View Full Version : Monitor advice
Alien King
25 Sep 2009, 17:01
You lot know things. I need a new monitor on account of my current one being unsuitable for going to Uni (CRTs are fairly bulky).
Thing is, I don't know what counts as a good LCD monitor.
Looking at 19" at the moment, but obviously bigger is better if I can afford it (but above 22" is probably impractical).
Is it just a case of bigger numbers are better (resolution, contrast ratio etc)? Excluding delay time of course. 5ms seems to be average for that, but I've seen a 2ms one with a res of 1440x900 for 19" one. Is that good?
worMatty
25 Sep 2009, 21:11
Ha, thanks, AK ;-) When buying a monitor you should try to ensure that the display quality is excellent. Resolution and stated contrast ratio are facts, but they do not account for quality. The only way you can ensure that is to spend money on more expensive monitors, but if you are willing to do some digging around, look through reviews and recommendations and try to gain some first-hand experience you'll find a really nice, reasonably-priced panel.
Watch out for:
Poor horizontal and vertical viewing angles
Horribly dull colour and brightness
Inconsistent sharpness and clarity, with certain areas of the display looking softer around the edges
thomasp
25 Sep 2009, 21:14
If you want decent colours avoid TN-spec LCD panels. They can't handle millions of colours and basically "fake" what colours they need. S-IPS and H-IPS are the better ones.
Alien King
25 Sep 2009, 21:17
Well, I appreciate it would be best to look at them first hand, but I've left this a bit late (I'm going to Uni next week). Best I can do is look at reviews on the net.
What I'm worried about most is making a mistake and buying one with an undesirable resolution (if that's even possible). Considering I'll be playing games on it, that's an irriating consideration. What the quality is like when doing work is more or less irrelevant.
Oh oh! Get a Samsung Syncmaster 2233RZ, because you want to play your games in stereoscopic 3D!!
Thread derail:
There are probably other flat screen monitors now that are capable of stereoscopic 3D. Any monitor with 120Hz will do (Less than that and it gets all messed up). Up until recently only CRT monitors have been able to perform that high. I tried 3D gaming back when Battlefield Vietnam and Rome Total War were just released as a friend of mine had 3D glasses. Even though those games are pretty weak graphically by todays standard, it was quite neat. "OMG The models are actually way outside and far behind the monitor!". Also since it's been available for so long I find it funny whenever you hear that the movie industry are making lots of cinemas capable of 3D "because you can't do it at home yet, which will drive people to the cinemas"
Alien King
26 Sep 2009, 11:49
Oh oh! Get a Samsung Syncmaster 2233RZ, because you want to play your games in stereoscopic 3D!!
I have a budget of sorts. That exceeds it. :p
Unless you can find it for less than £130 ish. Even then, the fact it's 50cm wide might be a problem.
They can't handle millions of colours
God damn stupid "I don't know what a computer is" Mac terminology.
It's called 24-Bit!
*awaits banning for stating that Macs are for people who know nothing about computers*
Alien King
26 Sep 2009, 12:01
God damn stupid "I don't know what a computer is" Mac terminology.
It's called 24-Bit!
To be fair, that is millions of colours. 16.7 of them to be precise.
16.7 million colours that is.
It seems all the affordable monitors are TN, so I'm stuck there. Well, it's either that or have a crap response time.
thomasp
26 Sep 2009, 12:05
God damn stupid "I don't know what a computer is" Mac terminology.
It's called 24-Bit!
*awaits banning for stating that Macs are for people who know nothing about computers*
What's a "computer"?
Akuryou13
26 Sep 2009, 13:49
dunno about brands or anything, but look for an HDMI monitor. they cost the same and the picture's a bit better. plus you can hook a PS3 or something into it directly :p
Alien King
26 Sep 2009, 14:00
Well, I've gone and ordered a 22" Samsung monitor now. It had good reviews and was rated quite highly, unlike anything else I could find.
It is TN though, but has a 2ms response time. Considering I hope to use it for games, I think that's acceptable.
