Fixing monitor names

XG27AQMR? What’s that?

Sony’s PlayStations use this following naming scheme. Take a guess which one is the best one.

  1. PlayStation 1
  2. PlayStation 2
  3. PlayStation 3
  4. PlayStation 4
  5. PlayStation 5

Here’s another one. Intel makes processors for computers. Take a guess which one is the “best”.

  1. i3 13100
  2. i5 13600K
  3. i7 13700F
  4. i9 13900KF

This is how clear naming schemes should work. The average consumer thinks a bigger number is better. There are always outliers to this rule, either because companies are trying to mislead buyers or there are multidimensional aspects to a product that can’t be condensed to a single number.

But one of the worst product naming schemes has to be monitor names. For example, this is the product name of my monitor: Asus ROG Strix XG27AQMR. The ‘Asus ROG Strix’ is less important, so we’ll focus on the XG27AQMR part. What does it mean?

What makes a monitor name?

Here are the important specs of a monitor, with some common values:

  1. Size (measured diagonally)
  2. Resolution
  3. Refresh rate
  4. Panel type

Unlike processors or consoles, there isn’t one overall spec that determines pricing. A bigger number number doesn’t always mean better; some people might prefer a 24 inch screen over a 32 inch one. A gaming monitor might be super fast, but a slow business monitor could have a KVM and Thunderbolt support, and a professional monitor might have perfect colour accuracy and high pixel density.

So, monitor names tried to convey all of the product’s features into the name; the size, connectivity, refresh rate, panel type, and more. Except, no one really knows what the name means in the end because there are too many input parameters.

Let’s go back to the XG27AQMR and look at the specs:

  1. 27 inches
  2. 1440p
  3. IPS panel
  4. 300 Hz refresh rate

That’s all I can say about the name just by the specs alone. There are still 3 letters that I have no clue about. Monitor names either use a letter or number to indicate which year the product was made in, but I’m not sure about mine. When I search for “XG27” on Asus’ website, I get a bunch of products that are very similar:

How is a buyer supposed to distinguish these?

And this is just within Asus’ products that start with “XG27”. There are monitors with “XG32”, ones that start with “PG”, and so on. And I haven’t talked about the tens of other manufacturers which use completely different naming schemes. Because monitors specs are so multidimensional and every manufacturer uses different nomenclature, it’s really hard to make product names that don’t sound ridiculous.

So let’s try to fix this problem.

Examples

To start, let’s look at some monitor names that other manufacturers made. This will provide clues to how names are currently made.

Alienware AW3423DWF

A very popular OLED monitor from Alienware/Dell.

LG 27GL83A-B

I can barely say what each letter or number means.

Gigabyte M32U

Wow. What a straightforward name.

Samsung Odyssey OLED G9

Hmmm… this one is pretty nice too.

AOC 24G2SP

Nevermind, the names are still bad.

The new naming scheme

In hindsight, I’m not sure how much the examples above helped. If anything, they just proved that current monitor names are tongue twisters and there are no standards. Let’s start and see if we can save the names.

Shorter is better

Shorter names are more memorable and you can actually type them into a search bar. The catch is that they don’t reveal a lot of the monitor’s specs. However, I think it’s a worthy tradeoff. Buyers should always read/watch a comprehensive review before any purchase anyways.

The point is, “bigger = better” should hold true. Android 14 should be perceived as being better than Android 13.

Incrementor

All monitor names above have some value that indicates a product’s generation (even though I don’t know which one it is), like the differentiator between an iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. A number or letter should work. I’ll use a letter. We’ll start with “A” indicating a first generation product. The next generation will use “B”, and so on.

Segmentation

While all the monitors I mentioned up to now were gaming focused, this naming scheme should be able to work for all products a company makes. For a simple 2 product line example, the gaming segment can use “Adrenaline”, and the business segment can use “Pro”.

