I tested a 5K monitor that’s over $1,000 less than Apple’s Studio Display: It’s good enough

Most people know at least two things about 5K monitors: they look great, and they’re usually expensive. The Apple Studio Display is the most popular model, and it costs $1,599. But I’ve been testing one that’s similar in some important ways and costs just $355 (!?) at its cheapest-ever price. Unsurprisingly, at a fraction of the cost, it has a fraction of the features.

This budget-friendly monitor doesn’t come from Apple, Samsung, LG, Asus, or other brands you may have in your home. It’s called the H27P3, and it’s from a brand called KTC, which I hadn’t heard of before I got my hands on it. Nevertheless, its low price is impressive. The 27-inch 60Hz 5K IPS screen delivers 217 pixels per inch (PPI) — just one pixel per inch shy of the pricier options. Who knew that there was a color-accurate, pixel-dense display out there that won’t send creators or the 5K-curious among us into extreme debt?

The H27P3 may be worth considering if you just need a good screen. Just know that this is not a premium device. Its design looks like my budget-friendly gaming monitor, it has a limited port selection (and speed) that pales in comparison to pricier models, and its clumsy onscreen menus make accessing its marquee features more difficult than it should be.

You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but having a semi-affordable 5K monitor option with 217 PPI for macOS is handy, thanks to how the operating system scales visuals on high-resolution screens. MacOS recognizes the 5K monitor, but renders the interface 2,560 x 1,440 to make text and windows more legible. Everything looks noticeably sharper onscreen than on a native 1440p monitor.

Using the H27P3 in place of my MacBook Air’s screen is easy thanks to a single-cable USB-C connection. I typically cycle through numerous Google Chrome tabs for work, as well as Slack and Affinity Photo, and each application looks noticeably better in terms of text, UI elements, and image clarity. I see now how using 5K could really spoil you. 1440p looks a little fuzzy by comparison.

That said, I’m perfectly happy with 1440p. It’s my resolution of choice because my Windows 11 desktop plays games at QHD really well, so I elected years ago to get monitors that prioritize fast refresh rate over pixel density. Swapping it out for a 5K display in Windows 11 was a mixed bag for my needs. I immediately noticed improvements in text and image clarity, and Windows recommended 200 percent scale magnification to ensure the UI was easy to read.

There aren’t any 5K gaming monitors, and this one’s no exception. Its 60Hz refresh rate is typical for 5K monitors, but it feels sluggish since most of my devices’ screens support 90Hz or higher. While the H27P3 supports 120Hz, it only does so at a lower 2K resolution. I prefer the 60Hz mode. This IPS panel has an awfully slow response time. KTC told The Verge that its gray-to-gray (GtG) response time is between 10 and 14 milliseconds. It looks smoother, but if you’re the one controlling the mouse and keyboard, you’ll feel the latency between when you make an input and see it reflected. Also, it’s a real pain to switch back and forth between 5K and 2K and not something that can be done in OS-level display settings. It can only be done through this monitor’s onscreen display (OSD).

Back to 5K resolution, some of its display specs hang with pricier models. The company claims it reaches up to 500 nits of brightness, and KTC advertises a 2,000:1 contrast ratio. Anecdotally, it’s too bright for me to use at full brightness, and its contrast looks good in casual use cases. KTC also advertises HDR support, but it’s not a great experience. HDR content I tested on macOS and Windows 11 showed a noticeable boost in highlight brightness, but it didn’t necessarily make content look more realistic or better overall. HDR is better in displays that have a higher contrast ratio and higher brightness levels, as well as local dimming.

But if accurate dimming and color representation are important to you, consider a Mini-LED monitor. They offer lots of local dimming zones and aren’t too expensive these days, ranging from about $250 for a 27-inch 1440p model and up. KTC even makes a 27-inch 4K Mini-LED gaming monitor with 1,152 dimming zones that costs $499.99 in the US. Or, you could go for an OLED monitor. No matter which OLED you choose, going that route will yield per-pixel color and lighting control.

This monitor offers robust color gamut coverage and volume for DCI-P3, sRGB, and Adobe RGB, if you do color-sensitive work. You can check out all of the specs at the H27P3’s product page. The company is upfront about it having 8-bit color support and using frame rate control (FRC), a technique that flickers the panel’s pixels in such a way as to create the illusion that there’s a wider gamut of colors present (it looks fine to me, someone who’s definitely not a color expert). Professional monitors that offer true 10-bit color depth cost a hell of a lot more than $1,000.

Anyway, let’s jump into the hardware.

Its ports come with some compromises, which also isn’t too surprising given its low price. The H27P3 has one HDMI 2.0 port, one DisplayPort 1.4 input, and one USB-C input for power (up to 65W PD passthrough) and video. All video inputs support 5K at 60Hz via display stream compression (DSC) except HDMI, which is limited to 4K / 60Hz due to bandwidth limitations. The monitor also has two USB-A 3.0 ports and a headphone jack for audio over HDMI and USB-C. KTC advertises that this model has a KVM switch — enabling the feature requires you to dive once again into the cursed OSD — but it’s not really a KVM switch in the sense that it lets you control multiple connected computers with a single mouse and keyboard. It’s just a USB hub, adding a couple USB-A ports to plug in extra accessories, like a mouse dongle and an SSD.

One of the perks of the more expensive 5K monitors is that they offer more and faster ports. BenQ’s PD2730S, currently $1,199.99, has Thunderbolt 4 ports, up to 90W power passthrough via USB-C, and the ability to daisy-chain other Thunderbolt monitors. The Asus ProArt PA27JCV, currently $799.99, is another upgrade with more ports you should consider.

I get the 5K hype. Reading text and viewing images in a higher resolution is awesome. But I’m not a convert willing to spend my own money on one. I’d much rather buy an OLED monitor with half the pixel density for faster refresh rates and response times and a better contrast ratio. At its lowest price, the KTC H27P3 is a good but basic 5K monitor made for people who’ve previously felt priced out of the conversation.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge