I've used an older LG 24LF4820 LED display for several years and always thought it looked good enough. I recently bought a KTC H24F8, a 24-inch 1080p IPS monitor rated for 180Hz/190Hz. The higher refresh rate feels noticeably smoother, but the image quality seems worse: text looks pixelated, and white areas have a slightly yellow tint. The colors also look less natural than they do on my old LG. The new monitor is definitely set to 1080p, so I'm wondering whether this is caused by display settings, calibration, the panel itself, or something else.
2 Answers
The refresh rate and image quality are separate things. A 180Hz monitor can feel much smoother while still having weaker factory calibration, poorer contrast, or a more grainy matte coating than an older display. Two 1080p screens can also look different because of panel quality and processing, even at the same size. If the settings reset and basic calibration still leave the whites yellow and the text noticeably worse, the monitor may simply have a mediocre panel or a defective tint, so returning it and spending more on a better-calibrated display could be worthwhile.
Check the monitor’s picture settings first. Set the color temperature to Normal or Cool instead of Warm, disable HDR in both Windows and the monitor menu, and make sure any low-blue-light, eye-care, or reading mode is turned off. You can also reset the monitor to factory settings and adjust brightness and contrast from there. A yellowish white balance is usually a setting issue, while text clarity can also be affected by sharpness, scaling, the matte coating, or the viewing distance.
I checked the resolution several times and it is running at 1080p. The color temperature is set to Normal, but I’ll check HDR, eye-care mode, and sharpness next.
If smooth motion and accurate colors are both important, a better panel—such as a good mini-LED model—may be worth the additional cost rather than trying to fix limitations that are built into this monitor.