Recommendation request: Computer monitor with built-in speakers/soundbar
Desk space at my home is very limited.
Right now I have a set of speakers hanging out behind my external monitor, but I'd really rather get rid of them entirely and just have the speakers/soundbar built-in to the monitor itself. It would give me a lot more room to work with because I'd be able to push the monitor back further on the desk.
Also, presumably (and correct me if I'm wrong here), having the speakers powered by the monitor and fed audio through HDMI would free up a lot of cabling clutter as well. My setup is already very messy (2 laptops and a KVM switch), so cleaning it up will give me some relief (my theme of 2023 is "Simplify").
I know nothing about buying computer monitors. When I look them up, I'm not even sure which type I should be looking for (IPS? OLED?).
I do plan to game on it, but most gaming-focused monitors seem like overkill for someone like me who will primarily have it hooked up to a middling 5-year-old laptop that plays mostly indie stuff. I do occasionally play the more intensive/prettier game, but those are usually usually far between and definitely not a priority that's worth spending a bunch to target. I tend to tank the graphics settings on games like that anyway to keep my laptop from becoming a cooking surface, and I'll take a smoother framerate over better eye candy all day, every day.
What are the trusted brands (if any)? What pitfalls should I look out for? If anyone can help point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it!
My use case: general browsing and (mostly casual) gaming
My computer: System76 Oryx Pro 5 (2019), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, Pop!_OS 22.04
My budget: ultimately whatever is necessary to get a quality product, but hopefully no more than $300 USD or so?
Preferred Size: 24" -- absolute maximum I could do is probably 27"
Key Feature: built-in speakers or soundbar
Let me know if there's any other key information I can provide that would help.
Questions I Have:
-
Will buying a higher resolution monitor (e.g. 4K) tax my graphics card more because it's rendering at a higher resolution, or can I just scale down the display resolution to something less intensive?
-
Same question as above, but for refresh rate.
-
Would audio be transmitted over HDMI, or would I have to have a cable from the headphone jack (or some different method I'm not aware of)?
How much does sound quality matter to you? You'll likely be dissapointed with builtin speakers on a monitor, since the bar is usually set at "audible" and not "sounds good".
Unless you're playing a AAA game this should be a non issue and probably isn't worth worrying about. Even integrated graphics (graphics card built in to some CPUs) are more than enough for text-editing, web browsing, etc... at 4K 60fps.
Essentially the same answer as above.
Yes, audio would go over HDMI (or Displayport if you're using that).
Clarifying question: Do you have any requirements for a monitor besides "needs to work"?
I've used r/buildapcsales as a somewhat low-effort way to vet products. Deals on monitors are pretty frequent, the ones that get upvoted above 100 votes tend to be decent, and you sometimes end up with folks in the comments talking about their experience with the product. That's how I ended up with my current monitor.
I'll also shotgun a couple alternate approaches to what I gather is your underlying goal of "Freeing up space on my desk and reducing the amount of visible cables"
Thanks for the pointer on /r/buildapcsales. I'll dig around in there.
Not that much, honestly. I'd like it to sound better than laptop speakers, but that's a pretty low bar. That kind of goes in with your other question:
Not particularly. I'm pretty low maintenance when it comes to this. I genuinely don't know enough to know if something would be considered bad vs. good. Refresh rate is something I would notice, but only on the low end (I can tell the difference between 30 vs 60, but not say, 60 vs 144). Input lag is another thing I would notice, but I'm assuming that's minimal for most monitors (and if I go the TV route, would put it in Game Mode or the equivalent).
More than 95% of my time on the computer will be spent either in a web browser or playing mostly casual games. I don't do coding or any computer intensive tasks for a living or for a hobby or anything like that.
This is another good idea I hadn't considered. My instinct is that it's technically doable but not necessarily desirable? My current setup has the monitor boxed in by a bookshelf on one side (I've got a version of this desk) and a window behind it that I'd rather the monitor not cover.
Right now I've got a set of USB speakers hooked up so I don't have to use audio cables and another power cord, but my KVM switch only has 3 USB ports which are occupied by keyboard, mouse, and printer. I had to do an additional USB hub off of the switch to get the speakers functional too. Technically this works, but I'd love to ditch that and just have everything off of the KVM switch. I could also get a different one of those, but I'd rather not if I don't have to.
Honestly, it sounds like you can probably just pick up any decently reviewed monitor. You'll probably be well served by something in the $100-$200 USD range (probably closer to $150). Things to look out for would be:
A display with a VESA mount could a nice to have if you ever want to use it with a monitor arm in the future.
Also be mindful of checking reviews for any model you settle on, to avoid any models with known quality control issues (dead pixels, etc...)
I think you might be happiest just looking for a small TV in that size range, if you’re not too worried about color accuracy, >60 Hz refresh, or >1080p resolution.
Some TVs (especially modern ones that do weird post-processing) have substantial input lag, but there’s usually some sort of “gaming mode” to make it play nice with consoles that’ll reduce a lot of that.
You should be able to get something real cheap with your desired specs if you have a used hardware store nearby, maybe $100-150 (USD).
You can always scale down those display settings you mentioned, and any TV will do audio via HDMI on at least one of its ports.
That's a potentially elegant solution I hadn't considered. Thank you!
I guess this brings me to another question: at the same size, is there a huge difference between a TV and a monitor? Or is a TV essentially just a monitor with speakers and a tuner in it?