Specs to include

Generally, “bigger number better” works in the monitor space too. Faster refresh rate and higher resolution are objectively better, and I think most people would consider a bigger screen to be better. But trying to convey 3 specs into a product name is hard. Out of the three, refresh rate tends to be the more hidden feature. We’ll try to fit screen size and resolution into the name.

I think Samsung’s simple nomenclature of a “G9” (and “G8”, “G7”, etc.) can work very well. The problem with Samsung is that their last generation G9 was also a G9. The incrementor will prevent this kind of confusion. We now have the basics of a generation indicator and a number for bigger = better. For example, the “A8” monitor is better than “A4”.

Screen size

We can try the Apple approach and use “Plus” to indicate a bigger screen size. So the “A8 Plus” is bigger than the normal “A8”. Conversely, we can use “Mini” or an equivalent to indicate a smaller panel. For example, most 4K monitors are 32 inches. However, some 4K monitors are 27 inches big.

Now let’s add ultrawides into the name. Let’s append “Wide” to denote this. So now a 34 inch ultrawide A8 is the “A8 Wide”, and a 38 inch ultrawide A8 is the “A8 Wide Plus”. Maybe a shorter “+” will work too.

If the ultrawide indicator makes the name too long, it can be implied by segmenting ultrawide to only certain tiers. For example, only the A7 and up have ultrawide options, or only the A10 is the ultrawide product.

Panel type - for OLED

OLED monitors are becoming popular quickly. If a monitor uses an OLED panel, perhaps it can be indicated by the word “OLED” like Samsung monitors, or appending a letter to the product name.

Resolution

In the real monitor market, higher resolution products are typically only found at higher price points. And since we can’t just keep appending words to product names, we can try the “higher number = more premium” implication.

For example, the A3 and A4 are 1080p products. A5 to A7 is 1440p, and A8 to A10 are 4K. The numbers can be shifted around to make room for higher 5K and 6K resolutions if needed, or just extend the numbers to 11 or beyond.

Test cases

With some basics established, let’s test out the naming scheme.

Pro A3
1080p, IPS panel, 24 inch, 60 Hz, 2024 model
Adrenaline C8 OLED Mini
4K, OLED panel, 27 inch, 144 Hz, 2026 model
Adrenaline A5 Plus
1440p, IPS panel, 27 inch, 120 Hz, 2024 model
Pro B10+ Wide
5K, 38 inch ultrawide, 240 Hz, 2025 model

I think it kind of works. The worst you can get from these naming rules is “Adrenaline A9 OLED Wide Plus”, but this is still better than trying to guess what the AOC Q27G3XMN is.

However, the real world monitor market has odd cases. For example, there are 1080p, 24 inch monitors that use TN panels. TN panels are known for bad colour and viewing angles, often associated with extremely budget monitors. This combination sounds like a budget monitor that was made 10 years ago, but it was actually an esports monitor with a 540 Hz refresh rate, made in 2023, and costs $900 USD.

The easiest way to deal with these outliers is to append a * to the name, like A4*. I haven’t given much thought to how other outliers can disrupt the rules, but the new naming rules can’t result in gibberish names again. For now, special monitors can use *, or maybe the letter “S”. So the $900 monitor from before could be the “Adrenaline A4S”, or maybe use a different prefix to get “Hyper Adrenaline A4”.

Conclusion

Current monitor naming conventions suck. Every manufacturer has its own dictionary for how each letter is used, and the average consumer will be able to guess maybe 1 or 2 parts of the name at most. Shorter names used by Samsung, Gigabyte, and a few more manufacturers are the way to go.

Monitor specs are, again, multidimensional. Having a rigid “bigger = better” system hides the details, but that’s the only major downside I can think of. And most buyers instinctvely follow the “bigger = better” mentality anyways.

So in the end, I can continue to call my monitor the XG27AQMR or I can nickname it the Adrenaline G6. The second sounds way better, even if it gets rid of some details. Plus, it’s far easier to read into a product name if the name is made of words instead of a seemingly random string. “Adrenaline C9 Mini OLED” can become “G27ODB-F”, and you can decide which one sounds worse.