Monitor Advice

[SanadaUjiosan]

With Christmas nearing and American consumerism at its peak I've started looking into getting a new monitor. There are really only 3 things I am looking for:

I want a monitor with at least one HDMI port and one DVI port. VGA would be nice too (just as a back-up for whatever reason), but not necessary.

My current monitor is a 19". I'd like something bigger

The absolute max I'd pay is like $250, with something like $200 being the preferred price area.

Any suggestions? Even in something as broad as brands to look for/stay away from, things to take note of. I don't follow this kind of stuff so I am pretty naive as to what is out there. From what I've seen of reviews it seems there is a chance with everything to have some serious problems (of course), but it seems they are somewhat rare.

Thanks

[MidKnight]

I'll loan you $30 to buy this.

It's an IPS (great colors/viewing angles), fully adjustable and also full HD. You'll never want anything else.

...also you'll need a displayport to HDMI adapter.

If you're unwilling to compromise on the ports and price, and you never wanted pivot/height adjustments anyway, and you're okay with a bigger pixel-to-space ratio (it doesn't look too different from 18 inches away) and built-in speakers (I mean, you don't have to use them, do you?) then this could work.

All links via http://slickdeals.net/ -- seriously check that site out, it's great.

[Beherith]

Achieva Shimian 27" 2560*1440 IPS for 300$ on ebay. Got mine 2 months ago, its AMAZING!
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... or#p528820

[MidKnight]

Achieva Shimian 27" 2560*1440 IPS for 300$ on ebay. Got mine 2 months ago, its AMAZING!
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... or#p528820

That is insane!

[varikonniemi]

They have been at that price point since summer. The LG IPS panels are really great bang for the buck!

[Prominence]

Samsung PLS panel monitors are the best monitors you can get which can be pretty expensive.

The next best choice of course is IPS panels.
LG IPS panels are certainly a great choice.

[Beherith]

If you have an issue with the disadvantages of getting the korean 27" ips panels (like hard to validate warranty, DL-DVI only), then imo your next best bet is a pair of 23-24" cheap 1080p screens for 100$ each (check newegg, these exist!).

I am insanely happy with my korean monitor, its the kind of product that bar it failing, im sure to keep for at least 3-5 years.

[Forboding Angel]

In the interest of suggesting a good panel with good colors and good reliability:

http://microcenter.com/product/379552/2 ... onitor_OEM

Not everyone has 300 bucks to blow on a monitor. IPS panels fall into the same category as SSD. Awesome if you have the cash (and if you do you might as well get one), but you can live without them.

[Prominence]

Let's not confuse him with all these OEMs that are likely to use or actually use LG panels. Just simply give him good ODMs like Samsung, LG, and so forth.

[SanadaUjiosan]

I thank everyone for their suggestions, but most of the suggestions were a little more than I'd like to spend. I guess even $250 was a little much.

I ended up going with this: http://ca.asus.com/en/Display/LCD_Monitors/VS247HP/

With free shipping, and a 2 year warranty plan I ended up spending around $170, so I consider it a win. I'll report with how it performs :)

[klapmongool]

I'v noticed the monitors above have response times of 8ms and the one you picked has 2 ms. I know the importance of this specification differs between LCD/LED/IPS/etc. What do you guys think about response times? Is it worth keeping those in mind when buying a new monitor?


(yea, i'm also checking out the options, probably buying a new monitor sometime soon)

[SanadaUjiosan]

Purely speaking from "I read it on the webz", but one person in a forum discussing monitor specifications said response time was one of those things that became a market strategy, having little noticeable effect but being billed as something to look for.

I'll admit that I didn't know about the existence of the other monitor types, I thought it was CRT and LCD and that was it

[Beherith]

I have no issues with response time on my IPS. But then again, I dont play FPS games where one may find this to be an issue. It probably has very low input lag though, because there is no additional hardware (scaler) between the dvi and the panel itself.

[Prominence]

Response time is meaningless specs to look at since it's negligible difference that people can't notice.

Having fast response time like 2ms is TN panels.

TN panels have the poorest color reproduction and cheapest panel to make, but it has the fastest response time.

If the specs doesn't mention what type of panel it is, then assume it's TN panel. If it has very fast response time like 2ms or below, then that's TN panel.

IPS panels have gone down in price and they are now to the point where the price is either little bit higher or equal to that of some TN panel monitors.