Underlying technology-wise, they're basically the same. You can usually get the same panel types in TVs as you can for monitors, but the prices will vary between them depending on which you want in which form factor. But feature-wise TVs are usually loaded with a bunch of stuff you often don't want on a production or gaming monitor (like frame interpolation / motion smoothing, color grading, HDR, and other post-processing effects) which is where the extra latency comes from. And smart TVs will also have apps built into them for Netflix and the like. Whereas monitors generally have less or even no post-processing features, no built-in apps, and instead have features more relevant to monitors' common uses, as well as panels better suited to those tasks as well, e.g. better color gamut/accuracy, higher pixel density, lower latency, faster refresh rate, adaptive framerate syncing (GSync or FreeSync), etc.
But TBH, unless you're doing graphic design or ultra-competitive gaming, you probably won't noticed much difference between most monitors and TVs, since even most TVs have "gaming" or "low latency" modes which turn off all/most of the post-processing to reduce latency and input lag. So I think @FluffyKittens' recommendation to get a comparable size TV is a good one, since they will have much better built-in speakers. The only potential issue you might run into is the video connectors, since most TVs only support HDMI or USB for connecting media drives, and don't support the more PC-centric video connectors like DisplayPort, DVI, USB-C, Thunderbolt, etc.
p.s. I have a 35" TV I use as one of my monitors, and it works fine. It's a little harder to read text on it because of the large size and low pixel density though.
The idea is that televisions are better at a distance and turn a bit grainy and vague close up, and vice versa for monitors. There's a clear difference up close between both, but depending on the use case it may not matter that much.
Most monitors in the $300 price range have basically unusable built in audio, if they have it at all. Monitors really aren't designed to be all-in-one visual and audio entertainment systems, at least not without shelling out. You can probably find some with audio included in the $300 price range, but it's going to be severely lacking in quality.
It honestly may be he worth looking into a relatively cheap Bluetooth speaker and keep at the desk. They come small enough now that it may not be intrusive and could likely fit under your monitor so you can push it back. It won't have the cables hanging out the back of the monitor, while still providing better sound quality than a regular monitor usually comes with. A JBL Flip is small but packs a punch and may fit your use case. There are even more budget friendly options such as an Oontz Angle. These aren't high fidelity audio, but then again neither is a built in speaker to your monitors.
$300 was honestly a completely uninformed, shot in the dark price point. What would be a better calibration for what I should look around? I don't need ultra high quality audio or anything, I'd just like it to sound better than laptop speakers.
Also I like the bluetooth speaker idea but I think it would get dicey with switching between the two attached laptops, and it would also sort of go against my "simplify" mantra if I had to remember to turn it on/off and charge it.
I have to somewhat push back on this idea that you can buy "wireless" speakers (or anything else, really). Wires are an essential feature (not a bug) for basically anything electrical. The alternative to wires is wireless (equivalent to frequently plugging in wires to efficiently charge batteries that will die sooner rather than later, or inefficiently wirelessly charging the same batteries that will also die sooner rather than later).
So I only recommended this because OP doesn’t seem too concerned about sound quality being pristine and seemed to be on a budget and wanted to have a more minimal setup.
I actually have some pretty good audio setups in all my rooms in the house, I have wires out the wazoo lol. I’d personally never do the Bluetooth setup, but it seemed like it might fit their use case if they wanted less.
Ok, I agree in this case. I only mention this because my parents were thrilled to discover "wireless" Bluetooth speakers (that have to be plugged in constantly to charge, of course). I tried to gently suggest this, but it's hard to explain lol.
Just an FYI if you get a soundbar: make sure you can disable the feature that turns it off after X hours without interacting with it directly. My soundbar is hooked to my computer. I have to turn it back on every few hours and there is no way for me to prevent that behavior. It's pretty annoying. It's an old model but still, keep that in mind. I think my soundbar was designed to be used with a television and people tend to interact with it more.
If you don't care about things looking good when you game (or otherwise), I think your money would be better spent on climbing the quality spectrum with plain 1080p HD. 4k graphics does tax the GPU more simply (roughly) because it has to render 300% more pixels, so you will absolutely be trading off framerate for that.
I think you should not try to get in-built sound, as I doubt it would sound very good. Better to split your budget, and go for a monitor that is good at being a monitor, and an audio device that is good at being an audio device. Logically, you'll be sacrificing quality getting a 2-in-1 device for the same amount of money.
Small speakers have come a long way since 15 years ago. For example, I have this little Anker speaker that supports both bluetooth and standard headphone input (1/8"). It is hardly 2x2x2" in size, but it outputs good enough sound for a small office. When I really need to hear quality audio, I just put on good headphones, another option you could consider.
Honestly I'd look at something like PCPartPicker and just filter to the things you care about. Built in speakers probably aren't going to sound the best but I'm not personally that picky about them myself.
If your computer is struggling with the current display resolution then going higher won't be of any use, you can reduce the resolution in the game but you may as well stick to a 1080p display or 1440p if you want a bit higher. You might not be able to push a faster refresh rate either but 144Hz is still a nice option and 77Hz at half VSync is still more than 60. Personally I wish I had gone 1440p 144Hz instead of the 4K 60Hz that I did last upgrade.
Look through this list maybe and consider some of the better rated ones. https://pcpartpicker.com/products/monitor/#F=558800000,685800000&r=192001080&S=1
Oh wow, that is a great tool! Thank you for pointing me in that direction.
My primary monitor is a 27" 1440p monitor at 144Hz refresh rate. IMO, that's the sweet spot for everything:
Specifically regarding audio - any monitor with a sound bar is probably going to sound just as bad as the regular built-in speakers on any other monitor. Would you consider Bluetooth speakers?