4K 27" Monitor Reccomendations Under 500$CAD

[WeiSheiLindon]

Next year I'm planning to get a computer, as well as a reasonably colour accurate 4K monitor for photo editing. However, as I still want to put most of my funds into photography gear as I'm getting myself established, I want to spend as little as possible. So I'm looking for a 27" 4K monitor, and I've set my budget at 500$ CAD. I could care less about pixel response times, colour accuracy and contrast are paramount to me. What would you reccomend for my use case? Thanks in advance. I'm not super stoked about getting a display from samsung due to Samsung Display's recent attack on right to repair, but I will if it is truly the best option by a far margin. The important thing is photo editing. Highly unlikely to be used for gaming.

[Stahlmann]

I'd recommend to buy an LG 27UL500-W. It's a fairly standard 4K 60Hz IPS monitor that covers the whole sRGB color space, but leaves room in your budget to also buy a colorimeter like the Calibrite Display SL. This way you can do a full calibration and will have a more color accurate monitor compared to buying a "factory calibrated" monitor closer to your max budget.

[WeiSheiLindon]

17 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

I'd recommend to buy an LG 27UL500-W. It's a fairly standard 4K 60Hz IPS monitor that covers the whole sRGB color space, but leaves room in your budget to also buy a colorimeter like the Calibrite Display SL. This way you can do a full calibration and will have a more color accurate monitor compared to buying a "factory calibrated" monitor closer to your max budget.

That seems to be a good reccomendation, thank you. I hadn't even thought about calibration - this is why I posted here. I'm surprised at how expensive the calibration device is but then again camera sensors and particularily colour accurate ones aren't cheap, and you also need the software and custom electronics to interface with a PC. Atleast I'm assuming that's how it works. It's good that it has 98% sRGB coverage - not only is it necessary in my future line of work to have colour accuracy, but also I'm used to the ruthless colour accuracy and contrast of OLED. I've been using an LG V60, which by no means is the latest phone, but even so it's the most colour accurate and highest quality display in my household. It's one thing to go back to LCD from that, it's another to go to one that doesn't have full colour space, or even limited brightness range. The monitor I've been using with my phone has blown out highlights in any scene, and the colours are not even worth mentioning. It's nice to have a big screen but I feel like by the time I buy a computer it won't be practical to keep using an old cheap 1080p monitor. Way more information than I needed to provide, just thought it might be an interesting discussion.

[alyen]

1 hour ago, WeiSheiLindon said:

That seems to be a good reccomendation, thank you. I hadn't even thought about calibration

If you have a Android phone and you use Windows, there is a $2 app (before taxes) in the Microsoft store called Monitor Calibration. Bluetooth is required to be able to connect the computer to your phone. Also need Camera Calibration for the phone. It just uses the camera from your phone so it helps if you have a better phone that can capture colors and calibrated better. It didn't quite work out for me, but it seems to do a better job than the Spyder Pro 3 from 15 years ago I have. The yellows come out kind of weak or maybe the red is too intense. There are probably better camera phones out there that may do a better job.  It also allows you to capture white point and RGB as reference, but I haven't tried it since I don't have a good source point and also only tried this out myself 2 days ago and.

[Stahlmann]

5 hours ago, WeiSheiLindon said:

That seems to be a good reccomendation, thank you. I hadn't even thought about calibration - this is why I posted here. I'm surprised at how expensive the calibration device is but then again camera sensors and particularily colour accurate ones aren't cheap, and you also need the software and custom electronics to interface with a PC. Atleast I'm assuming that's how it works. It's good that it has 98% sRGB coverage - not only is it necessary in my future line of work to have colour accuracy, but also I'm used to the ruthless colour accuracy and contrast of OLED. I've been using an LG V60, which by no means is the latest phone, but even so it's the most colour accurate and highest quality display in my household. It's one thing to go back to LCD from that, it's another to go to one that doesn't have full colour space, or even limited brightness range. The monitor I've been using with my phone has blown out highlights in any scene, and the colours are not even worth mentioning. It's nice to have a big screen but I feel like by the time I buy a computer it won't be practical to keep using an old cheap 1080p monitor. Way more information than I needed to provide, just thought it might be an interesting discussion.

