Cheap third party monitor suggestions

[alex4748]

Hi guys

I am in desperate need of a new Mac but I am on a very tight budget. I currently have a 2013 iMac which is on its last legs and Chat GPT tells me that the M4 Mac Mini base model will blow it out of the water, so that's the Mac model I want to buy. I have my heart set on the Studio Display, but it's just out of my budget at the moment, so my plan is to get as cheap a monitor as possible in the mean time, and then upgrade to the Studio Display in future when I have the money for it.

My budget for the monitor is £500 ish max, but the cheaper the better. It needs to be 4k.

The ones I have identified are as follows:

Dell S2722QC (£259.99)

ASUS ProArt PA279CV (£368.02)

Dell U2723QE (£449.97)

I don't care about USB ports, speakers or webcams on the monitor as I would never use them - I only use Bluetooth headphones, which I believe would connect to the Mac as opposed to the monitor.

Does anyone have any experience with the above monitors for use with Mac? Which would you recommend (even if you don't have first hand experience)? Will the cheap Dell be enough as a temporary solution? Are there any other models I should consider?

Coming from an AIO iMac, I am pretty clueless about displays. I just need something that is cheap and will work with the M4 Mac Mini.

Thanks!

Edit: Forgot to add, must be 27 inch! Don't want bigger as I don't want to get used to the extra space, and then lose it when getting a Studio Display!

 

[namria]

Hey,

Check this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/suggest-a-monitor-to-pair-with-mba-m3.2442043/

 

[Fishrrman]

You could do well enough with any of the 3 displays you listed above.

I have the Dell Ultrasharp and it's very nice. But a friend has a less-expensive Dell 4k, and to be honest, his looks "just as good".

One thing about the Mini base model:
256gb of storage "isn't enough".
You ought to consider 512gb at least.

 

[alex4748]

You could do well enough with any of the 3 displays you listed above.

I have the Dell Ultrasharp and it's very nice. But a friend has a less-expensive Dell 4k, and to be honest, his looks "just as good".

One thing about the Mini base model:
256gb of storage "isn't enough".
You ought to consider 512gb at least.

In regards to 256GB, I don't agree! On my 2013 iMac, I use an external drive for all my personal / work files, so only macOS lives on the main drive, and it only takes up 97GB. On the Mini, I plan to use an external 4TB NVME drive for my personal / work files, and also move my macOS user folder and applications folder there too, which would obviously free up even more space! I know there were gripes on earlier Macs whereby the 256GB models were slower than the 512GB ones, but I don't think this is the case on the M4. Maybe someone can correct me or confirm that! But for my use case, I really don't see 256GB being an issue.

 

[txmike418]

I have the Dell S2722QC, not connected to a Mac. I use the USB C port (alt mode dp 1.4) and get an awesome picture. It does have power distribution and HDMI 2.0 ports too. Great quality at a reasonable price.

 

[alex4748]

I have the Dell S2722QC, not connected to a Mac. I use the USB C port (alt mode dp 1.4) and get an awesome picture. It does have power distribution and HDMI 2.0 ports too. Great quality at a reasonable price.

Thanks for your feedback! I think I am just gonna buy this as a temporary solution and then upgrade to the Studio Display when I can. I don't think I will get a 4k monitor cheaper than this.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I think I am just gonna buy this as a temporary solution and then upgrade to the Studio Display when I can."

I'm thinking that you'll like the Dell 4k so much you won't bother with a further "upgrade"...

 

[alex4748]

"I think I am just gonna buy this as a temporary solution and then upgrade to the Studio Display when I can."

I'm thinking that you'll like the Dell 4k so much you won't bother with a further "upgrade"...

It will be awesome if that's the case! But I'm not sure it will be - I am pretty sure the Dell will be much more matte in comparison to the glossy display on the Studio! They just look so sharp and crisp in the Apple store!

But either way, the Dell won't be wasted as I will probably get a Windows mini pc to use it with!

I did have a Dell monitor in the past, only 1080p, which I used on a Windows machine, and I really hated it in comparison to my iMac display. I've never seen a 4k display in the flesh though, so maybe I will like it!

 

[BotchQue]

This was just published a couple days ago:

https://www.macworld.com/article/668700/best-mac-monitors-displays.html