When you're looking for a 23- or 24-inch Full HD monitor below £200, there is so much choice it's difficult to know what you should buy. Since monitor manufacturers don't really make it clear what the differences are, you could get the impression that it doesn't matter so much what you choose. Nothing could be further from the truth, when you look at actual test results. With a little research, you can find yourself a diamond in the rough, such as this Iiyama ProLite XB2483HSU.

The specifications manufacturers put on the box actually say very little about how the monitor looks and performs. Almost every manufacturer claims a contrast of 1000:1, a brightness of 250-300 cd/m² and 1, 2 or 5 ms. These figures are of course based on real tests, but they don't tell you how they did the measurements.

When you're standing in the store it's easy to therefore primarily focus on the price, but there are many more important differences than just cost. That much has become clear from many years of testing computer monitors. Brightness uniformity varies drastically, as do response times and contrast.