Difference between £100 and £500 monitors?
- Thread starter jsmoke
- Start date
The £500 monitor will generally have a better specced panel that can be professionally calibrated etc. but out of the box, to the untrained eye, the cheaper panel could well look better.
You'd also have to tell us which £100 monitor and which £500 monitor.
You'd also have to tell us which £100 monitor and which £500 monitor.
Caporegime
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it would help if you posted the exact monitors tbh.
otherwise i could ask the same question ridiculous question you have; someone at work is selling a £100 camera and a £500 camera. is the image quality on the £500 way better or not much in it?
see what i mean? how could anyone answer such a question without specifics apart from the price.
This is pretty much like asking what the difference between a £10,000 Vauxhall Corsa and a £100,000 Aston Martin is. They both have 4 wheels don't they?
There will of course be particularly good examples of budget monitors and bad examples of premium monitors, but generally speaking you get what you pay for.
There will of course be particularly good examples of budget monitors and bad examples of premium monitors, but generally speaking you get what you pay for.
In all simplicity:
Yes. There is definitely a difference with those prices.
On the other hand, if you were comparing a £300 and a £400 monitor, then there might not be that big of a difference, or it might even be that the cheaper £300 monitor has a slightly better quality, while the £400 is just overpriced high-tier brand monitor. But £100 is so bottom of the barrel that you simply can't get anything "good" for that. And while the £500 monitor can indeed still be overpriced, it most certainly won't be THAT overpriced.
As for the statement "both have HDMI":
That is irrelevant. Having HDMI or not has practically no impact to the final price, nor the overall image quality. If you personally need HDMI, then that's understandable, but other than that, it can't be used as any sort of indication of quality.
All in all, I would suggest to never spend less than £150 on a monitor. £200-300 is usually the sweet spot. Over £300 is where the enthusiast range starts. These monitors usually have a better combination of a good panel type, screen size, high refresh rate, high resolution, and other miscellaneous features (like adaptive refresh rate).
If you want, you could just tell us the budget, main usage scenario (gaming, office, movies, etc.), any special requirements (like the HDMI port), and the helpful people here will give some opinions on what would be the best choice for you.
If your previous thread is of any indication, then I would still recommend taking a look at the actual HDTVs.
Yes. There is definitely a difference with those prices.
On the other hand, if you were comparing a £300 and a £400 monitor, then there might not be that big of a difference, or it might even be that the cheaper £300 monitor has a slightly better quality, while the £400 is just overpriced high-tier brand monitor. But £100 is so bottom of the barrel that you simply can't get anything "good" for that. And while the £500 monitor can indeed still be overpriced, it most certainly won't be THAT overpriced.
As for the statement "both have HDMI":
That is irrelevant. Having HDMI or not has practically no impact to the final price, nor the overall image quality. If you personally need HDMI, then that's understandable, but other than that, it can't be used as any sort of indication of quality.
All in all, I would suggest to never spend less than £150 on a monitor. £200-300 is usually the sweet spot. Over £300 is where the enthusiast range starts. These monitors usually have a better combination of a good panel type, screen size, high refresh rate, high resolution, and other miscellaneous features (like adaptive refresh rate).
If you want, you could just tell us the budget, main usage scenario (gaming, office, movies, etc.), any special requirements (like the HDMI port), and the helpful people here will give some opinions on what would be the best choice for you.
If your previous thread is of any indication, then I would still recommend taking a look at the actual HDTVs.
I wouldn't really say that - sure you're not going to get an IPS screen or a high refresh rate monitor for that, but you can get a perfectly adequate branded (e.g. AOC, Benq) 24" 1080p for ~£100. It's not going to blow you away with performance or IQ, but at the same time its not going to be a dodgy chinese knock-off with 40 dead pixels and a stand that's made of the plastic from a ready-meal pack.
To answer the OP:
The more expensive monitor may have:
Higher resolution.
Faster response time.
Higher refresh rate.
Adaptive Sync (e.g g-sync/freesync).
Different panel type (e.g. IPS/VA).
Better colour reproduction (e.g. more accuracy, 10-bit instead of 8).
More inputs.
Special features such as PiP.
Better built-in speakers.
Better stand with more adjustments (e.g. height, swivel, rotate).
Better warranty (e.g. 3 years instead of 1, dead pixel guarantee etc.).
Or simply a better brand name.
Caporegime
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You'd have to be mad to spent £500 on a 24" monitor.
I wouldn't consider a £100 24" 1080p TN monitor "good". I wouldn't even consider it as "mediocre". It will be a low-end monitor, there's nothing else to it.
It will be perfectly adequate for someone who only has £100 to spend and who doesn't want to get caught up in a world of rapidly diminishing improvements for rapidly increasing costs.
We don't all have this giant TV fetish like you Vince. Plenty of reasons to buy smaller over bigger.
Caporegime
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We don't all have this giant TV fetish like you Vince. Plenty of reasons to buy smaller over bigger.
What are you talking about? My desktop monitor is a perfectly good 27" AOC Q2770 PQU which is IPS equivalent, 1440p and which cost me £330 2 years ago.
Why would anyone pay £500 for a 24" screen?
adequate ≠ good
You distinctly implied it would be rubbish by saying an £100 monitor wouldn't even be mediocre.
How exactly do you see "good"? I'm not talking about "good enough". I'm talking about GOOD, in itself.
Adequate is indeed a synonym to something that's "good enough".
A monochrome monitor is GOOD ENOUGH for
A broken monitor is GOOD ENOUGH for someone who just needs it for spare parts.
They will be rubbish for the rest.
For comparison, OP's current monitor is GOOD ENOUGH for someone who desperately needs a monitor but can't afford to pay more than £1 for a new monitor.
Mediocre is by its very definition AVERAGE ("neither very good nor very bad; ordinary; average"). A £100 monitor is indeed not even mediocre. It is, pure and simple, the bottom of the barrel.
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Caporegime
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Colour blind people don't see in monochrome!
Ok, I've fixed it now. But I think people would have understood the meaning even without the correction, though. Actually, now they're probably even more confused than before.
Btw, lots of off-topicness in this thread... Must be a slow week in the forums, people getting bored. (Me included, though.)
Btw, lots of off-topicness in this thread... Must be a slow week in the forums, people getting bored. (Me included, though.)
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It all depends by what you mean spec.
If everything is the same, and I mean EVERYTHING including identical panel then no point to spend £500. However I doubt that it the case, and if you have something in mind, please post here the 2 monitors you want to compare.
Or else is similar to asking us how long is a piece of string. How should we know?