Smoother image for fifteen hundred. Cheap Acer monitor has 144 Hz, but with one catch

If you’ve been playing on an old 60Hz monitor until now, upgrading to 144 Hz is one of the cheapest things you can do for your gaming experience. AlzaPlus+ members can now buy the Acer EK241YP0bi for 1 484 Kč, making it one of the cheapest 144Hz monitors sold in our country. Don’t expect miracles from it, but it’s sufficient for its purpose.

👍 Get it, if you play Valorant, CS2, Fortnite or Apex and want a smoother image for the least amount of money.
🤔 Think twice, if you work with photos or video – a 6-bit panel and 250 nits brightness are not enough for color-accurate work.
💰 Price tag: 1 484 Kč is the amount for which ordinary 60Hz office monitors are usually sold.

It’s enough for competitive shooters

The difference between 60 and 144 Hz is immediately noticeable in fast-paced games – the image is smoother, aiming is more precise, and you can more easily track moving opponents. For titles like Valorant, CS2, Fortnite or Apex Legends, where Full HD is used for maximum frames, a 23.8″ panel with 1920 × 1080 resolution is exactly the right combination. It features FreeSync for synchronization with the graphics card (it eliminates screen tearing), a declared 1 ms response time, and Flicker-free technology with a blue light filter, which you’ll appreciate during longer sessions. Additionally, the VA panel offers a native contrast of 10,000:1, so dark scenes in games look better than on cheap IPS panels.

Where savings were made, and it shows

For fifteen hundred, you can’t expect everything, and savings were mainly made on the panel here. 6-bit color depth means that the monitor displays approximately 262 thousand colors instead of 16.7 million for 8-bit panels – the rest is calculated using a technique called dithering. In practice, you’ll notice this in subtle gradients, such as in the sky or smoke, where visible banding may appear. 250 nits brightness is low, so the monitor is not very suitable for a sunny room, and VA panels traditionally have worse viewing angles than IPS – colors fade when viewed from the side.

The connectivity options are also disappointing: only HDMI 1.4 and analog VGA, no DisplayPort. While HDMI 1.4 can handle 144 Hz at Full HD, it’s an older standard, and with a more modern graphics card, you’d appreciate more options. The stand does not allow for height adjustment, so count on a VESA mount (100 × 100) if you want the monitor at an ideal height. For competitive Full HD gaming, this is the cheapest way to a smoother image for 1 484 Kč; those who want accurate colors or work with graphics should pay extra for an 8/10-bit IPS.

Can you tell the difference between 60 and 144 Hz?