MSI MP242PMG monitor review: Small footprint, big value – a superb budget monitor

They say that time is money. So, if you're keen to make the most of your limited budget for both, I'll say it up front: the MSI MP242PMG is a great value office monitor. It's nothing fancy, but it ticks all the boxes – and a few besides – for a budget model.

In fact, it's a box ticker's dream come true. The 24-inch Full HD panel sits atop a sturdy fully adjustable stand, and the 120Hz refresh rate both minimises eyestrain and boosts motion clarity for gaming. There's even a basic Full HD webcam and a two-port USB 2.0 hub.

With that specification list, the RRP of £130 sounds very reasonable indeed. With current street pricing putting it below the £90 mark, this is a budget office monitor that demands to make your shortlist.

MSI MP242PMG monitor: Design & Features

If you're expecting a cheap, nondescript display, then the MP242PMG may give you a pleasant surprise. This is a sturdy-feeling monitor with a solid stand and a thoughtful, understated design. It's all black plastic, granted, but I've handled monitors at five times the price that have felt more hollow and plasticky than this.

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The essentials are all present, too. The adjustable stand has a nice, wide base that keeps the monitor steady even with one-handed adjustments, provides 130mm of height adjustment, and ample tilt and swivel. It also rotates into portrait mode in either direction.

There are other thoughtful little touches, too. A little cutout along the front of the monitor's base gives room to stow something useful – a thumb drive, pen, or office pass; maybe some snacks – and another oval cutout in the monitor's stand does an excellent job of keeping cables neat and tidy.

The webcam is on top of the panel, and this has a privacy shutter ready to go. It doesn't support Windows Hello, and in honesty, it's pretty terrible in low light, but with decent lighting, the Full HD sensor produces the kind of image quality that is perfectly serviceable for video calls.

Connectivity is great for the money. The major absentee is USB-C, but everything else is covered. Video inputs include HDMI, DisplayPort, and – in a rather quaint twist – VGA. The single USB-B input at the rear powers up the pair of USB-A ports at the rear and provides a connection for the integrated webcam. A 3.5mm audio output is present, too.

You do also get a pair of integrated speakers but these are typically mediocre – fine in a pinch for an unexpected video call, but not great. Naturally, there's a microphone too, and this is again good enough for video calls. It's not the last word in clarity, but it's useful and perfectly usable.

MSI's on-screen display deserves a mention. A clickable four-way joystick at the rear makes it simple to navigate, and the menus are clearly legible and well laid out. Click the joystick inwards and the full menu appears, but moving it in any of the four directions quickly accesses a selection of preset functions. Delve into the menus, and you can set these quick access functions in the Navi Key section.

The range of preset picture modes are actually quite useful. The User mode is arguably the most color-accurate of the bunch, but the softer, warmer presentation of the Black and White and Anti-Blue modes are great options to have for avoiding eyestrain during the working day. The Black and White mode is self explanatory, but the Anti Blue mode adds a warm orangey tinge to the display, which is quite pleasant in darker environments. One interesting addition is a trio of eye care tests found in MSI's Eye-Q section, which assists you in setting the optimal screen height and provides a couple of visual tests to check for eyestrain or fatigue – it's a really sensible idea.

MSI MP242PMG monitor: Display quality

The most glaring issue with the MP242PMG is the same for any 24-inch Full HD monitor – it's dramatically less crisp than most modern laptop displays or affordable 27-inch QHD displays. Text looks slightly pixellated, and images lack fine detail. That's just the price you pay with a Full HD monitor.

If that's not enough to make you want to upgrade to a QHD monitor, then the overall image quality here is good. Color accuracy in the default sRGB mode is perfectly acceptable – the average Delta E of 1.32 is very respectable for a budget display. The only obvious issue is that the white point is much too warm at 5,887k. This results in a clear orangey tint to whites. The gamma is a bit wayward, too, and this means that some tones look a tad more washed out than they should. In truth, neither will bother users working on non colour-critical desks, but it's worth knowing.

Personally, I preferred the User mode for daily use as this produced an almost perfect 6,445k white point. Color accuracy is a little worse with an average Delta E of 2.07, but this is less noticeable than the sRGB mode's overly warm tint. With User mode enabled, you do still get some over-brightening of tones, but again, for day-to-day work you're not going to notice.

The basics are all fine, though. Brightness tops out around 440cd/m2, which is way brighter than is comfortable for most offices, and contrast is a little bit better than average at 1,617:1. Backlight uniformity is good, too, with no more than a 9% variance in brightness around the panel's edges. For everyday use, the MP242PMG gets a clean bill of health.

Motion handling isn't going to challenge any gaming panels, but it's pretty good for the money. MSI claims a 4ms GTG response time and 1ms MPRT – pretty nippy for a budget display. Bumping up to the maximum Fastest response time caused some ugly overshoot in our testing, so we settled on the Faster setting. This delivers a welcome improvement over the standard Fast setting without the ugly artefacts.

The only thing to reiterate here is that this is an office monitor. Fast-moving action in darker scenes does start to look rather blurry and smeared. And while engaging the MPRT backlight strobing does help to sharpen up detail in brighter scenes, there's a downside: the strobing dramatically reduces overall brightness, so the panel's poor response time in darker scenes becomes even more prominent. My advice would be to leave MPRT off, stick to the Faster response time setting, and engage Adaptive Sync mode for the best clarity.

MSI MP242PMG monitor: Is it worth it?

Prices do tend to fluctuate quite a bit for budget monitors, so there's always an element of selecting a shortlist of competent models and shopping around. Two obvious alternatives are BenQ's GW2490 or GW2490C. Both lack the adjustable stand – and indeed some of the design niceties of the MSI – but if you need USB-C then the GW2490C is a good alternative for around £90. And if you just want a good budget display, the GW2490 often retails for around £75.

At the time of writing, however, the MSI MP242PMG was retailing for £90. At that kind of money, the combination of an adjustable stand, good design, and respectable image quality is hard to beat for the money. If you're looking to fit out a small office with good-quality monitors on a small budget, the MSI MP242PMG is just the ticket.

MSI MP242PMG monitor specifications