Best Monitor For Mac Mini 2024
While you can use almost any monitor with a Mac Mini through an HDMI connection, there are monitors with USB-C ports, which let you connect your Mac Mini and transfer data with a single cable. Some of these ports support Thunderbolt 3 or 4, which allows for fast data transfer, but most monitors support DisplayPort Alt Mode, which has less bandwidth than Thunderbolt but provides the same benefits. While macOS is optimized for use with displays that have pixel density of around 110 or 220 PPI—it still works with any resolution, so choosing the right resolution and size is a personal preference.
Besides its specs, you should also consider its performance for what you need. For example, you need good color accuracy for content creation, while high peak brightness is important if you’re going to use it in a bright room. We test monitors’ macOS compatibility with the 2021 14-inch M1 MacBook Pro via USB-C or a USB-C to DisplayPort cable. The results are also valid for any Mac Mini, including those with newer chips and other Mac computers like the Mac Studio.
Key Takeaways:
- Choosing the right monitor for your Mac Mini is crucial for optimal performance and visual experience.
- The recommended monitors offer superior display quality and compatibility with the Mac Mini 2024.
- Consider factors such as display technology, resolution, color accuracy, connectivity options, and ergonomic features when selecting a monitor.
- Higher refresh rates and quick response times contribute to smoother visuals and an enhanced user experience.
- Additional features like built-in speakers, HDR support, and wide color gamut can further enhance your immersion while using the Mac Mini.
The 5 Best Monitor For Mac Mini 2024
Apple Studio Display
Our Rating:
- Screen size: 27-inch
- Resolution: 5K (5,120 x 2,880 pixels)
- Brightness: 600 nits
- Ports: Thunderbolt 3, USB-C (x3)
Best Overall
- Size: 27-inch
- Resolution: 3840×2160 (4K)
- Refresh rate: 60Hz
- Ports: 2 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x USB Type-C, 2 x USB-A, 1 x headphone jack
- Panel type: IPS
Best Budget
- Screen Size 40 Inches
- Refresh Rate 72 Hz
- DCI-P3 98% (Typ.) with HDR10
- 3-Side Virtually Borderless Design
Best Ultrawide
- Size: 34-inch
- Resolution: 3440×1440
- Refresh rate: 100Hz
- Ports: 1 X HDMI 2.0; 1 X USB-C; 2 X USB-A; 1 X USB-B; 1 X Ethernet
- Panel type: IPS
Best Curved
- Screen Size 27 Inches
- Refresh Rate 240 Hz
- Special Feature Tilt Adjustment
- Display Resolution Maximum 2560 x 1440
- PC Gaming Monitor
- AMD FreeSync Premium
Best 4K
Apple Studio Display Review
Best Monitor for Mac Mini
The best monitor for Mac Mini that we’ve tested is the Apple Studio Display. It’s a great monitor that allows you to complete your Apple ecosystem and has features you can only use with a macOS device, like its extremely accurate sRGB mode. This makes colors look life-like and accurate without any calibration, which is important if you do any content creation. It also has a 5k resolution that results in the optimal 220 PPI for macOS, and it has extremely sharp text clarity. It’s one of a handful of 5k monitors available, alongside its main competitor, the LG UltraFine 5k, which has fewer features and is harder to find. The Studio Display also supports Thunderbolt 3, which allows fast data transfer from your Mac Mini.
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There are a few different variants of the monitor, with one of the differences being the stand that it comes with. One only offers tilt adjustments, but there’s a version with height adjustments and another with a VESA adapter if you want to mount it instead. Another difference in variants is with the screen finish, and regardless of which screen coating you get, it easily gets bright enough to fight glare in a well-lit room.
As an Apple product, it’s no surprise that the Apple Studio Display is well optimised for use with Mac mini. The most obvious upside is the 5K panel itself. With 5,120 by 2,880 pixels on a 27-inch panel, you’re getting fully 218 pixels per inch. That’s enough for MacOS to do its beautiful, high-DPI thing with fonts. Text really does look gorgeous on this monitor.
As a straight SDR monitor, the Studio Display is pretty sweet. It’s rated up to 600 nits brightness, which is plenty, the colors are accurate and the viewing angles are fab. However, there’s no HDR support of any kind, no local dimming or any of the other trick stuff that some monitors, including Apple’s own Pro display XDR, have to increase dynamic range.
Still, connectivity is absolutely on point for using with Mac computers, including the mini. WIth three USB-C ports, it can act as a powerful hub for connecting peripherals and features likes the web cam are properly integrated with MacOS, so it supports Center Stage tracking technology. Nice. In typical Apple fashion, the speakers are also a zillion times better than any comparable screen.
