Hey,
Monitor spec sheets are overwhelming.
Dozens of numbers, and most of them you’ll never notice once it’s on your desk.
This issue is for anyone about to buy a monitor: here’s what I skip, and what I look at instead.
🖥️ The Monitor Specs I Completely Ignore
Here’s my list.
✅ What I Actually Look At
It depends on who you are, but gaming monitors tend to be small, very fast and low resolution. I go the other way.
Here’s what I check first:
Size: the biggest I can get
Refresh rate: the fastest I can get
Inputs: as many as possible
Panel: ideally OLED, though I’ve been using IPS Black a lot more lately
If a spec doesn’t change what I see or what I can plug in, I don’t care about it.
❌ Power Consumption
Nobody cares. And that’s true of most products now.
Almost nobody checks the energy efficiency rating. They buy it, plug it in, and it uses whatever it uses.
There is a rating: monitors sold in the UK carry an A to G energy label
It’s harsh: when the scale was reset, a lot of premium displays were expected to land in F or G
It’s rarely what decides the purchase
❌ The Screen Technology Label
OLED is still king for a lot of people. But Mini LED screens are really good now.
And IPS Black is the one I keep coming back to:
Deeper blacks: around 2000:1 contrast, versus roughly 1000:1 on a standard IPS panel
Still IPS: you keep the viewing angles and colour accuracy IPS is known for
Honest trade-off: it’s still an LCD, so it won’t match OLED for true black
❌ Burn-in Worry (If You Go Mini LED)
Mini LED isn’t susceptible to burn-in. At all.
It’s an LCD with a LED backlight, so there are no organic pixels wearing out over time. That matters if your monitor sits on the same taskbar, spreadsheet or game HUD for hours every day.
(Full disclosure: OLED still wins on blacks, and Mini LED can show a bit of blooming around bright objects.)
🎯 How I’d Pick a Monitor
If you care about… | Look at |
|---|---|
Space and immersion | Size, go as big as your desk allows |
Smooth gaming | Refresh rate |
Plugging in PC, console and laptop | Number of inputs |
The deepest blacks | OLED |
All-day static work, no burn-in stress | Mini LED |
Great contrast without OLED money | IPS Black |
Energy rating | Skip it |
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