Recommendations for a monitor to go with my M3 15" MBA

[danb79]

I'll be getting a £500 voucher from work for Amazon UK and would like to sort as good a monitor as I can get for my M3 MBA

Only need one; I'll dual screen with the MBA if required; but the monitor will be the main screen; may look to add a webcam to it also

I don't game etc; but I do spend a lot of time working with MS Office, Adobe Suite and various online platforms for the company I work for & recruit into

I'd also like to use it for watching films via Apple TV and Youtube stuff in my home office when the wife's watching her drivel on the TV haha

Recommendations please - nothing bigger than 27" due to desk size

[mmm-five]

The LG Ultrafine, Dell Ultrasharp and BenQ are regarded as great productivity monitors.

You can get a lower end one for £250, or a higher end one for £500.

Higher end:

Dell U2723QE Ultrasharp (£439)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/DELL-DISPLAY-ULTRASHARP-M...

LG 27UQ750 Ultrafine (£436)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-Electronics-FreeSync-C...

BenQ PD27060U (£415)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/BenQ-Skintone-Validated-V...


Lower end:
LG 27UP650K-W Ultrafine (£293)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-27UP650K-W-UltraFine-U...

LG 27US550K-W Ultrafine (£235)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-Monitor-27US550-Respon...

Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 26th March 13:17

[wyson]

I’d just get an Apple Studio Display. £1399 at John Lewis at the moment.

Older gen panel but seamless integration with your Macbook. Built in webcam, will dim / undim according to your laptop settings. 5k display so will pixel double perfectly. I noticed MacOS doesn’t much like 4k. Colour accurate for your Adobe Suite stuff.

I tried a bunch of monitors with my Macbook Pro in Currys. You could give that a bash as well, hook up your laptop to various displays, see what you like best. I settled for native, old skool 93 ppi in the end. Just hated the odd ball scaling with 4k monitors. To my eye, native and pixel doubled Retina looked best on MacOS.

Edited by wyson on Wednesday 26th March 13:28

[danb79]

wyson said:

I’d just get an Apple Studio Display. £1399 at John Lewis at the moment.

Older gen panel but seamless integration with your Macbook. Built in webcam, will dim / undim according to your laptop settings. 5k display so will pixel double perfectly. I noticed MacOS doesn’t much like 4k. Colour accurate for your Adobe Suite stuff.

I tried a bunch of monitors with my Macbook Pro in Currys. You could give that a bash as well, hook up your laptop to various displays, see what you like best. I settled for native, old skool 93 ppi in the end. Just hated the odd ball scaling with 4k monitors. To my eye, native and pixel doubled Retina looked best on MacOS.

Edited by wyson on Wednesday 26th March 13:28

You did see where I put: "I'll be getting a £500 voucher from work for Amazon UK"...?!

[wyson]

I just assumed that was some sort of bonus, you’d be putting towards your own monitor. My company dishes out vouchers like these, end of year awards etc. My mistake.

[danb79]

wyson said:

I just assumed that was some sort of bonus, you’d be putting towards your own monitor. My company dishes out vouchers like these, end of year awards etc. My mistake.

Alas no; already had that

This is because most of my colleagues have crap old laptops etc and they're all jealous of my MBA But they're all in Dublin, I'm the only on here, so they've all got new iMacs instead (and iPads as part of our quarterly bonus) - I've got the Amazon voucher for a monitor; so will stick with £500 and under

It's really for MS docs, PDFs etc - I don't do much in the way of the rest of Adobe Suite bar looking at candidate portfolios for any of the UI/UX/creative roles etc

[BlueMR2]

The Asus Proart monitors can be nice.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Display-PA279CRV-Pro...

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/asus/proart...

https://www.asus.com/events/infoM/activity_proart5...

Edited by BlueMR2 on Wednesday 26th March 18:04

[danb79]

I've gone with this BenQ monitor; lands today:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B096B3PBFZ

It's all I need really for looking at documents; fine turning them and sending them onto the hiring managers etc; I don't need full 4K as I'm not doing anything with pictures/any editing etc

Plus it's left me with £150 to buy myself a new USB C full numeric Apple keyboard

[blackscooby]

Amazon Voucher - how does this get handled in terms of Tax ?

It's a genuine query, as we're often told stuff about say a bonus, obviously that gets taxed as it's paid into our wage, but say if they gave an Amazon voucher, does that escape the tax requirements?

I'm intrigued, our place is very very dot every i and cross every t, pedantically so.

[mmm-five]

danb79 said:

I've gone with this BenQ monitor; lands today:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B096B3PBFZ

It's all I need really for looking at documents; fine turning them and sending them onto the hiring managers etc; I don't need full 4K as I'm not doing anything with pictures/any editing etc

Plus it's left me with £150 to buy myself a new USB C full numeric Apple keyboard

If not using the 4K resolution, I'm assuming you'll select 1080p to give your the best alternative resolution (2:1 pixel ratio)? Anything between those 2 resolutions may not be as clear/crisp as there's no exact pixel scaling at those resolutions.

[LeeM135i]

Ive had one of these for about 18 months and it makes life easy with my M1 MacBook Pro.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-S3423DWC-USB-C-3440x...

It's a USB C monitor so its a single plug to connect the monitor to the MacBook and charge and it uses the monitor as a USB hub, very convenient.

I originally purchased it as I had a 27" and 24" monitor but I could only connect 1 to the Mac, which wasn't quite big enough, through a dock so I had a HDMI cable through a USB C dock and a USBC power connector it was OK but a pain and looked untidy.

Screen has a good resolution and is clear and crisp for what I need. 100Hz is more than the Mac can output.

I also have a Belkin MagSafe stand thing on top of the monitor so I can use my iPhone as a webcam which is really useful when the Mac is off to one side.

[danb79]

mmm-five said:

If not using the 4K resolution, I'm assuming you'll select 1080p to give your the best alternative resolution (2:1 pixel ratio)? Anything between those 2 resolutions may not be as clear/crisp as there's no exact pixel scaling at those resolutions.

Think I had it on 1440, something like that - looks spot on to me and the blacks are really black

It's all I need really; full 4K would have been wasted; I'm not editing pics or doing video work etc

[danb79]

blackscooby said:

Amazon Voucher - how does this get handled in terms of Tax ?

It's a genuine query, as we're often told stuff about say a bonus, obviously that gets taxed as it's paid into our wage, but say if they gave an Amazon voucher, does that escape the tax requirements?

I'm intrigued, our place is very very dot every i and cross every t, pedantically so.

No idea; just received it and used it as requested