The 5 Best 4k HDR Monitors - Spring 2023 Reviews

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 S32BG85 is the best 4k HDR monitor we've tested. It delivers great picture quality in HDR as it uses Mini LED backlighting to provide a decent local dimming feature and a high contrast ratio. This helps it display deep blacks next to highlights, making bright objects stand out against the rest of the image. It also has decent HDR brightness to make those highlights look bright.

It's a 32-inch monitor with a good pixel density that makes images look sharp, especially if you sit close. While it has narrow viewing angles, and it isn't ideal if you need to share your screen with a friend next to you, the curved screen helps bring the edges within your field of vision. It's a gaming monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate, which is useful if you're also going to game on it. Still, you can also save money by getting something with a lower refresh rate, like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 S32BG75, which performs almost the same.

While the Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 S32BG85 offers great HDR performance, you can get larger monitors with OLED screens if you want the best HDR performance possible. However, only consider these if you have space for these large screens. If you're interested in that, consider the Gigabyte AORUS FO48U OLED. Its OLED panel offers better overall HDR than the Samsung as it can turn individual pixels off, resulting in a near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect black levels next to bright objects, making highlights pop.

It displays a wide range of colors in HDR with good tone mapping, and it gets bright enough to make colors look vivid. While the overall HDR peak brightness is just acceptable, you can also get other OLEDs with higher peak brightness, like the LG 42 OLED Flex, but it costs a lot more.

If you don't need the best of the best and prefer something in the mid-range price category to save some money, consider the Sony INZONE M9. As only high-end monitors offer the best HDR experience, you'll have to sacrifice a few features to save money. Because the Sony monitor uses a different panel type than the Gigabyte AORUS FO48U OLED, it has a worse contrast ratio. It means that blacks aren't as deep, and highlights don't stand out as they do on the Gigabyte or even the Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 S32BG85. However, that's what you can expect for monitors in this price range.

Luckily, its full-array local dimming feature is still alright and helps improve the contrast ratio. It also has great HDR peak brightness, making this monitor better for HDR than other monitors in this price range. It has an impressive HDR color gamut that displays a wide range of colors, and the color volume is great, meaning it can display those colors at a wide range of luminance levels, but it struggles to display very dark colors.

You'll have to settle for decent HDR performance if you're looking for something in the lower mid-range price category. The Samsung Smart Monitor M8 S32BM80 is a decent alternative to the Sony INZONE M9 with higher native contrast for deeper blacks. Still, without a local dimming feature and low HDR peak brightness, highlights look dull and muted compared to the rest of the image. Luckily, it has good black uniformity, so there isn't much blooming with bright objects on dark backgrounds.

It displays a wide range of colors in HDR, and while its peak brightness is limited, the color volume is still great, but not all colors are as bright as pure white. The unique part about this monitor is that it includes Samsung's proprietary Tizen smart platform. You can watch HDR content without connecting a PC as you can access streaming apps, essentially making it a small TV. The Samsung Smart Monitor M7 S43BM70 is another option with the same Tizen OS, and it costs less for a bigger screen but doesn't get as bright.

If you want something for 4k HDR use and you're on a budget, you're limiting yourself to the performance you'll get, but a few options available are alright, like the Dell S3221QS. Like the Samsung Smart Monitor M8 S32BM80, it has a 32-inch, 4k screen but doesn't have a built-in smart platform, and the HDR performance is just okay. Dark scenes look great thanks to the monitor's high contrast ratio, meaning blacks look black. Despite this high contrast ratio, it lacks a local dimming feature, and its HDR peak brightness is unremarkable, so bright highlights don't stand out very well, but that's what you can expect from a budget-friendly display.

On the other hand, it displays a wide color gamut, with great coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, and it has superb gradient handling, with almost no noticeable banding in areas of similar color. Even at a 32-inch size, the pixel density is still very high, and details in the latest 4k HDR content look extremely sharp.