The Best Monitors For Beginners in 2026
We tested every option to find the best monitors for Beginners. Our pick is the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE, with the AOC 24G2SPU as the value choice.
Maya Okonkwo
What we weighted
Judged on for Beginners, the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE at £549 is what we would buy: it delivers iPS Black doubles the contrast of a normal IPS without OLED burn-in risk. Across the 8 monitors we tested for this list, prices run from £149 to £1499. Weighted towards sensible defaults, simple menus and a picture that looks right without configuration.
Everything below has been through our standard test suite, so the figures are comparable rather than quoted from a manufacturer.
First choice
Dell UltraSharp U2724DE — £549. It delivers iPS Black doubles the contrast of a normal IPS without OLED burn-in risk, and it suits anyone working from a laptop who wants one cable on the desk. it charged a 16in MacBook Pro while driving the panel with no drop.
Best value
AOC 24G2SPU — £149. It gives up 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work, but for the money the compromise is easy to accept.
The full shortlist
| Model | Price | Score | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dell UltraSharp U2724DE | £549 | 5 / 5 | Anyone working from a laptop who wants one cable on the desk |
| LG UltraFine 32UN880 | £599 | 4 / 5 | Desk setups where clamp-mount space is tight |
| Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 | £1099 | 4 / 5 | Gaming and video work in a light-controlled room |
| BenQ PD2706U | £549 | 4 / 5 | Designers who need colour accuracy without paying reference prices |
| Gigabyte M27Q P | £299 | 4 / 5 | A dual-purpose work and gaming desk on a budget |
| Asus ProArt PA279CRV | £429 | 4 / 5 | Print work, where Adobe RGB coverage actually matters |
| Apple Studio Display | £1499 | 3 / 5 | Mac users who want pixel-perfect text and will pay for it |
| AOC 24G2SPU | £149 | 3 / 5 | A second screen, or a first gaming monitor on a tight budget |
Who each pick is for
| Model | Right for | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Dell UltraSharp U2724DE | Anyone working from a laptop who wants one cable on the desk | 350 nits is dim in a bright room |
| LG UltraFine 32UN880 | Desk setups where clamp-mount space is tight | 60Hz feels dated at this price |
| Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 | Gaming and video work in a light-controlled room | 250 nits full-screen is dim for desktop work in daylight |
| BenQ PD2706U | Designers who need colour accuracy without paying reference prices | 60Hz only |
| Gigabyte M27Q P | A dual-purpose work and gaming desk on a budget | The stand only tilts |
| Asus ProArt PA279CRV | Print work, where Adobe RGB coverage actually matters | 60Hz |
| Apple Studio Display | Mac users who want pixel-perfect text and will pay for it | £1,499 for a 60Hz panel in 2026 is hard to defend |
| AOC 24G2SPU | A second screen, or a first gaming monitor on a tight budget | 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work |
How we tested
Every figure quoted above comes from the same protocol, run on every unit in this category. This one spent two weeks as the reviewer’s primary display, driven by both a laptop and a desktop. A calibrated X-Rite i1Display Pro, measurements taken after a thirty-minute warm-up in a room held at 120 lux.
| What we measure | How |
|---|---|
| Colour accuracy | Delta E across 24 ColorChecker patches, out of the box with no calibration, because that is how most panels are used. |
| Brightness uniformity | Nine-point grid, reported as the worst deviation from centre rather than the average. |
| Contrast | Full-screen black and white measured in a darkened room, with local dimming disabled. |
| Power delivery | A 16in laptop under sustained load, checking whether the panel holds charge or loses ground. |
| Text rendering | Subpixel inspection at 200% magnification, which is where OLED fringing shows. |
We deliberately do not report quoted contrast ratios that rely on local dimming, and any HDR400 badge.
The honest caveat: Panel lottery is real. Backlight bleed on our unit may not match yours.
Beyond the spec sheet
- Headline numbers measured in a burst — sustained figures are what you live with, and they are always lower
- Any figure quoted by the manufacturer without stating the conditions it was measured under
- Price as a proxy for quality — the Apple Studio Display is the most expensive here at £1499 and the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE scored higher for less
- Spec-sheet parity between two monitors, which routinely hides a large difference in how they behave after twenty minutes of use
Our method
Each device stayed in use for at least two weeks. Battery figures come from a fixed-brightness rundown, performance from a sustained load rather than a burst benchmark, and the verdicts from living with the thing rather than reading its spec sheet.
Buy now or wait?
The shortlist above spans 2 model years, from the Apple Studio Display (2022) to the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE (2024). That matters for timing: the previous generation is at its cheapest in the weeks after a replacement is announced, and the replacement is at its most expensive in exactly the same weeks. If nothing here is an urgent purchase, buying one generation back is consistently the better value — the measured gap between adjacent generations in this category is smaller than the price gap between them. If you are replacing something that has actually failed, buy the current pick and do not wait for a rumour.
What to avoid
Be wary of buying on peak benchmark numbers alone — sustained performance and battery life are what you notice daily. Launch-week discounts on last year models are usually the better deal.
If you want one answer: buy the Dell UltraSharp U2724DE. If budget is the constraint, the AOC 24G2SPU is the sensible alternative.
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the monitors we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are The Best Monitors For Colour Accuracy in 2026 and The Best Monitors For Professionals in 2026.
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
