Where can I find a monitor without defects?

[Regeneration]

For some time now I’m struggling to find a gaming monitor that actually works without dead pixels or burns.

Recently purchased ASUS VG27AQ3A from Amazon came with a dead pixel:





Happened to me TWICE 3 years ago with not one, but TWO brand new ASUS TUF monitors:



It's like a Russian roulette but with 3 bullets in the chamber.

Next monitor was Alienware, luckily no dead pixels, but this showed up after a few months:



Which monitor/brand do you recommend that actually works without dead pixels and burns?

 

[tabascosauz]

I'm pretty sure you won't find one. Monitor shopping these days is always Russian roulette, and the price segment doesn't matter. You might get lucky, but that doesn't change anything about the state of monitor buying.

I would say pro-level Eizo might give you a better chance on uniformity at least, but they really aren't much of a player anymore nowadays in the panel types that matter to the market at large.

Helps to buy something that can be returned in-store or on Amazon to at least make your roulette experience easier. I had to play the returns game with Amazon and Dell quite a few times.

With anything midrange or better Dell/AW, at least you get decent warranty coverage for glaring issues like that, and pretty quick turnaround time. Good luck getting Asus or MSI to cover that if Amazon didn't.

 

[phanbuey]

i have good luck with alienware/dell and LG.

everything else has QA issues in my experience.

Every single samsung/asus/gigabyte and aorus monitor has had some issues - some pretty major.

 

[Onasi]

I would second what @tabascosauz said. The consumer side of the monitor business is terrible in terms of overall QC and, hilariously, going up in price just doesn’t seem to matter. It actually isn’t as bad as it used to be when first high refresh 1440p IPS panels appeared from AUO - that was absolute hell in terms of getting a sample that wasn’t in some way scuffed. But even today, anything IPS will come with some amount of glow. And if you want to avoid it, higher priced FALD models are pretty much the only way, but those have their own potential failings. VA might work due to less/no bleed, but the only really good panels there are Samsung SVA and Samsung just doesn’t seem to care about QC at all. Having most of the models be needlessly curved doesn’t help matters.

So yeah, best quality WOULD be Eizo and NEC professional lines, but they are eyewateringly expensive and aren’t really suited to consumer tasks. You ain’t getting high refresh on those, that’s certain.

 

[kapone32]

I have had good luck with Gigabyte monitors.

 

[Frick]

FWIW my Samsung U32J590U is good (had it for three years), as is my Benq GL2450HT (coming up on nine years). They wouldn't fall under "gaming" monitors though. I don't know if there's any truth to it, but I've always had the impressions the "gaming" branded monitors have a tendency to just be worse. Didn't Samsung have massive problems with the glue holding the panels together coming loose?

 

[Bones]

It's the same risk about anywhere you buy one but with that, the vendor, shipping method and all that can matter too.

Some vendors will sell "Seconds" of a product line which means it has a defect (Minor) and normally priced lower - Sometimes low enough it's worth buying anyway.
Shipping itself as we all know can cause a problem due to rough handling/stacking crap on it and so on, even if the monitor was perfect when sent out.

Speaking of shipping:
Ever seen a tube of TIM that was broken due to rough handling during shipping?
You have now.

 

[Toothless]

I got two 34" UW screens from Amazon with zero issues. However all three of my AOC (first mistake) had dead pixels from tigerdirect (second mistake)

However Amazon isn't going to open every box to check it.

 

[phanbuey]

ive had alot better luck with oleds as well not sure why but they seem to be of higher quality overall

 

[Regeneration]

ive had alot better luck with oleds as well not sure why but they seem to be of higher quality overall

My LG 2018 OLED TV developed a major screen burn-in recently (after 6 years).

Same happened to my previous ASUS VG248 but after only 3 years.

 

[P4-630]

Dell.

 

[phanbuey]

My LG 2018 OLED TV developed a major screen burn-in recently (after 6 years).

Same happened to my previous ASUS VG248 but after only 3 years.

I ended up getting the gigabyte 28U when I was still on IPS - it did get a dead pixel but the pixel density was high enough for me not to care. 144hz 4k 28" if there's a dead pixel you would be hard pressed to see it at gaming distance.

+1 to Dell / AW does have (surprisingly) good monitors (given the quality of their other products), and generally good support too - so you might be able to send that AW back.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Good ol dell. Whomever runs their monitor department must be some old timer because it seems almost immune to he quality issues that the rest of the company suffers from.

 

[R-T-B]

My LG 2018 OLED TV developed a major screen burn-in recently (after 6 years).

Same happened to my previous ASUS VG248 but after only 3 years.

2018 was right about before they enlarged the red subpixel on LGs, that really helped with burn in.