The downside is that I may have difficulty with desk space. I've been assigned temporary accommodation where I have to share a single room.
thomasp
26 Sep 2009, 16:12
You'll probably find TN fine unless you're doing a lot of photograph retouching/colour balancing and printing work - only then do the lack of colours (or bits :p) pose a problem with the TN screen.
All I know is that if you have a Mac you have to share it with everybody else, because Macs are not personal computers.
thomasp
26 Sep 2009, 18:03
All I know is that if you have a Mac you have to share it with everybody else, because Macs are not personal computers.
I find it the opposite. Nobody wants to use my mac because they don't know how to use it. However it does have Windows installed on it too, so it can be a personal computer if it wants to :p
Akuryou13
26 Sep 2009, 18:56
All I know is that if you have a Mac you have to share it with everybody else, because Macs are not personal computers.never DID understand those terms....
SupSuper
27 Sep 2009, 01:11
never DID understand those terms....I think it just got shortened from "IBM PC compatible" over time, even if the rest are still technically "personal computers".
Star Worms
27 Sep 2009, 01:26
Well, I've gone and ordered a 22" Samsung monitor now. It had good reviews and was rated quite highly, unlike anything else I could find.
It is TN though, but has a 2ms response time. Considering I hope to use it for games, I think that's acceptable.
The downside is that I may have difficulty with desk space. I've been assigned temporary accommodation where I have to share a single room.
I have a Samsung 226BW; you won't be disappointed.
Akuryou13
27 Sep 2009, 06:18
Samsung 2220wm here, and equally not disappointed.
worMatty
27 Sep 2009, 23:41
SyncMaster 244T here. I can have two instances of OD open at the same time along side each other! It's great.
Akuryou13
28 Sep 2009, 01:30
I can have two instances of OD open at the same time along side each other! It's great.why is that a feature of the monitor?
worMatty
28 Sep 2009, 22:23
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
On my crappy work laptop I can have two instances of OD open at the same time along side each other! It's great.
Akuryou13
28 Sep 2009, 23:04
why is THAT a big deal?
Star Worms
28 Sep 2009, 23:48
I do that sometimes when I have to copy something to a document - it's far easier than constantly minimising all the time.
worMatty
29 Sep 2009, 20:03
why is THAT a big deal?
It was a joke. Get over it.
Paul.Power
29 Sep 2009, 20:57
SyncMaster 244T here. I can have two instances of OD open at the same time along side each other! It's great.
The 200% Off Topic Thread
It was a joke. Get over it.
Oh, so you were just referencing the size of the monitor. I thought you meant it had some fancy multiple desktop feature or something, like an inbuilt KVM switch, haha.
Alien King
29 Sep 2009, 22:13
Shiny monitor arrived today.
Samsung Syncmaster T220
It barely fits in the space left on my desk. I need to replace my current desktop wallpaper though, which looks ugly on a wide-screen. Doom 3 will therefore be the first game I load with this monitor.
Akuryou13
30 Sep 2009, 00:34
It was a joke. Get over it.your joke failed :p
FutureWorm
30 Sep 2009, 01:58
your joke failed :p
maybe your sense of humor failed
Akuryou13
30 Sep 2009, 02:17
maybe your sense of humor failedneither me nor bloopy even identified it as being a joke. that pretty much screams joke-fail to me :p
What do you mean?
^Matty apparently didn't even understand Akuryou's reply to his 'joke'. That's a double fail. Surely if you made a joke, you should recognize when someone is falling for it. :p
Bump because I'm going to be buying an LCD monitor. I do a little bit of image editing and don't fancy the idea of the TN colours. On the other hand, a TN's likely to have less blur & ghosting and be somewhat cheaper, so it might win in the end.
This HP with an IPS panel sounds like it could be relevant, Bloops. Have a 100+ page forum thread about it:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1491561
I was deciding between it and the Dell U2410 for a while, but with the Dell's higher price tag and the apparently lower chances of getting a perfect specimen on the first try with it, I'm pretty much convinced now. Unless something new starts being sold around these parts, like maybe a decent 120Hz LCD screen.
I'm thinking of buying a Dell Ultrasharp monitor, they are fairly cheap and have very good colors supposedly. Only downside is that they are kinda slow so that they're not great for games, but I'd use it as my secondary. Right now I have a 22" Samsung 226BW that's nice and fast, and a 4:3 19" one beside it, but using two monitors with different aspect ratios is kinda annoying, and the small one has crappy gray colors so It's no good for keeping image references on.
