Choice has released a new monitor review (not test). The ‘Choice Expert Rating’ is based on 70% energy and 30% physical screen size. There is nothing in the report or tables about display quality, resolutions, or even connections.
What does this tell anyone that is useful excepting energy efficiency with a spread of roughly $2 p.a. as differentiator @SteveDuncombe or @PeterZaluzny ? It is not even a collation of the major specs from the manufacturers.
It is also member content without content. If a reader subscribed to see this ‘review’ I suspect they would be livid, @BrendanMays.
From my perspective this was a waste of time and ‘paper’. If size and energy are all that matter to be recommended (and Choice readers accept ‘recommended’ and ‘rated’ as statements not puffery) to the exclusion of the myriad important features it does not reflect well on the ‘trail boss’ for this project or Choice, in my opinion. The Buying Guide is packed with good information, but there is no connect with the review (that is not a test); and the Buying Guide does not even use the words energy or efficiency.
Maybe energy efficiency should be removed from the weightings for the rating, and used as a final (discerning) parameter to whether a product makes it onto a recommended list. This approach means a good monitor may lose Choice’s recommendation due to excessive power use.
A very small difference ($2) in annual costs isn’t enough to really differentiate between products (maybe changing screen brightness could impact on annual costs more)…when used by an average consumer, and as such using it heavily in ratings is meaninglessness and may bias the outcome.
For alternate points of reference APC or PCUser Magazines show how it can be better done.
Does Choice need to be clearer about the intent and scope of the reviews?
For home users seeking a basic monitor the Choice guide may be helpful. It seems a little dated. To keep it simple and straight forward, is the intended audience just a home user who is low tech savvy using the monitor for browsing, and basic office tasks? Some monitors may do these tasks adequately at minimal cost. Adding tasks such as photo and movie editing, or regular high quality streaming movie content I’d expect different recommendations. Energy consumption would seem to be a lesser priority for these latter needs, if at all a significant consideration. Convenient access to a full power off button would seem the best way to manage power use?
True, and why (as you have indicated) possibly other criterion should be considered as part of the (desktop) review.
As you have also indicated, relying on screen size and energy efficiency (where not a huge difference between models) doesn’t really provide any real benefit to a consumer. A consumer can gauge screen size without the need to read the Choice ‘review’.
When I look at monitors I look at resolution, screen size, whether curved or not (depends on who is using it), price, colour reproduction, refresh rate (I prefer starting at 75 Hz but faster is much better), response time (4ms or even better), and 5ms acceptable if business use only. I also look at the stand, if it can use VESA mounts or not, ease of using the menu and changing settings, screen bezel border (thinner is better), connections with at least HDMI v2.0 but Display port also nice (USB C is OK but not many are using it yet). Energy saving sits way way way down the list as most are close to each other in energy specs for a given resolution.
Most important of all these are screen size and resolution which get roughly equal weight (a 19-22 inch can easily get away with FHD a 24 will still be ok at FHD but a 27, 30, 32 and larger need higher resolution starting at 2K (which may be know by various acronyms including QHD). The buyer budget also is very important so size and resolution will be dictated by that budget but within that price range the size and resolution will be maximised. If a gamer refresh rate also rates very highly in the rating.
If someone gave me the CHOICE ratings as a guide, they would get placed in the WPB (waste paper basket) or as sometimes know as file 13.
So first break the monitors into Business or Gaming as that will allow the easier choice of response time, no gamer wants a 5ms monitor.
Budget then determines screen size and resolution then refresh rate. As a basic the connection needs to be HDMI but DP at a pinch noting many laptops still only provide a HDMI port. That at least would be a good start.
I disagree, this “review” is completely useless and could result in a consumer buying a monitor they cannot use. The most basic spec, the resolution of the monitor is not even listed, and connections are also very important.
For example, if I had a $300 budget and wanted at least 27" then I’d end up with the HP M27fw which has the highest rating at 81%. However I would not be able to plug it into my video card which has DisplayPort or DVI outputs, and even if I could plug it in, I’d be stuck with awful 1920 x 1080 resolution which chops the bottom off documents.
Fortunately I did my own research and bought my monitors a few months ago, and for the same price I got the gigabyte G27QC which has a curved screen at 2560 x 1440, and DP and HDMI inputs.
The extra running cost of $10 per year is not a consideration at all.
A very strange review of computer monitors…
My daughter is looking for a computer monitor so I was keen to see which ones Choice recommended in its recent test. Unfortunately, I really don’t feel like I now know which ones are the best. While I know how much they costs to run and how big they are, I don’t know - unless I am missing something - which might be the clearest, sharpest, best colour or most adjustable. I think those are all strange omissions from a test on best monitors. I know from experience that my HP monitor, very good in most respects (and is adjustable for height, which most are not) doesn’t do a great job of allowing me to read a newspaper online from a website PDF. My smaller iPad screen is vastly superior. Anyway, just a thought - but I’d really like to know about the picture next time, not just the size and how much energy it uses, which I am sure are also important considerations.
