by ANDY PENFOLD

Are you suffering from hunching over your laptop in less than ideal working conditions?

An external monitor can reduce the risk of giving yourself posture problems, but the advantages of having one go way beyond the benefits for your body. An external monitor will give you more screen space to work with, which makes switching apps and accomplishing complex tasks much easier. Keeping the following points in mind will help you buy the right monitor for your needs.

Your choice of monitor will depend a lot on what you’ll use it for.

Professionals should prioritize features that minimize the chances of eyestrain. Models with automatic brightness adjustment will help in that regard.

The next differentiator is size. Bigger is generally better, especially for creatives. However, for general office work you shouldn’t need to go much bigger than 30 inches.

Screen resolution is also very important. You don’t need to go lower than full HD these days, but computer monitors go right up to 4K. And for larger monitors, pixel density comes into play.

High pixel density specs will make the picture sharper, so if you’re using a big monitor for word processing you need to be aware that low pixel density might make your text a bit fuzzy. Don’t settle for less than about 110 pixels per inch (PPI).

If you have a gaming habit once the workday is over, you’ll want more from your monitor. There are a couple of specs that are nice to have for business users but essential for video gamers.

The first spec is the refresh rate, measured in hertz (Hz). It refers to the number of times the picture updates per second. Gaming monitors usually offer a minimum of 120 Hz, whereas the bare minimum for spreadsheet users is about 60 Hz. Gamers will want higher Hz specs.

The second spec is response time. This is how quickly each individual pixel can change its state. Longer response times can mean blurry images, so it’s important to gamers, but it’s also one to keep an eye on if you want to use your monitor for streaming movies and television.

Armed with this info, you can confidently buy an external monitor that meets your needs.