Sceptre C248W-1920RN Review

If you’re searching for a simple 1080p monitor with a curved screen, then you’re in the right place. The Sceptre C248W-1920RN is a full HD display with a curved screen and comes with all the essentials you’d expect in a budget monitor. The monitor is great for pretty much any kind of user. You can use this as a home or office monitor or even make it your gaming monitor.

In this Sceptre C248W-1920RN review, we take a good look at this new curved display and find its pros and cons. With a nice set of specs, it does pique our interest in the budget monitor category. Though it poses as an all-round monitor where does it lack? Is this the best curved-screen monitor in this price range? Let’s find that out.

Design

We’re talking about a curved display here, so the design is quite important. The Sceptre C248W-1920RN model comes in a nice black color that can fit in pretty much any room. The front of the monitor has a stylish curve to it which offers the user an immersive visual experience. The bezels on the front also have been greatly reduced to give a nearly edgeless display.

The front is clean with nothing but the logo. The button for the OSD can be found at the back and can be easily reached without much effort. The stand is made of aluminum and does a good job. However, this is a basic stand at best. You can tilt the display front and back to a certain degree and that’s it. You can swivel or adjust the height of the stand. Ergonomics of the stand is pretty crippled, to be honest.

The Sceptre C248W-1920RN is a portable monitor as it weighs just around 6.61 pounds. So you can move this around if that’s your thing. You can also mount this display on your wall as this monitor comes with VESA compatibility. Overall, the monitor comes with a neat design despite the budget price tag.

Sceptre C248W-1920RN Performance

The Sceptre C248W-1920RN is a 24″ monitor that comes with a curved screen and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The monitor has a native aspect ratio of 16:9 which makes this display a good fit for media consumption. If you’re going to watch a 1080p video, it will fill the screen giving you an immersive watching experience. If you plan to watch a video with an aspect ratio of 2:1, then you’re going to get black bars at the top and bottom.

The VA panel is not that shabby. The output from the panel is better than your average TN panel. If you don’t compare this with an IPS panel, then you’d be happy with this monitor. The viewing angles are not that awesome but are still miles better than any TN panel monitor. Though Sceptre advertises a viewing angle of 178 degrees, you do get some distortion of color at wide angles.

The monitor has a maximum brightness of 250 nits. While this is not that impressive, it does well for a budget monitor. The contrast ratio of 3M:1 is nice and it does play a role in the accuracy of colors. Talking about colors, the picture quality is nice with good, punchy colors. The display is perfect for use in homes and offices if you don’t work on anything color-related.

The 1800R curve ratio on this monitor is something we like. If you’re on the lookout for an immersive visual experience, then this is the curve ratio you should go for. Be it games or media consumption, the curved monitor does a pretty good job.

Gaming on the Sceptre C248W-1920RN

The Sceptre C248W-1920RN monitor comes with a response time of 5ms which is neat for a monitor in this price range. The refresh rate in this display is a modest 75Hz which is somewhat better than then regular 60Hz. Though 75Hz is better on paper, not a lot of GPUs make use of this refresh rate. You’d have been better off with a 144Hz display, but that’s not happening at this price point.

The input lag in this monitor is about 12.8ms which is good but is not as good as the average input lag of 10.6ms we’ve seen in budget monitors. If you’re playing competitive games, this input lag is unlikely to have an effect on your performance so no need to worry there.

If you’re a casual gamer, you’re going to have a very good time with this monitor. But if you’re a serious, hardcore gamer, then you might not have the best experience with this monitor here. The 5ms response time might look great on paper, but a VA panel should have much better response time for an amazing gaming experience.

Connectivity and Other Features

The Sceptre C248W-1920RN comes with a couple of power for connectivity. We have an HDMI port and a VGA port to connect to a desktop or a gaming console. While these two options can get the job done, they could have added another port just for the sake of the user. There is also a headphone jack as well.

One of the important features in this monitor is the presence of a blue light filter. Blue emission from monitors is a serious problem and can affect the people who spend long hours in front of the display. The blue light filter can help combat this problem and help protect your eyes in the long term.

Bottomline

The Sceptre C248W-1920RN is an affordable, curved-screen monitor that comes with good screen size. The elegant design, picture quality, and gaming experience put this display on top of the list of budget monitors. The contrast on this monitor is fantastic which is evident because of the impressive grayscale performance. If you’re on the search for a curved 1080p monitor that is great for homes, offices and for casual gaming, the Sceptre C248W-1920RN is a sure shot winner.