Are you looking for a display that matches the size and resolution of top brands, without breaking the bank? Consider Sceptre. Sceptre has been manufacturing displays at competitive prices since the mid-80s and is beginning to become a household name.
Is Sceptre a good monitor brand? The answer is yes, but with a few caveats. They do happen to offer some of the best price to performance, but they still are a budget brand, first and foremost.
Does Sceptre Make Good Monitors?
Scepte’s monitors make an excellent option for those on a budget or who don’t need the additional frills. There are some rumors online stating their panels and parts are “commodity-grade” or “failed panels from other companies”, but I can’t seem to find a single thread of truth in these claims.
Sceptre’s budget monitors won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, but they offer an excellent bang for your buck. They tend to provide a wide variety of monitors at different resolutions and sizes, often keeping up with industry standards without compromising price. However, they are often lacking 4K resolution or extra features such as USB hubs.
What Makes Sceptre Monitors Good?
While they aren’t known as top-of-the-line displays, they do still offer some fantastic benefits over other competitors:
Value
It’s hard to beat the price to performance for Sceptre’s offerings on the low-to-medium end of displays. They manage to keep all of their panels affordable while still offering features such as wide color gamuts and sizes from 24-inch to 35-inch ultrawide displays.
Refresh Rate
All Sceptre monitors have at least a 75Hz refresh rate from my observations. This is a welcome improvement over the industry standard of 60Hz, making them good displays for casual gamers. Most of their gaming enthusiast displays offer even higher refresh rates, up to 165Hz, while still being offered at affordable prices.
Brightness
One of the features Sceptre brings is a higher average brightness compared to most other monitors. Looking at similar monitors within the same spec or price range, on average, Sceptre’s displays have 1-200 more nits of brightness. This not only makes their panels viewable in a bright room, look more vibrant, and offer higher contrast.
Built-In Speakers
Sceptre has built-in speakers on most of their monitors as an added bonus. While these tend to be subpar, they provide a passable backup solution to external speakers. In most displays, they’re 2-3w backward-firing speakers, making them a good choice for quick YouTube videos in a pinch.
Best Sceptre Monitors
Since we’ve covered some of the basics of why we think Sceptre monitors are excellent, we will show you two of our favorite picks for this brand:
Best 27-Inch 4K Sceptre Monitor for Work
Best For: Pro business users on a tight budget
Sceptre U275W-UPT
One of the few 4K panels Sceptre offers, this display packs a punch despite being a budget option. Not only does it provide a crisp 4K resolution, the comfortable 27-inch size means this can fit into any desk setup, alone or in a pair.
This panel does include excellent connectivity for different inputs; however, it only supports the advertised 70Hz refresh rate with the single DisplayPort input. If your computer’s GPU doesn’t support DisplayPort, you’re stuck to 60Hz with one of the HDMI inputs.
This panel also excels in its color accuracy. Digital artists, office workers, and anyone who needs accurate colors across devices will be satisfied with this panel’s 99% sRGB color gamut.
Yet the monitor lacks any ergonomic features, so you should look for a VESA mount if neck and eye strain are an issue. It does include a blue light filter to reduce eye strain; however, the benefits of these filters aren’t effective.
What We Love
- Value
It’s rare to see these specs at this price point, with most competitors offering a similar panel for $1-200 more than Sceptre.
- Visuals
4K resolution, 99% sRGB color gamut, and higher than average brightness make everything on this screen look crisp and vibrant.
Things To Consider
- Ergonomics
Sceptre dropped the ball on this, as the included stand doesn’t offer any ergonomic features.
- Connectivity
While it may offer four different inputs, only the DisplayPort offers a 70Hz refresh rate, one HDMI input offers 60Hz, and two HDMI ports offer 30Hz, far below the current standards.
Best Budget 32-Inch 2K Monitor for Office Work
Best For: Running multiple Excel windows at once
Sceptre E275B-QPN168
Sceptre is known for producing fantastic gaming monitors, and this panel packs a punch for the price, making it an excellent choice. It offers a 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time, meaning you can gain a competitive edge over other players in games such as Call of Duty: Warzone or Halo Infinite.
Sceptre also included a fantastic ergonomic stand, offering height, tilt, and pivot. Gamers who want an alternate monitor for Discord or Twitch chats should pick this up.
However, this display can use some work.
Users have reported their panels suffering from backlight bleed or the brightness has hurt their eyes from prolonged use. Others mentioned the panel not reaching its full refresh rate when using the correct inputs, or their Xbox Series X not running in 2k resolution. These aren’t major issues for most use cases though, so these may not affect you.
What We Love
- Gamer Focused
Any gamer will be happy with this panel’s sharp visuals, sporting a stellar 2K resolution alongside a high refresh rate and low response time.
- Connectivity
This panel supports up to four different inputs, with two HDMI ports offering 75Hz and the remaining HDMI port and DisplayPort rocking the full 144Hz.
Things To Consider
- Brightness
Sceptre tends to have brighter panels overall, and some users have reported their panel suffering from backlight bleed or eye strain from it.
- Inconsistent Refresh Rate
Some owners have stated their panel doesn’t meet Sceptre’s specifications, with reports of it meeting 144Hz refresh rate at 1080p instead of 2K.
FAQ
Questions about Sceptre monitors? We have the answers.
Sceptre doesn’t manufacture its panels. Our research shows Sceptre uses a Chinese manufacturer known as China New Technology Group Co., Ltd to supply their panels.
Note that this information isn’t 100% reliable. We discovered lots of misinformation stating Sceptre purchased faulty monitors from other companies or is just a shell company for a more prominent manufacturer. Yet, none of these claims had any proof to back them up.
In our experience, Sceptre has overperformed when it comes to their monitors. They tend to last long with minimal defects, and some owners have reported their panels lasting over eight years without a single issue.
We have also noticed there is a distinct lack of owners needing to return their monitors to the manufacturer due to defects. The few cases we’ve seen have only included minor imperfections such as backlight bleed or stuck pixels.
Sceptre’s manufacturing facility is based in China, as they don’t own an actual facility. They are manufactured by China New Technology Group Co., Ltd. This same manufacturer makes Curtis in Canada and Tempo in Australia. Sceptre themselves have not disclosed anything more about their manufacturing process.
For casual to mid-competitive gamers, those on a budget, Sceptre makes excellent monitors. They cover a wide range of sizes to fit any gamer’s needs.
These displays aren’t high-end and those who want the top-of-the-line experience will find it lacking. 85% there, but not best-in-class. Sceptre mostly sticks to 1080p or 2K resolution for their gaming monitor lineup.
Sceptre provides higher refresh rates than other manufacturers at a lower price, which works well for low-end systems.