The main downside is price. This thing is megabucks for a 27-inch monitor with no HDR support. What’s more, you have to pay extra if you want a stand with height adjustability. As standard, it only offers tilt. Ouch. The anti-reflective nano-texture screen cover is another pricey option. Oh and the bundled Thunderbolt cable for primary connectivity to the Mac mini is only 1m long. Longer cables are very pricey. All of which means the value argument for the Studio Display is tough to make. But if you can afford it and don’t need HDR capability, this is still a very nice solution for the Mac mini.
PROs
- Punchy SDR performance
- Very high pixel density
- Mac-optimised connectivity
- Fantastic speakers
- Bright and vivid colors
- Great speakers
- Nice design
- Good webcam
CONs
- No HDR support
- Very expensive
- Lacks ports
- Some features are Mac-exclusive
- Better value monitors out there
Dell S2722QC 27-inch 4K Quality
The two most critical things you want for a Mac mini are pixel density and connectivity. The Dell S2722QC gives you both at a very decent price. It’s a 4K 27-inch panel, which translates into roughly 160DPI. That’s not as good as Apple’s own 5K studio display or the Pro Display XDR. But then those monitors are massively more expensive.
Moreover, you still get really nice, sharp fonts from MacOS on a 27-inch 4K monitor. The S2722QC also offers decent image quality from its IPS panel. OK, there’s only very basic HDR support with no local dimming and just 350 nits peak brightness. Likewise, color gamut coverage is pretty limited. So, this is not remotely a pro-grade display for content creation.
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But in usability and broad productivity terms, it still has nice colors and characteristically great IPS viewing angles. As for connectivity, the highlight is USB-C with 65W of power delivery. More expensive monitors can offer over 95W of charging over their USB interfaces. But with a Mac mini display, that’s far less critical given the Mini will be powering itself.
What does matter is that the S2722QC has a USB hub, so you can decide what works better for you in terms of connecting peripherals like keyboard, mouse and external storage – hooking them up to the mini itself or connecting them to the display.
Of course, the USB-C connectivity also means that this is a great choice if you’re using this display with both a Mac mini and a MacBook. And for MacBooks, rather than the most power hungry PC notebooks, 65W of power delivery is just fine.
The S2722QC also doesn’t have a dedicated DisplayPort interface. But, again, that’s really only of concern for PC usage. For Mac mini and other Apple computers, it’s USB-C all the way. All told, this is a very nice little 4K panel for general Mac mini productivity.
Dell’s S2722QC makes the dream of a 4K USB-C-equipped monitor for the Mac Mini a reality for just about everybody. Its price, which fluctuates around $300, is solid and competitive with our budget pick in this category. What we found most surprising about this screen is its overall build quality. It’s made of plastic, but both the display and stand feel sturdy, even when rotating the monitor 90 degrees or adjusting its height.
This monitor’s USB-C port is the star of the show. We tested this monitor with a 13-inch MacBook Pro, but expect the same performance from a Mac Mini connected with a USB-C cable. You can plug the computer into this display over HDMI if you’d prefer. Dell complemented this monitor’s video ports with two USB-A ports and a headphone jack. The USB-A ports come in handy if you want to connect a webcam and external hard drive.
Overall, we were pleased with the performance of Dell’s S2722QC during common tasks like reading articles, streaming video, and participating in digital meetings. The display’s color accuracy was good enough for casual photo editing, but professionals are better off with a display that covers 100% of the sRGB color spectrum. On the other hand, the monitor’s 4K resolution made those photos, videos, and text look sharp.
Our time with the Dell S2722QC shows how much value you should expect from a monitor for the Mac Mini. To get this level of performance from a display in this price range is remarkable and proves the company’s commitment to pushing premium features in less expensive hardware.
PROs
- Affordable for the feature set
- Quality 4K IPS panel
- USB-C with 65W PD
- Multi-port USB hub
- Sharp display
- Sturdy Stand
- Ergonomic
CONs
- Not a true HDR display
- Mediocre color fidelity
- Doesn’t cover as much of the DCI-3 color gamut
Best Ultrawide Monitor
If you find the 27-inch screen on the Apple Studio Display too small and need more space to work with, consider an ultrawide monitor like the LG 40WP95C-W. With a 21:9 aspect ratio and 40-inch screen size, it’s easy to multitask with different windows open, which is useful if you’re a video editor, as you can see more of your timeline at once. It’s different from the Apple monitor because it has a lower 5120×2160 resolution, but the text clarity is still fantastic. It also supports Thunderbolt 4 on both of its USB-C ports, which allows for higher bandwidth than Thunderbolt 3, and this is great if you have a newer Mac Mini that supports Thunderbolt 4.
