Monoprice, the Web retailer best known for its low-priced cables, continues to expand its product line with a 27-inch high-resolution LED computer monitor it showed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January. The price? $475, nearly a third less than many models with similar specifications.
Just to give you an example of Monoprice’s value, let’s look at the kind of cable you use to connect your TV to your DVD player. A 6-foot 24AWG High Speed HDMI cable from Monoprice is $6. The lowest price I could find on a similar name-brand cable was $50.
One caveat is that Monoprice’s quality can be uneven, although the company has a reputation for happily replacing faulty products without a quibble.
Going by the numbers, the monitor looks very good indeed. It claims 2560 x 1440 resolution and .233 by .233 mm dot pitch, which means it has lots of pixels close together for high resolution.
I have to admit I am not well-equipped for evaluating monitors. I would prefer to have seen it side-by-side with a competing model. Instead I connected to a TV source and watched some high-definition shows. The blacks were certainly excellent, detail was very good, and there was little problem with motion – although some parallel horizontal lines could get a bit jagged.
Other users have reported “light bleed,” meaning that the lights behind the screen can illuminate unevenly, causing shadows and ill-defined areas. I didn’t see any light bleed, but my room may not be dark enough for it to be apparent.
Of course, you can’t deliver a product at a fraction of a competitor’s price without cutting a few corners. Those most noticeable to me were the inelegant plastic bezel around the screen and the functional but cheesy stand. At the savings offered, I could live with it.