Monitors

Please watch through this video for a dive into exactly what you need to know about buying a monitor:


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I have 15” laptop which gives me the flexibility to work anywhere. (like the hallway outside of the kids room when they decide going to bed is for the birds and I have a deadline.. not that they would ever do that, ha!)
However, it is not great for editing. So I like to have an additional screen that lets me see my work BIG and edit it more effectively.

I personally use a discontinued Apple Cinema Display, it is 27” at 2560 x 1440 pixels - that is a Quad HD (QHD) or 2K monitor. Apple now only sells 4K + monitors which I don’t personally recommend.

I talk about this in my video, the bottom line is if you want to use the monitor to edit images for print, 2K is the best resolution in the 27” size. A 4K, 5K or 8K monitor will look amazing, but will not translate well into print.

What specs?

• 27” (larger you will need to sit back farther from your monitor)
• 2560 x 1440 pixels, which is QHD/2K
You can go bigger with a higher resolution, above is what I have and what I like to work on. You should shoot for a pixel density of 100-110, you can check here: https://www.designcompaniesranked.com/resources/is-this-retina/

• IPS (In-Plane Switching)
Wide colour gamut
• Minimum 10 bit colour depth
• DisplayPort (Windows), Thunderbolt (Mac), HDMI 1.4 (2K) or HDMI 2.0 (4k)

Nice to haves:
• Adjustable Height/Tilt
• I recommend a flat screen, I find curved screens make it difficult to judge distortion


 Recommendations

BenQ SW272Q*

Size: 27”
Resolution: 2560x1440 QHD/2K
Colour Gamut: 100% sRGB, 98% P3, 99% Adobe RGB
Bit Depth: 10 bit
Connection: HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, USB-C

* This is my number one pick from the whole page as of August 2024.

EIZO COLOREDGE CG2700s

Size: 27”
Resolution: 2560x1440 QHD/2K
Colour Gamut: 99% Adobe RGB
Bit Depth: 10 bit
Connection: HDMI, DisplayPort, USB-S

EIZO COLOREDGE CS2731

Size: 27”
Resolution: 2560x1440 QHD/2K
Colour Gamut: 99% Adobe RGB
Bit Depth: 10 bit
Connection: HDMI 1.2, DisplayPort 1.3

NEC MULTISYNC EA271Q

Size: 27”
Resolution: 2560x1440 QHD/2K
Colour Gamut: 78.3% Adobe RGB, 100% sRGB
Bit Depth: 8 bit (less than I prefer)
Connection: HDMI, DisplayPort 1.2