In terms of its picture quality, it displays a wide range of colors in SDR and has excellent accuracy before calibration. It also has decent enough reflection handling to minimize glare if you have a few lights around, but it doesn’t get as bright as the Apple monitor, so visibility is an issue in really bright rooms. If you want something brighter, consider the LG 38WN95C-W. However, it has a lower resolution and supports Thunderbolt 3 instead of Thunderbolt 4.
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The LG 40WP95C-W is an ultrawide monitor with an uncommon 5K2K resolution, which has the same height as a 4k display, but 33% more horizontal screen space, so you can see more of your work at once. Like the Apple Studio Display, it’s designed for professional content creators and uses LG’s Nano IPS technology to display a wide range of colors. It also comes factory calibrated, so you don’t have to worry about inaccurate colors. It’s designed to simplify your workstation setup, and it has impressive connectivity options, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports. It allows you to daisy-chain two displays to your MacBook or laptop using a single Thunderbolt 4 cable while also charging your device.
The LG 40WP95C-W is a good monitor for mixed usage. It’s clearly for media creators or office users, with its ultrawide format, high native resolution, and fantastic colors. It has a slew of additional office features, including Thunderbolt 4 support and power delivery over USB-C. It delivers a decent gaming experience, and even though it’s not specifically for that usage, it still offers a few gaming features, including FreeSync support. Finally, despite its amazing color gamut in HDR, it’s just okay for watching videos or gaming in HDR, as it has low contrast, no local dimming, and low peak brightness.
PROs
- Excellent color accuracy.
- Fantastic SDR color gamut.
- Exceptional text clarity.
- Impressive connectivity with Thunderbolt 4 support.
- FreeSync support.
- Low input lag for casual gaming.
- Large, high resolution screen is great for multitasking.
- Superb gradient handling.
- Amazing coverage of the DCI-P3 color space.
CONs
- Low contrast, so blacks look gray in a dark room.
- Slow response time.
- Low max refresh rate.
- No local dimming.
- Not very bright in HDR.
Best Curved Monitor
If you prefer using curved displays with your computer to get a more immersive experience for work or play, Samsung’s ViewFinity S65VC is the ideal Mac Mini monitor. The display’s size may be overwhelming—this is true of all curved displays—but the point is to take up as much of your peripheral vision as possible. If you work with multiple windows simultaneously, the extra space is necessary to work efficiently.
This Mac Mini monitor has the highest refresh rate out of all our recommendations and supports HDR (High Dynamic Range), which is helpful for both gaming and video editing. The display also features a pair of five-watt stereo speakers and a built-in five-megapixel camera. You should expect good-looking HD video from this camera given its size and placement—it protrudes from the top of the screen in its own enclosure rather than having to fit in its bezels. If you believe in a clean desktop and don’t want to clutter up more space with accessories, this all-in-one monitor approach makes a lot of these, and the ideology even extends to its assortment of inputs.
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Alongside the typical array of video and USB ports sits an Ethernet jack. If you connect the Mac Mini to this monitor, you can use the display as your networking and accessories hub in a way that isn’t possible with the other monitors we’re recommending. Yes, the Mac Mini has a built-in Ethernet port, but you can organize your cables more easily if they’re all coming from a single point. Add these features to this display’s curved screen, and you get a Mac Mini monitor unlike any other.
PROs
- Built-in webcam
- HDR 10 support
- Ethernet port
CONs
- May be too big
Best 4K Monitor
The Acer Nitro WQHD P3biipruzx is a 27-inch, 4k gaming monitor. It comes with premium features like Mini LED backlighting and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, competing with models with the same features, like the Cooler Master Tempest GP27U, and it comes at a mid-range price tag. It has a max refresh rate of 160Hz and includes variable refresh rate (VRR) support to reduce screen tearing. Besides its gaming perks, it even features a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode, and there are two USB-A ports to connect to other devices.
The Acer Nitro WQHD is excellent for most uses. It excels as a gaming monitor, especially at high refresh rates, as it has a fast response time for smooth motion and low input lag for a responsive feel. It also includes gaming features like VRR support and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth to take full advantage of modern gaming setups. It has a decent local dimming feature that helps it display deep blacks, ideal for dark room gaming or even for watching the latest content. It also performs well in HDR thanks to its high peak brightness and wide color gamut. Besides its excellent gaming performance and great picture quality, it’s excellent for general work use or content creation thanks to its high 4k resolution, outstanding ergonomics, and accurate colors.
