Monoprice working on 27-inch mini-LED gaming monitor that undercuts competition

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Monoprice aims to challenge Acer and ASUS

Monoprice monitor
(Image credit: Monoprice)

Tom's Guide can confirm that electronics retailer and distributor, Monoprice, is working on a mini-LED Dark Matter-branded gaming monitor set to release in the first half of 2022. 

According to Chris Gallizzi, a product manager at Monoprice, the display will run 27-inches diagonally at a 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160. It will also boast a 144Hz refresh rate, HDMI 2.1 certification and USB-C support with a 90w power delivery. In terms of mini-LEDs, Gallizzi says designers are aiming for a 576-zone count, but that the number could increase before the display goes into production.

In our Micro-LED vs. mini-LED comparison, we explain that mini-LEDs are essentially super tiny LEDs that can be more tightly packed together. This means that displays can have hundreds of dimming zones, versus the handful that standard LED-LCD television might have. More zones mean additional areas of the screen can be finely controlled and tuned. Whenever a portion of the screen needs to go black, those zones can turn off completely, giving inky blacks and a much higher contrast. It's similar to OLED in a lot of ways. 

But the main differentiator between OLED and mini-LED is brightness. LEDs can get much brighter than OLEDs, meaning that HDR performance improves tremendously. 

If Monoprice is able to put out a competitive mini-LED gaming monitor at under $1,000, it could add some strong competition in this niche category. But with Apple moving to mini-LEDs for its latest iPad Pro and MacBook Pro, the technology's ubiquity will only continue to grow. 

Imad Khan
Imad Khan

Imad is currently Senior Google and Internet Culture reporter for CNET, but until recently was News Editor at Tom's Guide. Hailing from Texas, Imad started his journalism career in 2013 and has amassed bylines with the New York Times, the Washington Post, ESPN, Wired and Men's Health Magazine, among others. Outside of work, you can find him sitting blankly in front of a Word document trying desperately to write the first pages of a new book.