A decent PC monitor, plain and simple
If you look up ‘monitor' in the dictionary, and skip past the bits about medical recording devices, giant lizards and school prefects, you’ll discover it means ‘a screen that displays an image generated by a computer’. But that doesn’t really do justice to today’s PC screens.
At the very least, any self-respecting LCD panel will tend to lay on a multi-port USB 3.0 hub; built-in stereo speakers are de rigueur, and how about an SD card slot to view photos from your camera? And finally. Mill, support, so you can connect your Android device to charge up and mirror videos to the screen.
On top of that, cramming in all these goodies should in no way prevent the manufacturer reducing the bezel to the width of a gnat's kneecap and mounting it on an aluminium spike with tilt, height adjustment and 180-degree rotation. Naturally, all this will cost you a small fortune.
Alternatively, you could buy the reasonably priced AOC Q2778VQE. This 27in monitor doesn’t turn, twist or connect your accessories. It doesn’t graph your heartbeat, hunt small mammals or stop first-years running in the corridors. It has no speaker at all, and its bezel is as chunky as its plastic stand is basic. But when it comes to displaying an image generated by a computer, you’d struggle to fault it.
Full-size monitors are only just beginning to move to the ultra high resolutions now common on mobile devices. There are some 4К models (3840x2160 pixels or thereabouts), but many budget units still show only 1920x1080 pixels. This one, at 2560x1440, is sharper.
That’s the same as Apple's £899 Thunderbolt Display, which likewise has no adjustment except tilt. Comparing the two, the Q2778VQE’s colour accuracy came surprisingly close. Although it’s aimed at creative users, the Thunderbolt Display is based on the standard sRGB colour space rather than a larger professional space like Adobe RGB.
The Q2778VQE covered 98.9 per cent of sRGB, and its Delta E (a measurement of how much colours vary from what they ought to be) was 1.9, which is almost as low as Apple’s 1.8. The Q2778VQE was only about 80 per cent as bright as the Thunderbolt Display at its maximum, but that was too bright for us anyway, so we turned it down. Contrast was actually 30 per cent better.
While the Thunderbolt Display, like most current mid-range monitors, uses an IPS panel, the Q2778VQE is of the TN variety. That’s usually associated with poor image quality at wider angles, but here we found no such problems, and the pixels update quickly, so there's no ghosting as objects move around the screen. The only catch is a fairly high input lag of 38 milliseconds. Keen gamers may notice the delay, which is similar to that of a living room HDTV.
Our Apple comparison may not be the most appropriate: the Thunderbolt Display is overpriced and due for replacement, so it’s not the be-all and end all. But compared to newer and cheaper rivals, the Q2778VQE still excels. It may be made of black plastic, but it has a pleasantly uncluttered design, with square corners at the top and neat curves below.
The disc-shaped stand looks like it might rotate, but doesn't. There’s enough tilt to get a comfortable angle, although you might want to raise the screen on a couple of books. And no, it can’t rotate into portrait mode, but how many of us use a monitor like that anyway?
Finally, the Q2778VQE not only has a full complement of VGA, DVI and DisplayPort connections on the back, but comes with cables for them all (although you'll need your own for HDMI). It really is excellent value.
VERDICT
If you like do-it-all products, this isn't one, but it's a very good monitor at a very fair price.
SPECIFICATIONS
25in TN LCD • 2560x1440-pixel resolution • 1x HDMI port • 1x DVI port • 1x DisplayPort • 1x VGA port • 471x640x300mm (HxWxD) • Three-year warranty