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The Acer Nitro WQHD is great for media consumption. It has a high 4k resolution that lets it display a ton of details, which is ideal for watching the latest content. It performs well in bright and dark rooms, too, as it gets bright enough to fight glare and displays deep blacks thanks to its decent local dimming feature. Besides this, images look life-like thanks to its incredible accuracy, even without calibration. It also has wide viewing angles and outstanding ergonomics, making it ideal for sharing your screen.
PROs
- Sharp text and image clarity thanks to 4k resolution.
- Outstanding ergonomics.
- Decent Mini LED local dimming feature.
- Wide viewing angles.
- 240Hz refresh rate and VRR support.
- Fast response time at high refresh rates.
- HDMI 2.1 bandwidth.
- Visibility isn't an issue in well-lit rooms.
- Very accurate sRGB mode.
- Wide color gamut.
- High HDR peak brightness.
CONs
- Some connection issues in multi-monitor setup.
- Input lag increases at low refresh rates
- Oversaturates colors in the Adobe RGB color space.
- Blooming increases when viewing from the sides.
- Some issues with tone mapping.
What to consider when shopping for a monitor for Mac Mini
Several factors should be considered when deciding which monitor for Mac Mini is right for your needs. We’ve addressed the most important ones below, which we kept in mind while testing and researching. We also judged the monitors we chose based on their price, which heavily impacted how we viewed their overall value.
Screen size:
Monitors come in a wide assortment of styles, but bigger isn’t necessarily better. The larger the monitor, the more space it’ll take up on your desk. This is also one of the most significant drivers of a monitor’s price. Photo and video editors can take full advantage of the space afforded by a 30+ inch screen, while a writer who uses one app at a time won’t. Additionally, it’s easier to see individual pixels on a larger monitor as it typically has the same resolution as a smaller one.
Screen resolution:
While size will have the biggest immediate impact on how you perceive a screen, its resolution will determine its image quality. A basic summation is the higher the resolution, the more pixels you’ll see in a given patch of monitor space.
Screen resolution is defined by both numbers and letters, which can be somewhat confusing. The numbers signify how many horizontal and vertical pixels are present. For example, a resolution of 1920 x 1080 shows 1920 pixels from right to left and 1080 pixels from top to bottom. Resolution numbers are often abbreviated to just show the vertical number—1920 x 1080 is known in this system as 1080p.
Our Mac Mini monitor recommendations fall into the QHD (2560 X 1440), 4K (3840 x 2160), and 5K (5120 × 2880) resolution ranges. Text, images, and videos will look clear on all of these displays, so you won’t have to worry about upgrading your screen any time soon.
Ports:
A monitor’s ports (also called inputs) determine which cable is required to connect it to your Mac Mini (or any other gadget, for that matter). All of our recommendations have HDMI ports, but many also feature DisplayPort and USB-C inputs. You can connect the machine to any display because of the Mac Mini’s built-in HDMI and Thunderbolt 4 ports. However, the benefit of using a USB-C connection is that a single cable will carry audio, video, and data, while HDMI only carries the first two. Some of our picks have USB-A ports, which allow you to use them as a hub to connect your computer to additional accessories.
Refresh rate:
A monitor’s refresh rate—measured in hertz, shortened to Hz—determines how quickly its display can be updated with new information. Refresh rates are measured in milliseconds, which means this tech spec isn’t important for common tasks but will make a difference if you choose to use your monitor for gaming. Most displays refresh at 60Hz, but it can go much higher.
Frequent Asked Questions
Can I use Mac Mini with any monitor?
Yes. The Mac Mini can be used with any monitor that has a USB-C or HDMI port. It can also be connected to a monitor with a DisplayPort with the correct cable.
Do I really need a 4K monitor?
This depends on how you plan to use your Mac Mini. Photographers and videographers will need a screen with such a high resolution to get their work done, while those with more modest needs won’t.
Does Mac mini support a 4K monitor?
Yes. The Mac Mini can be used with a 4K or 5K monitor with a single cable.
Are curved monitors better?
No. Curved monitors aren’t objectively better than flat panel monitors. Their design allows the screen to take up more of your peripheral vision, which can be helpful depending on how you use your machine.
How long will a Mac mini last?
Apple typically supports the Mac Mini with regular software updates for roughly six years. Your needs may change before then, which could necessitate upgrading earlier.