As you've been talking about the budget already, I assume you won't afford a pixel class 1 monitor, so whatever you're gonna choose, buy it from a shop that offers a "defective pixel insurance".
I paid €15 extra, in case that I have a defective pixel or sub-pixel within the first month of purchase.
And of course, when I unwrapped my monitor I had one, right there in the middle of the screen.
I went back the same day, the clerk quickly checked and confirmed it, and I got another one.
Do it! Really.
While it's certainly to be expected that you will get a defective pixel after several years, it's really most annoying when you have one right from the start, and in the middle of your view.
More so if it's a permanently lit, white one.
Also, go for Full HD (1920*1080), but don't choose a too large monitor, 24" maximum, I'd say.
LED backlight seems to be the new standard today, as they produce much more and homogeneous light, while using less energy and having a longer life expectancy.
(If a fluorescent tube in a monitor breaks, half the screen is black and a repair most likely is more expansive than a new screen.)
Thanks for the tip about LEDs and dead pixels. I like the look of the Samsung XL2370. Very low response time and no input lag to speak of. Low power usage and long life are bonuses too.
The prices here are very similar for both the XL2370 and the HP ZR24W. The negative is probably exaggerated in that 100-page forum thread, but it sounds like the HP is prone to defects (or the IPS users are just fussier :p). I suppose it is at the cheap end of the IPS scale, whereas the Samsung is an above-average TN.
A reputable shop here carries the Samsung, and I happen to have a gift voucher to use there. The price is rather bloated on their website, but I'm sure I could talk them down.
The price is rather bloated on their website, but I'm sure I could talk them down.
If they have some dead pixel insurance, maybe you can get that for free as a rebate.
If they have none, make sure to get some goodwill deal to be able to take it right back and exchange it.
Because most commercial monitors are class 2 ones, they legally can have up to 11 (!) dead pixels in total per 1 million pixels.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixelfehlerklasse#Pixelfehlerklassen
And it doesn't matter where they are, so one right in the center, and the whole monitor is useless IMO.
The ZR24w is a business class monitor, so even though IPS panels are more prone to pixel defects and suffer from white glow when viewed at extreme angles or from too close, people in the US at least have generally had very positive experience with HP sending someone over with a replacement at no cost in case something wasn't as it should be.
On the other hand, the Sammy is a more or less perfect choice for playing games on, as long as you can live with fewer vertical pixels and the abysmal viewing angles inherent to all TN's. The LED backlight has also been known to change temperature slightly with time, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem in your case, I think, since colour accuracy isn't that critical. The XL2370 is otherwise really nice in that regard out of the box.
Still, bonz is right. It's comforting to know in advance how much trouble replacing a defective unit will be. I'll likely be buying my next screen online, so what I'll do is inspect every inch of it rigorously when it gets here and in case something's off, take advantage of the law that lets you return anything bought online withinin 15 days of purchase without having to specify a reason for it. Not sure if and how that works there.
The LED suffers from a bit of backlight bleed, also not really an issue for me.
Ah yeah, that'll be because the LED's are actually placed around the edge of the panel on that model, not behind it. Could be problematic in movies and very dark scenes in games, but there's not a lot you can do, really. The HP ZR24w bleeds a little too, though it varies from unit to unit.
I've ordered online and paid a little bit extra to get it from a decent quality shop with no dismal reviews. They have a pickup option, which is great because couriers are frustrating when I'm never home on weekdays. NZ$565. Now they've updated their website to 'In Showroom Stock' instead of 'Order Online'... I would've just gone there in person, but oh well.
The shop I mentioned earlier turned out to be pretty useless, but they would've been even more expensive.
Samsung has a 3 year zero dead pixel policy on 19-24" monitors, so no problems there.
as long as you can live with fewer vertical pixels
I never had more than 960 before, so no complaints from me. Picked up the monitor on Saturday. Looking at this test (http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php#angleGrey) I can see why some people hate TN, but when actually using the monitor I don't really notice the effect.
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