For example, this one is IPS panel with $199.99 price tag
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824005240
But another TN panel monitor with same screen size have the same price tag although it has cheaper and low spec panel.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824176353
Of course, there are other TN panel monitor with same screen size, fast response time, and lower price like this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824236117
But then one can pay slightly more to get much better IPS panel.

Bigger deception comes when some company market TN panel with fast response time as some high quality gaming monitor and price jack it. I am sure there are a lot of idiots who fall for that kinds of deceptive marketing.

[Forboding Angel]

In case anyone is still looking, I just got one of these ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824116439 ), and I can affirm that the color and contrast (after calibration and setup) is absolutely fucking amazing. I am very happy with it (this after returning 4 panels that I didn't like).

It's worth noting that any LED backlit panel under 400 bucks will have issues with blue tint and hue, which sucks, but that's the way it goes.

This includes the LG panels that prom just linked to. Don't be fooled by the picture. That's just a blank panel with an image photoshopped in.

Unfortunately, if you want to spend under so 300 - 400, I would recommend against buying an LED backlit panel. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but as someone who has just worked through 3 in the 120 - 250 dollar range, stick to LCD unless you're dropping some serious cash (but of course, to me, 250 is serious cash for a monitor).

The viewsonic I linked to at the top as been by far the best for the money, however, out of the box the colors and gamma are all fucked up but once you calibrate it, it's amazing.


Sidenote: When salespeople start talking about TN vs IPS and LED vs LCD vs OLED like they are comparing their holier than thou macbooks to your lowly win7 or linux notebook, I want to fucking choke a bitch.

[Prominence]

LED backlit of $300 to $400 is very vague since cost could be higher due to larger screen size, higher resolution, or different panel types.

Phosphor have been in use for more than several decades now for filtering out blue light and other short wavelength light. It's very unlikely that the large number of manufacturers have problem that has been solved for several decades. Besides the older mercury based backlit also emit short wavelength lights underneath its phosphor coating and can have just as much blue light problem if not filtered out properly

Only thing left for possible cause of blue tint is the color tone setting. Normally the use of warm color tone setting would signifcantly reduce the emission of blue light. On more quality monitors, you have far greater control of what what lights emitted by the monitor due to additional settings.

I bought $300 to $400 range 27 inch LED backlit monitor few years back and have no blue tint issue. Several of my $30 LED bulb rated at 2700K color temperature also don't have blue light issue.

As for IPS vs TN, it's noticeable difference in color output.
LCD vs LED; they matter for LED can have higher refresh rate for reduced eye strain espcially when it comes to 3D.
It's not same as macbook vs PC comparison. For the monitor's case it's noticeable difference in hardware your getting whereas macbook vs PC comparison is more about how macbook is ridiculously price jacked when compared to same or similiar hardware of PC counterpart.

[PicassoCT]

finally some quality assurance on the advice given in irc and on the forums. About time.

[klapmongool]

Good stuff! I'll certainly keep this in mind when buying a new one. But please keep it coming. I'm probably going to spend about 150-175 euro's (about 190 - 225 dollars) on a new monitor. Are IPS monitors in that price class a better choice than the aforementioned LCD's?

[Forboding Angel]

Well some people will try to give you the impression that TN screens can't have good color. That's a load of BS. With proper calibration a $150 LCD panel can have fantastic color. I know this, because I'm looking at one right now.

That said, if you're doing photography work, an IPS screen would be the best choice, because when it comes to photography you want to be able to match real-world colors as exact as possible, at which point you probably already own a spyder for color calibration anyway.

Prom, you have not done enough research on the lower cost led backlit panels. Most, if not all, of them have a blue tint that cannot be equalized with any amount of calibration, and generally, the warmer the setting, the more blue tint, bleed, and lessened contrast you will get.

I spent hours working with 3 in the past week (I've been through 5 monitors in the past 7 days which has been one of the most frustrating experiences ever), so I have first hand knowledge of this. It sucked. The simple fact is that a bad panel is a bad panel. The high end LED backlit monitors do not have this issue, and ALL of the low cost ones do.

If you were just joe blow user it probably wouldn't bother you, but if you're doing any graphics work at all, it's completely unusable.

[Beherith]

This could be related to cheap LED backlights using white LEDS (which have a large blue spike and a wide yellow spike) and expensive ones using RGB backlights.