If you give us a few more details of what you are looking for eg cost, size, connections I’m sure we all can give you some choices to look into. Want clearer detail then higher resolutions are going to help, smaller pixels and greater numbers of them will lead to less grainy images. Going to do some gaming then response times and refresh rates help as well.
Welcome @Rex
As a generalisation with computer monitors you get only as much as you pay for. Sometimes you get much less. It’s likely Choice will take on board the feedback in this topic for the next time.
The higher end smart phone and tablet devices, Apple often considered a bench mark are very good for pics and text. Unfortunately getting a computer monitor with the resolution (pixel density) of an iPad will push the budget into a no go zone for most consumers. Your computer or laptop graphics and external port/s also need to support the higher resolution monitor, typically 4k or higher.
If you have a budget in mind, that may assist others per @grahroll suggestion.
QHD should be doable by almost all current graphic chips and cards, sometimes it’s also referred to 2K. FHD or 1080p as it is also called in 24 or 27 inch would be possible around $200 to $300. A 27 inch monitor around $300 to $400 that is 2K is entirely possible and would be easy on the eyes with a response time of around 1 to 4 Ms and a refresh rate of at least 75 Hz.
Examples of some… the retailer and monitors are not a recommendation just a sample of what is out there (sorry for the long link but it has filters to keep the selection a bit tighter)
A note from personal experience is that as monitor size increases, beyond a point FHD gets increasingly tiring to look at and higher display resolutions (eg ‘picture quality’ - sharpness, etc) become more interesting re eye strain. YMMV
I am astounded at The latest choice review of large monitors. I use a large monitor and am considering a better one for graphics. The review provides no information at all about the performance of the monitors, and in fact, the ‘expert rating’ is based entirely on size (duh) and power consumption. Size of monitor will be determined by personal preferences and power usage is mostly very small and only varies with the size. Neither of these factors are as important to me as performance. The buying guide is good, but surely a review should consider the things which are important to users?
Hi @PeterPierce, thanks for the feedback and apologies for the bad experience. We appreciate this review hasn’t been meeting expectations and I’m passing it on to our team so we can look to improve in the future.
They may like to have contact with this site as to what ones are more likely to appeal to users before they start their tests eg brands, size, resolutions, response times and refresh rates.
Run a poll about likes and dislikes, seek feedback beyond the poll to narrow down what to test and why.
I agree with your assessment @PhilT. FHD I find acceptable to around 27 inch, 30+ inches I am into at least QHD if not 4K. Price for 4K and 8K are still too high for most users, gamers and those who use design software are the more likely buyers of the higher resolutions. Response time stops a lot of motion blurring if 4 ms or less but for eye comfort a higher refresh rate can bring a lot more comfort such as 75 Hz or better. The 60 Hz refresh tends to tire eyes quickly and particularly as screen size increases.
If colour reproduction is important then panel type eg IPS can be important. TN for response and refresh rate but not colour reproduction. TN for black is washed out a bit and 24 bit colour is not achievable, it uses interpolation to achieve colour matching. VA is another that is a sort of compromise between TN and IPS but supports good contrast.
The review missed almost all of this detail, no good decision could be based on such lack of detail.
Hi Phil, Thanks for the feedback and sorry that it has disappointed you and many others.
This monitors review focused solely on energy and size, as you pointed out.
We chose to select the energy ratings as the focus, as we were unable to test large items at our labs at the height of COVID when our labs had to close. Collecting the many and varied specs for so many products was out of reach without automation.
Depending on the amount of feedback we get, we may choose to include more details, but in no way would we be able to test 220 products in house. We simply don’t have the resources.
We’ll select based on the best performing energy products and use a small selection of those for a review - assuming there are enough people who are interested in monitors. We’ll take a list of the suggestions that people are giving and see what makes sense in collating the next iteration.
I imagine given the change in working conditions, more people will be interested in this product, but we’re unsure for the moment whether that interest will continue.
Thanks for your comments on energy missing from the Buying Guide, I’ll add them in. It’s good timing as well since computer monitors are up for sunsetting their GEMS determination on which I’m hoping to make a submission.
Not to detract from the core point about the limited nature of the review but this isn’t necessarily so.
DVI can be signal-compatible with HDMI, so all you would need is a passive connector adapter (not a signal converter) e.g. as discussed here HDMI - Wikipedia and noting the limitations mentioned in the first paragraph.
Some monitors even come with the needed adapter or the equivalent cable, although not so much these days as DVI is pretty much obsolete e.g. people want audio as well.
