Unboxing and setting up a new monitor is always exciting, and that's coming from someone who has bought a bunch of high refresh rate and OLED monitors in the past few years. However, what I've noticed is that most monitors don't look all that great straight out of the box. Whether it's an IPS, TN, or OLED panel, the colors often look off, the brightness is either too high or too low, or it doesn't feel as fluid as advertised. Simply put, the default presets don't quite hit the mark for most people.

Fortunately, it only takes a few minutes of tweaking the monitor's settings to make a huge difference. I've lost count of how many times a display went from looking underwhelming to genuinely impressive with just a couple of adjustments. Nowadays, I don't even start gaming on a monitor until I've dialed in the settings. Below, I'll break down the exact settings I always check and change first, and explain why they matter more than you might think.

3 Refresh rate and adaptive sync

By default, most monitors don’t run at their maximum refresh rate

Just because you bought a new 144Hz or 240Hz monitor doesn't mean it'll run at that refresh rate out of the box. Windows typically defaults to 60Hz when it detects a new display. For instance, both of my high refresh rate OLED monitors, namely the AW3423DW and AW2725DF, were running at 60Hz the first time I powered them on. So, unless you manually change the refresh rate from the Display settings menu or the Nvidia Control Panel, you're likely not experiencing what your monitor is truly capable of.

Likewise, it's also worth checking whether adaptive refresh rate (G-Sync or FreeSync) is enabled in Nvidia Control Panel or AMD Software, provided your monitor supports it. This makes sure your monitor's refresh rate stays in sync with your in-game FPS, resulting in smoother gameplay and eliminating screen tearing when frame rates fluctuate. Adaptive refresh rate is typically enabled by default when using a DisplayPort connection, but that might not be the case in a multi-monitor setup or if you're switching between different input sources.

2 Color profile and temperature

It only takes a minute to fix washed-out colors and warm tint

One of the first things I notice after setting up a new monitor is how the colors are represented. More often than not, I've seen monitors, even premium OLED ones, looking a little bluish or yellowish out of the box. Worse, the colors look washed out, making the display appear dull compared to the review videos on YouTube. While the default color preset may be fine for regular day-to-day use, I want the colors to pop, especially when I'm gaming or watching videos. That's why I always take my time to play around with the color profiles before actually using a new monitor.

You can adjust this from your monitor's OSD, which you can bring up by pressing the physical button(s) typically located below the bottom bezel or the sides. If you have a gaming monitor, you'll likely find the available color presets under "Game" instead of "Picture" or "Color." But if you're not happy with any of the default presets, I highly recommend switching to the Custom profile and tweaking the values to your liking. In the same menu, you should also see the color temperature setting, which helps lower the bluish or yellowish hue.

1 Brightness and contrast

The default brightness setting may not be ideal for everyone

When I bought and set up my first OLED monitor, I was disappointed by its brightness levels. Then I realized it was running at 50% brightness, which is pretty low for someone who's coming from an IPS display. Traditional LCD panels are generally brighter while displaying SDR content, so you often need to increase the brightness on an OLED panel to compensate. This is why I'm always quick to adjust the brightness setting depending on the monitor I get; if it's an IPS or TN, I lower it, but if it's an OLED, I increase it to 80%—or sometimes even 100%.

Likewise, I increase the contrast to get deeper blacks while making sure I don't lose detail in the shadows. Some monitors let you go overboard with contrast, which can make highlights look blown out or cause darker areas to blend together. So, I adjust it gradually while playing a game until I find a value that looks right to me. You'll typically find both the brightness and contrast sliders in the monitor's OSD under the Picture or Image settings; some Alienware monitors even have a dedicated Brightness/Contrast section in the OSD.

Make your monitor look good right from the start

As you can see, it only takes a couple of minutes of your time to tweak all these settings, but the difference in visual quality can be night and day. So, before you're quick to write off your monitor as a bad panel, take a moment to fine-tune it to your liking. You don't need expensive calibration tools to make your monitor look better. With enough trial and error, you'll learn what a properly configured monitor should look like—just like I did—and you'll never want to settle for factory default values again. Think of it as a one-time process to unlock your monitor's full potential.