Question How can I match the brightness, color, and contrast of two identical monitors?

[h4rb1nger]

I recently bought a used monitor Acer H236HL from eBay (it's identical my first monitor). However, the monitor is different in some minor ways. First, the booting Acer logo is green on the eBay monitor and it's white on my original monitor. Second, there are some minor differences in control settings, e.g:

https://imgur.com/a/KioJ3zj

View: https://imgur.com/a/KioJ3zj


I also noticed that the second display looks brightener and has different color compared to my original monitor (both on default factory settings). The original monitor is connected through a miniDP to HDMI cable while the eBay monitor is through a VGA cable. I fiddled with the Color Management settings in Windows 10 to calibrate them but I can't manage to get them to look similar. What can I do to get them matched?

 

[CamperJoe18]

I don't know for certain, but sounds like a difference in firmware. If the ebay model you bought is older or newer than your original, but still the same model, it is possible the firmware settings are slightly different.

Your best options would either be to keep tinkering with it until they match, or try to download monitor specific drivers. Here is a page on updating Acer drivers if you decide to go that route:

Acer Monitor Driver Download - Driver Easy

Explore the two safe methods to get the correct and latest driver for your Acer monitor -- download it from Acer or update it automatically.

www.drivereasy.com

 

[h4rb1nger]

Thank you. It seems like while both monitors are same they are slightly different versions. My original monitor has EnergyStar certification while the eBay one does not have it. I bought a second miniDP to HDMI cable to deal with the image quality difference. After reversing the VGA and HDMI cables on both monitors I noticed that the text on the one running with HDMI looks a bit crisper.