Sceptre 27-Inch FHD LED Gaming Monitor 75Hz 2X HDMI VGA Build-in Speakers, Ultra Slim Metal Black

I was in a bit of a rush Black Friday shopping and judged a book by its cover: I did not check to see if these monitors were IPS rated, and they are not. The cover image showed color-grading software being used, so I added these to the cart and moved on. The color depth / representation isnt BAD at all -- but I did buy these to edit videos on, so Im going to give one to our church secretary and buy an IPS monitor for my actual color grading.

This monitor is hard to love due to some glaring issues with its quality control. That being said, its a budget conscious monitor that has a MSRP of $129.99 so you have to be realistic with your expectations. Ill go through my experience for you from start to finish. The Pros - It is 75hz refresh rate capable. 5ms response time for those who need it. Its light weight and very thin. (Great for mounting) It has 2 HDMI connectors. The version that I got uses a 12V DC port (Useful for cable management). Built in speakers a plus if you have limited space to work with. (Like using the monitor at a work station / terminal) The Cons - Out of 2 ordered, 1 had a dead pixel. The speakers are not only muffled, but extremely quiet. Stand is extremely light weight for a 27 inch monitor. 12V 3A AC/DC adapter looks really suspect (like the ones you get with LED strips) and probably will fail over time. VESA specs are incorrect in the manual. (They recommend M4 12mm screws). 1 year only warranty that requires you to send it back to them on your dime for service. My biggest gripe so far (dead pixel or not) is that the VESA mounting holes on the rear of the monitor are extremely shallow. I needed to special order a set of M4 8mm screws in order to get it to attach to one of my dual monitor brackets. VESA standards list 100 x 100 hole patterns to use a standard M4 10mm screw. My 8mm screws that I ordered barely fit into my bracket with a washer. I would assume the holes drilled in the monitor for the screws are 4mm or 5mm deep at best. The manual recommends using 12mm M4 screws! That would leave about 8mm or 7mm jutting out in the air. Most VESA mounting hardware will only include 10mm, 12mm and 25mm M4 screws for 100 x 100 hole patterns. So in case you want to mount this monitor to any bracket, make sure to have some shorter M4 screw sizes ready. Negatives aside, its an extremely attractive monitor for the home office or the kids (teenager or college bound). You can forgive a lot of the imperfections if this is going to be attached to something you dont stare at constantly. Probably also good for grass roots e-sports tournament organizers who need a larger screen real estate but dont want to break the bank and arent too worried about ultra quality. 5ms response time and 75hz refresh rate is good for most games except ultra competitive FPS. This is going to be a dynamic review in that I will update my experience as I own the monitor longer. I have a replacement coming from Amazon for the dead pixel afflicted one I got initially and well see how that goes. Sceptres policy on dead pixels is that they need 5 or more to be considered defective enough for warranty service. Worst yet, you have to ship the item back to them at your expense. So I highly recommend while youre in the Amazon 30 day return window to put the monitor through its paces and see if its the right one for you without any major problems. Once its out of that window, youll be at the mercy of Sceptres RMA department and will probably need to pay $22 bucks (or more) to send it back to fix a $129.99 (or less) monitor.

Pros: Huge! Matte screen lots of inputs. Slim bezel, Mine came with a DVI to HDMI cable, no HDMI Cons: Buttons on the back. Power adapter is a wall-wart. Stand a bit wobbly My biggest issue with this monitor is the buttons being located on the back. If using multiple of these ( I have 2 side-by-side in landscape) the buttons are a pain in the ass to use. I use one as dual purpose for a PC and RPI. To switch inputs is an exercise in contortion if you use the left monitor as I do. I would have preferred them on the bottom edge but I have the feeling this was done so these screen could mounted in portrait with multiple monitors. If the buttons had be arrange horizontally instead of vertical this would be less of an issue. The power brick that comes with these monitors is the wall-wart kind where the plugs are on the brick. I would have liked to see a brick with a short pig tail like a laptop brick so less outlet space is taken up. the cable is plenty long enough however. The stand was super easy to attach and in the future I expect it to be just as easy to remove should I need to. However it is a bit wobbly at the point where the stand attaches to the monitor. Though I attribute that to it being such a large monitor and there will be some flex no matter what. It is by no means excessive. Some day I may buy monitor arm so its great that there is a vesa mount option. I so far I love these monitors. The brushed look and matte screen make them look very clean. For anyone concerned they would look very smart in a business setting. These are the first screens Ive bought brand new for personal use and I have no complaints. I use my PC for coding, 3D CAD, Wed surfing, movies/Youtube and some light gaming and everything looks great. They are supper bright. I may attempt to do a color calibrating but Overall Im happy with the current setting. I did change to the Movie setting with bluelight shift 30%

... and its still possible I might, if it fails. However, so far, this monitor is really surpassing my expectations. Its bright, its clear, its 1920x1080 at 75Hz. The speakers work; not loud, minimal bass. Kinda like an old 9 inch tv. If I want to damage my hearing, I put on the headphones at max volume. I did a dead pixel check. At one point I thought -there it IS! - but nope, it was a just tiny spec of dust on the screen that wiped right off. Within the next 29 days of the return period something might go wrong but so far for $109 + the state government grab, this is a great monitor. As an aside, the monitors default sound level is set at 50%, you might want to put it up to 100% and control the volume from your software since, of course, there is no remote control. Also, if you have an AMD graphics card with FreeSync this monitor claims to support it. It doesnt support nVidia G-Sync.

Using it for work. No gaming. Picture looks crisp and clear. Not sure how it runs with games. Definitely recommend for a work monitor.

Sound quality is really lacking on this monitor

I was a little bit skeptical about buying this monitor but it came pretty quick with no noticeable issues. The speakers are a bit off, I noticed that they sound a bit high pitched and it can be hard hearing certain things in the game. But other than that the monitor is pretty great. I personally like the settings options and being able to tilt the monitor. I definitely recommend this for causal gaming

I bought three of these from my desktop at work and the clarity is great resolution works for me. The only thing I haven’t figured out is how to make all the speakers work at the same time

I love this monitor, used to use it as my main but recently started using it as my secondary. I have had no problems until recently, whenever I use the monitor it glitches and shows huge pixels that dont go away for like 20 seconds. I dont know why this is happening, Ive had it for just under a year and never dropped it or damaged it. Other than that its perfect. I love the built in speakers and it runs smoothly.

If you arent worried about the built-in then its a pretty good screen.