Obviously you can also use the colorimeter to calibrate any future display you buy, so if this is something you're doing on a professional level it will be worth it to invest in one.

 

Also, monitor colors "drift" over time, so even if you buy a perfectly accurate monitor now, in a few months it can lose it's accuracity. Because of that it's recommended to recalibrate your monitor every few months.

 

Monitor calibration using a colorimeter is very easy. You basically enter the reference values you want to achieve in the software, then with the help of the colorimeter use the monitor's own settings menu to get as close to these valies as possible. After that the calibration software will fine-tune all the remaining inaccuracities and create an .ICC profile. Windows will then use this .ICC profile to change up the color values that are sent to your display so the colors that show up on your monitor are accurate to the reference. All in all this whole process takes about 15 minutes to do on a monitor.

 

If you're interested in a short tutorial on how monitor calibration works on a surface-level, here is a good one:

 

 

[WeiSheiLindon]

On 11/17/2023 at 1:41 AM, Stahlmann said:

Obviously you can also use the colorimeter to calibrate any future display you buy, so if this is something you're doing on a professional level it will be worth it to invest in one.

 

Also, monitor colors "drift" over time, so even if you buy a perfectly accurate monitor now, in a few months it can lose it's accuracity. Because of that it's recommended to recalibrate your monitor every few months.

 

Monitor calibration using a colorimeter is very easy. You basically enter the reference values you want to achieve in the software, then with the help of the colorimeter use the monitor's own settings menu to get as close to these valies as possible. After that the calibration software will fine-tune all the remaining inaccuracities and create an .ICC profile. Windows will then use this .ICC profile to change up the color values that are sent to your display so the colors that show up on your monitor are accurate to the reference. All in all this whole process takes about 15 minutes to do on a monitor.

 

If you're interested in a short tutorial on how monitor calibration works on a surface-level, here is a good one:

 

 

Thank you very much I indeed hadn't thought of the future use case, nor did I know colours drift over time. That being the case, a colorimeter is indeed the best option. By chance do you know if this is also the case for phones?

[WeiSheiLindon]

On 11/16/2023 at 10:02 PM, alyen said:

If you have a Android phone and you use Windows, there is a $2 app (before taxes) in the Microsoft store called Monitor Calibration. Bluetooth is required to be able to connect the computer to your phone. Also need Camera Calibration for the phone. It just uses the camera from your phone so it helps if you have a better phone that can capture colors and calibrated better. It didn't quite work out for me, but it seems to do a better job than the Spyder Pro 3 from 15 years ago I have. The yellows come out kind of weak or maybe the red is too intense. There are probably better camera phones out there that may do a better job.  It also allows you to capture white point and RGB as reference, but I haven't tried it since I don't have a good source point and also only tried this out myself 2 days ago and.

I will go that route if my budget is too limited to afford the colorimeter. Thanks for the advice.

[Stahlmann]

11 hours ago, WeiSheiLindon said:

Thank you very much I indeed hadn't thought of the future use case, nor did I know colours drift over time. That being the case, a colorimeter is indeed the best option. By chance do you know if this is also the case for phones?

It applies to every display. But you can't really recalibrate phone screens afaik, so you get what you get. But color accuracity isn't top priority on phones either way, even though most brands claim insane color accuracity.

[WeiSheiLindon]

7 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

It applies to every display. But you can't really recalibrate phone screens afaik, so you get what you get. But color accuracity isn't top priority on phones either way, even though most brands claim insane color accuracity.

Sony is the only company I know of giving actual colour accurate displays. Creator mode is a game changer. It sucks that you can't recalibrate on android devices.

[Stahlmann]

15 hours ago, WeiSheiLindon said:

Sony is the only company I know of giving actual colour accurate displays. Creator mode is a game changer. It sucks that you can't recalibrate on android devices.

On my Samsung Galaxy S9 the OLED display looks fairly good. There are just 3 settings, which basically just decide the used color gamut. I can set it to "simple" (sRGB) or to "AMOLED-Cinema" or "AMOLED-Photo" which both just seem to put the display into D65-P3 mode. I wouldn't say color accuracity is perfect, but imo it's good enough for a phone screen. At least colors don't look noticeably "off".