your company’s needs, we are here to help.

Ready to choose the right monitor for your workspace? Or are you conducting research for your company’s site-wide monitor refresh project? Connection is here to help. Contact an Account Manager at 1.800.800.0014 to get all your monitor-related questions answered.