Iiyama ProLite XB2481HS-B1 review

Reasonably priced office monitors have taken something of a back seat recently, with big-budget FreeSync and G-Sync panels taking to the stage and blowing everything else out of the water. But there’s still a lot to be said for the humble office monitor: with a low price and a practical stand, they’re a much better choice if your needs are modest.

This sort of monitor is Iiyama’s bread and butter, and the 23.6in ProLite XB2481HS-B1 is surprisingly attractive for a sub-£200 office screen. Thin 12mm bezels surround the 1,920×1,080 pixel VA panel, and the whole thing is uncluttered and unfussy.

Iiyama has worked on a better stand for this year’s models with a more robust-feeling height adjustment mechanism. There’s also a built-in turntable and a generous amount of tilt adjustment and a cable routing hole. Physically, it’s the complete package.

One area that Iiyama has scrimped on is USB ports; there aren’t any whatsoever. This is slightly disappointing, as just a couple of ports would have been a welcome way to reduce desk clutter and trailing wires. It’s particularly irritating because the slightly cheaper ProLite XB2483HSU came with two USB ports. At the rear of the monitor you’ll find single VGA, HDMI and DVI connectors, as well as a 3.5mm audio output for audio sent via the HDMI port.

The XB2481HS-B1 uses a VA panel, which is the sort of panel you’re most likely to see on mid-range monitors. They’re typically a fantastic compromise between price and image quality, producing deep blacks and accurate colours, which are the two most important aspects of a monitor.

The Iiyama didn’t disappoint. Our calibrator measured sRGB colour gamut coverage of 94.3%, producing vibrant reds, greens and deep blues and purples with no issues. Contrast levels were sky high at 4,076:1, thanks to incredibly low black levels of 0.06cd/m2; to all intents and purposes, if you’re looking at an image with black in it, the monitor will produce almost no light whatsoever.

This is particularly effective with text, which appears black and crisp, but it’s also great when watching movies and viewing photos. This monitor is well suited to amateur photographers who aren’t completely dependent on colour accuracy but still want to do justice to their photos.

I measured its out-of-the-box brightness at 270cd/m2, which is more than bright enough for a desktop monitor. You might even want to lower the brightness if you’re going to be using this monitor for an extended period of time. Viewing angles are rated at 178 degrees both horizontally and vertically, and while contrast starts to shift beyond 45 degrees, text is just about legible even at extreme angles.

Basic onscreen menus are controlled by small, unlabelled buttons on the rear of the monitor, which are very frustrating to use. While hiding the buttons round the back is good for keeping the front of the monitor from looking too busy, failing to label them results in extended periods of utter bewilderment as you select options you weren’t expecting and switch off the monitor at regular intervals. Even worse, the menus disappear after five seconds of inactivity, so you have no time to think when making adjustments.

At least there aren’t a huge amount of options to play with; you get basic RGB colour adjustments, an Eco mode and various colour modes for web browsing, gaming and text editing. The standard colour mode suited us just fine, but it’s still nice to have different options.

While this is about as far from a gaming monitor as you can get, we still ran our input lag tests to see whether you could sneak in a few games every now and then. The answer is “yes”, although with input lag of 19ms, it’s definitely not suitable for twitchy games but should be perfectly acceptable for those who are less worried about getting a competitive edge.

The Iiyama ProLite XB2481HS-B1 is a decent value, attractive office monitor with great image quality. If you’re looking to buy multiple screens for a multi-monitor setup, its small bezels make it an attractive option. However, with a lack of USB ports and fiddly onscreen menus, it doesn’t quite feel like the complete package. If you’re just looking to buy an individual monitor, the Iiyama ProLite XB2483HSU has equally good image quality and comes with USB ports and is available for slightly less money.