Either way sucks that happened to you.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Last monitor I purchased (LG UltraGear 27GN65-R) had a blue stuck pixel in the middle of the screen. Basically a crosshair dot cheat once you realized it was there. Nasty.

Dell seems to have one of the best dead/stuck pixel policies in the industry. I also got lucky with my G3 OLED, no defective pixels, although I expected this with a premium grade panel.

 

[sLowEnd]

Another vote for Dell

 

[stahlhart]

We purchase ours at Micro Center now, realizing that it's not an option available to everyone. Have yet to get one bad out of the box, and we've added the protection plan to a couple of them but have yet to use it for any.

Last monitor I had that failed was an HP ZR24, where the backlighting faded and burned out about a year after I bought it. Replaced it with a ZR2440W that's twelve years old now, slow and obsolete, and refuses to quit, hanging on to it as an emergency spare. So maybe a lot of it is just luck of the draw.

 

[Zach_01]

I'm pretty sure you won't find one. Monitor shopping these days is always Russian roulette, and the price segment doesn't matter. You might get lucky, but that doesn't change anything about the state of monitor buying.

I would say pro-level Eizo might give you a better chance on uniformity at least, but they really aren't much of a player anymore nowadays in the panel types that matter to the market at large.

Helps to buy something that can be returned in-store or on Amazon to at least make your roulette experience easier. I had to play the returns game with Amazon and Dell quite a few times.

With anything midrange or better Dell/AW, at least you get decent warranty coverage for glaring issues like that, and pretty quick turnaround time. Good luck getting Asus or MSI to cover that if Amazon didn't.

My personal experience with EIZO is excellent in the dead/stuck pixel department.
I didn’t even had a pro level monitor.
It was a “regular” FlexScan 16:10 model with a Samsung S-PVA panel (with fluorescent lights) that I had 15+years (2007-2022) with way over 50K hours on it.

But EIZO kinda left behind on the new tech monitors. Maybe for a reason…

Switched to Dell Alienware QD-OLED ultra wide and 1.5years now, so far so good. It comes with some quirks tho… pixel/panel refresh for panel maintenance, to minimize burn-in.

 

[cvaldes]

And another vote for Dell.

I had a 24" Dell 1080p monitor at home which was probably purchased new around 2004. It lasted 13 years.

When I left my last corporate job my Dell Optiplex was probably close to 10 years old and still did pretty much everything I needed it to do (the IT department upgraded the hard drive to a larger SSD once). For years it was paired with a Dell monitor until the monitor was reassigned to a new employee and I got an upgraded display.

Today my secondary PC gaming monitor is a Dell. It's rarely used since I've decided that gaming on a 55" 4K@120Hz OLED TV from my couch is way better than a 32" 1440p@165Hz from a task chair. But this newer Dell monitor is still very high quality.

That said my primary computing monitor is a 27" LG (4K@60Hz). I have no real complaints about this monitor which is now six years old. It's a productivity monitor and I don't game on it.

 

[Shrek]

Add yet another vote for Dell

 

[nomdeplume]

Which monitor/brand do you recommend that actually works without dead pixels and burns?

Get something to put your feet up on or move the PC off the desk and go with a TV is my vote.

 

[arbiter]

i have had 2 acer predator monitors and both had 0 dead pixels. xb271 and xb273.

 

[joemama]

You gotta look for monitors with warranty that cover dead pixels, it's not common but they exist

 

[Blaeza]

LG UltraGear 32GN600 user here. Was open box from Overclockers uk and is perfect.

 

[AusWolf]

I'm pretty sure you won't find one. Monitor shopping these days is always Russian roulette, and the price segment doesn't matter. You might get lucky, but that doesn't change anything about the state of monitor buying.

I would say pro-level Eizo might give you a better chance on uniformity at least, but they really aren't much of a player anymore nowadays in the panel types that matter to the market at large.

Helps to buy something that can be returned in-store or on Amazon to at least make your roulette experience easier. I had to play the returns game with Amazon and Dell quite a few times.

With anything midrange or better Dell/AW, at least you get decent warranty coverage for glaring issues like that, and pretty quick turnaround time. Good luck getting Asus or MSI to cover that if Amazon didn't.

Seconded.

For issues, a good warranty and returns policy is a must.

As for pixel errors, a certain number of them is unfortunately allowed by most manufacturer's standards. My Dell 34" UW has two dead red subpixels in the lower left segment, but it's within manufacturer expectations. I could try forcing an Amazon return, but they're completely unnoticeable 99% of the time, and the replacement unit could be a lot worse, so it's best to leave it. You just have to ask yourself the questions: how annoying is it actually? Do you notice it when you're not looking? Is an RMA and risking getting another unit that's equally bad or worse worth the trouble?