I've been using 43" 4K HDR smart TV's lately as my monitor for all my work. My current Samsung Q60R has been spectacular. It's a bit more expensive than your budget, but my other is a Sony Bravia 43" 4K HDR as well and it was about $500 and again, would never go back to a regular monitor. Just make sure it's one of the top rated ones for using as a computer monitor and does 4.4.4 color via HDMI. This is also assuming you have a relatively modern video card, like a 1050Ti or higher to drive it.

Cheers, Pete

+1. I have a couple of 40" Samsung UHD TV's side by side. May seem like overkill, but you would be amazed how quickly your brain adjusts and it seems "normal." Really nice setup for editing and previewing large quantities of media. Text is just as crisp as a PC monitor, but you can get these cheaper - especially if you look for an openbox / refurb dealer.

Get a graphics monitor, not a gaming monitor. At normal sitting distance 24" is great. I chose a bigger 1080p screen over a 17.8" 4k screen. Probably only someone over sixty could relate to that.

. Anyone using the BenQ PD2700U DesignVue Designer? Do you do hardware calibration?

Read reviews about that monitor to see if it needs calibration. Color calibrators like a spyder cost $170. DisplayCal 3 software is free. It is more important if you or a team are using multiple monitors/laptops for same projects. You need to know you're seeing everything the same.

What do you consider the best monitor for video editing? I'm in the market for a 27" for about $500. Anyone using the BenQ PD2700U DesignVue Designer? Do you do hardware calibration?

@wilri001 I use the 32 inch version of that same monitor. Only negative in my book is that it doesn't have freesync which would have been a nicer fit with my AMD graphics card. Also, if you're considering it for the built in kvm switch, forget about that... it sucks. Used it's kvm for about a month til it wore me down and I got an external one. My only substantive complaint is that it's hdmi and display ports are picky... absolutely will not take a display port to hdmi adapter cable, unlike every other display I've ever used. Guess I'm picky too because I love it. I have an XRite calibrator but the color balance was spot on when I got it.

What do you consider the best monitor for video editing? I'm in the market for a 27" for about $500. Anyone using the BenQ PD2700U DesignVue Designer? Do you do hardware calibration?

@wilri001 I use the 32 inch version of that same monitor. Only negative in my book is that it doesn't have freesync which would have been a nicer fit with my AMD graphics card. Also, if you're considering it for the built in kvm switch, forget about that... it sucks. Used it's kvm for about a month til it wore me down and I got an external one. My only substantive complaint is that it's hdmi and display ports are picky... absolutely will not take a display port to hdmi adapter cable, unlike every other display I've ever used. Guess I'm picky too because I love it. I have an XRite calibrator but the color balance was spot on when I got it.

How well does the ambient lighting adjustment work? Do you set it on sRGB? I'm having trouble producing a video that looks the same on other devices. My current 250 cd/m monitor doesn't have a sRGB setting, just all those presets like photo, game, reader, etc. So I was seeing some nice rich color saturations that just look too dark on other devices. Since this one is 350 cd/m, I will probably love the nice bright picture, but I'm concerned about get the brightness to a "standard" value to look good for the YouTube target audience.

I don't use automatic ambient light control myself but there is a setting for that called "eye protect". I usually set the color to "standard" but there are settings for rec709 and sRGB which I'd probably switch to if I do any more dvd or bluray authoring. At the moment I have 3 computers all with different AMD video cards connected through a hdmi switch so I tend to only use the XRite+BenQ adjustment buttons for color balance, brightness, and contrast. Which I have not had to change since I got this monitor about 6 months ago. I use Windows Calibrator, however, for gama, because it seems to vary from one graphics card to another and Windows saves it on each machine while the color balance seems to hold better across machines. The Windows gama adjustment makes the screen a little brighter than I might set it myself, but videos for YouTube tend to come out a little richer when I look at them on my uncalibrated laptop and I'm with you on that. You might want to look at the manual before deciding and possibly consider a model with a hood if ambient light is a big concern... I personally don't like a hood but many colorists swear by them.

https://www.benq.com/en-us/support/downloads-faq/products/monitor/pd2700u/manual.html

I think you should try a graphic monitor for this. Here is the list os some of the monitors you should try https://productsxp.com/best-bezel-less-4k-monitors/

I use a 27inch 1440P monitor, It is maybe comparable to a 1080P 24inch as far as size of text and objects but you see more on screen without having to scroll etc. I prefer it. If you were to get a 4K monitor in a monitor size, you have the problem of not being able to use it in it's native resolution at 27inches unless you sit what I would consider ridiculously close to it, 32inch for 4K is a better size (in my opinion) You don't want to use scaling

I bought a Samsung 28" 4K LU28E590D (or similar code) about 4 years ago. It recently failed [massive flickering even when standing alone without any connection to a computer] and it recently went out with the yearly hard rubbish council pick-up. As of a few months ago when I replaced the monitor, it was still the same 4K offering from Samsung - and exactly the same price as of 4 years ago ($400 AUD).

But the big plus with a 4K monitor - you can watch 4K on Youtube in full 4K. It's brilliant.

In regard to NLE editing, I haven't seen a big difference in editing in Vegas Pro with an HD or UHD monitor other than the display size which is mostly adjustable via Windows display options and the display selections that are more often available these days in video apps.

If you want to be fully professional (that being 'the best'), you'd need to go for one of the pro HD or 4K monitors which are, unfortunately, very expensive.