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I have a 14" 1080p laptop, which is very crisp. When I connect it to my 21" 1080p monitor, the external monitor looks blurry and ugly. What external monitor (i.e. what specs, but specific examples are welcome too) should I buy, so that I can connect it to my laptop and have both be good looking and as similar as possible?

Also, how do I know if the laptop will be able to output to the monitor, if it's high DPI? (I have an Intel HD 620, fyi)

Some details:

  • OS: Windows 10
  • Budget: ~300€, but open to recommendations with good reason
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  • Interesting; the DPI is 2/3 that of the laptop, but you say it looks blurry. Are you sure you have everything properly configured?
    – JMY1000
    Feb 2, 2018 at 2:53
  • Also, could you give us some more information as to what you're looking for? How big? Target resolution/DPI? Use case?
    – JMY1000
    Feb 2, 2018 at 2:54
  • Are you sure you have the resolution set properly on thr extern monitor? The "blurriness" might come from not using the native resolution of the monitor.
    – Bennett Yeo
    Feb 2, 2018 at 16:39
  • @JMY1000 everything's properly configured. I'm looking for something not bigger than 24", don't care about DPI/resolution as long as it looks as crisp as my laptop, and use case: productivity and work (no games, no videos, etc.)
    – Martin
    Feb 2, 2018 at 16:57
  • @BennettYeo yes I'm sure - the monitor looks as it should be looking. It's the (very) crisp display of the laptop next to it that's making it look ugly.
    – Martin
    Feb 2, 2018 at 16:57

1 Answer 1

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TL;DR: The LG 24UD58-B

enter image description here

First, let's figure out what resolution we need to have.

Since pretty everything on the market right now falls into either 1080p/1440p/2160p, we can ignore pretty much all other resolutions (at least for considering what we'll need in terms of resolution.)

Your 14" 1080p laptop gets you of 157.35 PPI. Targeting a standard 23.8" 16:9 monitor, 1440p gets 123.41 PPI and 2160p gets 185.12 PPI. That in mind, you're sort of in a weird middle ground relative to your laptop. I opted to go for a 2160p monitor, but if you're fine with it, a 1440p monitor would be perfectly valid.

That alone gets us down to two monitors: the LG 24UD58-B and the Dell P2415Q. The price difference is pretty negligible, so it's down to picking features.

(LG review, Dell review)

  • Both are IPS panels (the Dell actually uses the same LG panel)
  • The Dell is slightly brighter
  • The LG offers FreeSync

I'm aware you don't have an AMD GPU, but given the rather negligible difference otherwise, I'm strongly inclined to recommend the LG monitor.

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