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This work-from-home revolution has made home office monitors vital accessories for professionals. Large screen real estate and ultimate productivity, after all, go hand-in-hand

Upgrade your home office with amazing monitors offering superior HDR, refresh rates and colour

It wasn’t just nomadic digital workers who found themselves grounded when Covid-19 swept the world. The pandemic’s resulting lockdowns also forced a lot of us to temporarily turn a corner of our homes into workspaces.

Luckily, the transition wasn’t as arduous as it could have been. Most of us already owned our own personal devices anyway, and even our tablets were good enough to get some remote work done.

Many people found they enjoyed not working in an office. And on a larger scale, this work-from-home culture has also helped reduce company spending and minimise traffic and air pollution, prompting more and more businesses to not only offer it as an option to their employees but actually encourage it.

With this being the new work normal, a temporary setup, therefore, is no longer viable for many. Investing in a home office setup that serves us better in the long-term has become vital. To a good few, that mostly entails getting a better desk and an ergonomic chair; to others, it means shelling out for the whole kit and caboodle. One peripheral, in particular, that has become an indispensable tool is the home office monitor. There’s almost no computer accessory we spend as much time interacting with as our computer’s display, and getting a quality one for our newly christened home office setup is crucial.

Just like the wrong chair can lead to back and shoulder pain, the wrong screen can lead to eye strain and throbbing headaches. Besides helping ensure our wellbeing, having a great quality home office monitor also brings practically endless benefits to our professional lives, streamlining intricate tasks, complex workflows and multitasking, as well as enhancing how we experience our more creative undertakings.

DISPLAYING AROUND

Simply, home office monitors – or rather the best of them – are designed to elevate our digital interactions. While that cheap display that came bundled with our computer or the tiny screen affixed to our laptop is just fine at best, it won’t give us that optimal viewing experience necessary for work.

You’ll find most cheap displays lacking in responsiveness, brightness, accurate colour reproductions and port selection, to name a few. Some budget monitors are okay, but we’re often better off spending a little more.

On the other hand, while many laptops out there come with brilliant displays that deliver an incredible experience, working on a small screen especially when multitasking or doing creative workflows just isn’t ideal or sustainable for very long.

We wouldn’t bother hooking up your computer to your television either: this makeshift monitor route could lead to a whole new set of problems like input lag, compatibility issues due to absent DisplayPort and USB ports, and a size that isn’t best for up-close use.

There’s a reason why professionals spend good money on office

Monitors come in different image resolutions, shapes and feature sets

monitors, even if all they do is write proposals or balance spreadsheets. Benefits include improved ergonomics, better viewing angles, crisp and vibrant picture quality, a plethora of ports to choose from, and more screen real estate. A few even come with their own USB-C hub, speakers, and a rotating function for those after a more versatile yet minimalist setup.

Not all monitors are built the same. They not only come in three types of panels, but also different image resolutions, sizes, shapes and feature sets. So, although office computer setups generally aren’t as particular as gaming ones, it’s just as important to tick a few vital things off the list when buying a home office monitor.

TAILORED VIEWING

That list depends on your daily tasks and work demands. A coder’s computing needs are never going to be the same as those of an administrative assistant, and what a content creator requires from a monitor is going to be vastly different from what an entrepreneur with an e-commerce business finds essential.

Photographers, video editors and designers, particularly, have a specific set of features they’ll require that typical office workers need not bother with. Monitors with wide colour space (preferably 100% of sRGB or better), very accurate colour reproduction, high brightness level and excellent black levels aren’t only preferred; they’re essential.

Meanwhile, the bar is lower for those mostly doing productivity tasks. After all, they won’t need to be discerning about things like refresh rate, colour gamut and contrast ratios to see through their daily workload. Still, things like brightness levels, viewing angles, ergonomics, vibrance and blue light filters are just as important.

Before you get into all that though, you must first pick the right panel. These days, LCD monitors come in three types of panels: TN, the oldest; IPS, the best-looking; and VA, the middle-ground.

Do your own research, but the abridged version is this: budget-friendly TN panels typically offer lower latency and higher refresh rate without burning a credit-cardshaped hole in your pocket, while pricier IPS panels deliver better colour reproduction and higher contrast ratios, giving users more vibrant images with superior black levels.

On the other hand, VA panels, the Goldilocks of monitors, usually have the best contrast ratios, as well as better viewing angles and higher maximum brightness than the previous two.

Those aren’t hard and fast rules. There are IPS panels with fast refresh rates, albeit at a much higher price range, and there are VA panels that can hit IPS-level colour space. However, creatives and digital artists generally prefer IPS panels due to their colour and contrast coverage, and professionals with more general office needs tend to be satisfied with either the classic TN or the all-rounder VA panels.

Of course, the type of panel isn’t the only metric. One thing that most people really care about is screen resolution, and by extension, whether or not to go ultrawide.