Best Monitor For Movies

By Shifali Rao . Last updated Aug 2, 2013.

Even the top monitors for movies can not of course compete with a full blown 40" or higher television but it's great for college dorms and smaller rooms where having a HDTV is out of the question. The best thing about today's monitors is that their performance is not limited to just internet browsing, but can give some great movie and gaming performance too.

If you want the best of display for your movie monitor we suggest an LED screen with a matte finish. LED backlighting has several advantages from greater contrast ratios to better colour depth, while the matte screen eliminates the glare you'd otherwise face due to ambient light. In addition A TFT active matrix screen is much recommended for various reasons. In a TFT active matrix monitor Thin Film Transistors are used inside the LCD screen to control each pixel resulting in brighter screens with better contrasts and more vibrant images. Additionally, these monitors also have a much faster response time than others since there is a lot more control over the pixels.

With the high refresh rates offered by these monitors, you can watch your favorite sports and action movies with no motion blur. The best monitors for movies have a good brightness output and are capable of displaying deep blacks backed by a colour depth of around 16 million colours to give you excellent contrast and rich grayscale performance as well.

We haven't mentioned much about contrast ratios because there's currently no industry standard for it and hence those values are more misleading than helpful. However, if this seems like an important point to you, it's best to visit a store and check the contrast performance in person.

Our list below of the top movie monitors has been narrowed down to the highly rated models with at least a 20 inch screen size, so scroll down to view specs, price and watch video reviews.

Browse All Top Monitors For Movies »

NEC MultiSync EA294WMi

	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5
	NEC MultiSync EA294WMi	NEC MultiSync PA242W	Acer B296CL	Samsung Series 9 S27B971D	Asus PA249Q


	[?] ReviewGist Score	[?] ReviewGist Score	[?] ReviewGist Score	[?] ReviewGist Score	[?] ReviewGist Score
Release Date	Jul 2013	Sep 2013	Aug 2013	Jul 2013	May 2013
Screen Size	29.0 inch	24.0 inch	29.0 inch	27.0 inch	24.1 inch
Aspect Ratio	21:9	16:10	21:9	16:9	16:10
Brightness	300.0 cd/m^2	340.0 cd/m^2	300.0 cd/m^2	300.0 cd/m^2	350.0 cd/m^2
Contrast Ratio	1000:1	1000:1	100000000:1	1000:1	80000000:1
Max. Resolution	2560 x 1080	1920 x 1200	2560 x 1080	2560 x 1440	1920x1200
Response Time	6.0 ms	8.0 ms	8.0 ms	5.0 ms	6.0 ms
Monitor Type	IPS TFT with W-LED backlight	AH-IPS	IPS frameless LCD	LED PLS	AH-IPS
Viewable Picture Size	29.0 in.	24.1 in.		23.6 in.
	The NEC MultiSync EA294WMi is a pricey 29-inch ultra-wide monitor offering good grayscale performance, wide viewing angles, and a wealth of features. Its color is generally good but greens are a bit out of whack. The Philips Brilliance 298X4QJAB also has a 21:9 aspect ratio and is £100 cheaper than this; you'd be silly to ignore its appeal in comparison. Colour uniformity was very good, the biggest discrepency coming at 83% Brightness, along the top third with the middle showing a Delta-E of 4.9. Everything else was much lower. Colour accuracy overall gave an average Delta-E of 1.84 with the problem area being dark cyan colours at 4.72. Colour coverage results showed a slightly disappointing 99% sRGB coverage, 76% NTSC and 82% Adobe RGB. In the brightness test the panel could reach a high 365 cd/m2. Contrast ratio is advertised at 1000:1. In our tests, at 50% brightness it was 610:1 and at 100% a reasonable 680:1.	The NEC MultiSync PA242W-BK 24-inch professional grade monitor is a top performer that's loaded with features and settings options. Rating Unavailable Displays like the NEC PA242W are expensive, but they also push the boundaries for what a display can do. Technologies like 3D LUTs and more uniform lighting will likely trickle down to more affordable hardware, but it will take time. For now if you want the most accurate, most uniform display that you can buy, you want the NEC PA242W. It's designed with image/video professionals in mind, and it performs admirably.	The Acer B296CL is a reasonably priced 29-inch Ultra-wide monitor offering a generous selection of ports, solid IPS color performance, and an ergonomic stand. Its issues - the panel loses some luminance when viewed from an extreme vertical angle, and the monitor does not have an auto-rotate feature - are few and minor.	The Samsung Series 9 S27B971D is an attractive 27-inch PLS monitor that delivers bold and accurate color reproduction and very dark blacks. It is well equipped and offers wide viewing angles but it has trouble at the dark end of the grayscale and is very expensive. If you just want accurate color, and you want it without going through the effort and expense of calibration, then the Samsung Series 9 might be for you. But we also think that the "average" user looking for an exceptional all-purpose monitor will be better served by less expensive competitors. When compared to last year's S27B970D monitor, the new Samsung S27B971D changes just one feature - swapping its predecessor's distractingly glossy display for a matt one, which makes a big difference when using it on a daily basis for photography. In all other regards the two monitors are exactly the same, sharing the beautiful design and high-specification, along with 99% sRGB colour gamut coverage and a very respectable 77% of the AdobeRGB spectrum.	The Asus PA249Q delivers the rich, accurate colors that graphics professionals require and it's jam-packed with features but it has trouble at the dark end of the grayscale, and it's expensive.