The cheapest 4K 144Hz HDMI 2.1 monitor is down to £399 at Currys

The 28-in Gigabyte M28U is one of the most affordable 4K 144Hz HDMI 2.1 monitors, ideal for use with PC, PS5 and Series X alike. Normally it is available for high but understandable-for-its-specs figure of £669, but for Black Friday (and its aftershocks), it’s been reduced to £399 which is a rather fetching price.

So why consider the M28U? The short answer is this an ideal accompaniment for a mid-range to high-end gaming PC, giving you the option of either a crispy 4K resolution, high 144Hz refresh rate or both at once if your rig is up to the task. I personally used an early 4K 144Hz monitor with a now pedestrian RTX 2080 machine, where I found the high resolution helpful for content creation and slower games like Civ, while I could knock down the resolution and take advantage of the high refresh rate for competitive games like Counter-Strike or DotA. Nowadays though, especially with the advent of frame-rate boosting technologies like DLSS, FSR 2 and XeSS, generating a 4K output resolution at a high frame-rate is significantly easier and therefore a 4K 144Hz monitor makes even more sense.

The M28U is a particularly good shout for colour-sensitive work like photo or video editing, thanks to its coverage of 100% of the sRGB and 94% of the DCI P3 color spaces, with sufficient brightness for a DisplayHDR 400 certification. It’s limited to 120Hz 4:2:0 over HDMI 2.1, the maximum refresh rate supported by the PS5 and Series X, but you can push up to 144Hz on PC using its DisplayPort 1.4 connection. Motion clarity is excellent too, with a rated 1ms GtG response time and FreeSync/G-Sync support to smooth out uneven frame rates, eliminate tearing and reduce judder.

The M28U also has some interesting features, like a KVM that allows the monitor, plus a connected keyboard and mouse, swap between controlling multiple computers. As noted the last time we covered this monitor, back in 2021, there are also the usual range of gaming features like genre-specific modes, a black equalizer for spotting enemies in dark corners and various cheating crosshairs and whatnot.

So: exciting times, and definitely a monitor worth considering given the price differential between the discounted M28U and other HDMI 2.1 4K 144Hz models.

What do you think of this deal? Let us know in the comments below.