[zoog]

I've been looking around in some shops for a new monitor. I made up my mind that I want at least 23" and run a resolution of 1920x1200. I found out that many cheap monitors only have regular VGA(?) connection (the blue old school one), while the more "expensive" ones (or at least the ones that are not on the bottom end) have that white socket or even HDMI(?). I don't know why you should switch to that white socket, from what I've heard it's digital compared to analog. No clue if it gives any difference in quality though (probably). I will only hook it up to the computer.

It needs to be capable of gaming and the structure needs to be a bit solid. I saw a pretty nice one in the shop the other day, an HP 2309m (sorry, the url forces me to the Dutch site of HP). But I have a feeling that I'm paying for the extra stuff which is that digital white connection and HDMI. On top of that it has somekind of superbright crap on it, basicly reflective material on the screen. I'm not sure about that.

The "v" model is 40 euro ($55) cheaper and will get me the same thing but only with analog input (VGA?) and without the superbright stuff.

Any other recommendations? I'm looking for a pricerange of about 190 ~ 240 euro (USD $260 ~ $330,- ).

[galzohar]

Note that you linked a a monitor with resolution of 1920X1080 and not 1920X1200. 1:1000 static and 1:3000 dynamic is pretty poor quality. The good ones generally have at LEAST 1:10000 and up to 1:50000 dynamic (and usually not list static, unfortunately). My monitor is 2ms so I don't really know how much higher you can go without hurting quality, some people here said 5ms is fine, dunno if more is OK too or not. Anyway keep an eye on latency too.

When I looked at 2 similar monitors, one with 1:10000 and one with 1:30000, it was a bit hard to tell the difference but there was a difference. when it comes to 1:3000 monitors though, it's easy to see their inferior quality.

I was going to buy 24" Samsung 2433BW 1920X1200 5ms 1:20000, but ended up not because I couldn't find it on display in any shop and my father decided he doesn't want my 22" LG W2284F 1680X1050 2ms 1:30000 badly enough.

Another thing to notice about monitors is the light bleeding from the edges. My LG W2284F has very very little bleeding that's only barely somewhat noticeable when the entire screen is black (during screen saver for example).

Edited by galzohar, 18 June 2009 - 12:50 PM.

[zoog]

galzohar, on Jun 18 2009, 08:49 PM, said:

Note that you linked a a monitor with resolution of 1920X1080 and not 1920X1200. 1:1000 static and 1:3000 dynamic is pretty poor quality. The good ones generally have at LEAST 1:10000 and up to 1:50000 dynamic (and usually not list static, unfortunately). My monitor is 2ms so I don't really know how much higher you can go without hurting quality, some people here said 5ms is fine, dunno if more is OK too or not. Anyway keep an eye on latency too.

Strange, the shop where I found this monitor had it listed as 1920x1200.

galzohar, on Jun 18 2009, 08:49 PM, said:

I was going to buy 24" Samsung 2433BW 1920X1200 5ms 1:20000, but ended up not because I couldn't find it on display in any shop and my father decided he doesn't want my 22" LG W2284F 1680X1050 2ms 1:30000 badly enough.

Yeah, I heard the 2433BW is a pretty nice setup. Don't like the light bleeding though. 5ms is good enough I think, don't know what I have now, it's the old one from my girlfriend, and it was not an expensive one (very cheap actually) so the ms is probably high.

[galzohar]

zoog, on Jun 19 2009, 04:46 PM, said:

Yeah, I heard the 2433BW is a pretty nice setup. Don't like the light bleeding though. 5ms is good enough I think, don't know what I have now, it's the old one from my girlfriend, and it was not an expensive one (very cheap actually) so the ms is probably high.

The light bleeding is the main reason I wanted to look for it on display before buying it, but couldn't find a shop that has it on display. I'm probably sticking with my W2284F for a while though, other than the 1680X1050 resolution, it's simply an awesome monitor.

[Psychomorph]

Wow, they got a new version of the Dell 27", I want one.

http://reviews.cnet....7-33913833.html

[Psychomorph]

Psychomorph, on 21 March 2010 - 04:26 PM, said:

Wow, they got a new version of the Dell 27", I want one.

http://reviews.cnet....7-33913833.html

Haha, I got one.
Well, my 2709W got those infamous red lines at the right side when in cool state. I called Dell and within three days they exchanged, but instead of the old model gave me the newer U2711 (not brand new of course, a used one but in excellent shape).
I like the 16:9 format with the higher resolution. The on/off button is finally a... well, button, much better and the touch sensors improved, better options. Overall I'm glad I got the newer version!

Some things confuse me though. The previous monitor had the S-PVA panel, while the new one has the supposedly better H-IPS panel. It is known that the S-PVA panel, despite being inferior, has a better blackness level, which I can confirm and find it a real shame actually (really loved the rich black of the old monitor ). However, despite that, it is said that the H-IPS has better viewing angles and color. I can tell that the viewing angle was better with the old one and the picture clearer. The new one has this silverish shine, especially at the bottom right (straight frontal view, slightly from above). Also, when viewed from the side, the screen turns kind of bright grey and colors sorta less vibrant, which again was not the case with the old monitor as far as I remember (I am sure about that because I was always amazed how the old monitor looked like a printed picture from the side, while this one looks rather like an LCD).
I read a hardware forum and they made a comparison with a side view between a S-IPS and H-IPS monitors (picture shown with the monitors having a dark wallpaper). The older S-IPS had a strong sliverish grey shine, while the newer and improved H-IPS was darker. The S-IPS kind of reminds me of how the U2711 that I got as exchange looks from the side.

So what is going on? Did they screw me and put a S-IPS panel into the monitor, or worse? Why does the supposedly better IPS panel look worse than the supposedly inferior S-PVA panel? It doesn't really look bad, only in comparison to the old one it is slightly disappointing, while it is supposed to be a superior panel type.

Any thoughts? Maybe I'm just confusing things? Maybe the better black level of the old monitor just made things appear better? Maybe I'm just imagining things.


Another question. I use the DisplayPort. When I turn the monitor off, I hear a windows "device unplugged" sound. Not a problem, but when I switch it on again, all the windows and browsers are resized and aligned at the top left corner. Very annoying. Do you know a way to prevent this?

[Psychomorph]

I played a bit around with the settings (reduced brightness, added more contrast) and it looks better now.

Regarding the view angles, they are indeed good, but as a reviewer confirmed, black fades into grey (mostly when looking down from the top side).

Colors are less oversaturated with this monitor as with my previous one and I enjoy the higher resolution and the 16:9 format.

What sucks though is the displayport connection and the DVI cable from the previous monitor doesn't work properly, because this one requires a dual link DVI cable. Dell didn't tell nor gave me one, I could call and ask for it, but I already ordered one from Amazon.

[Psychomorph]

After using the U2711 for a while I can say that the colors, brightness and color temperature, aswell as the viewing angles and resolution are excellent, much better than my older oversaturated and more heat producing (display) 2709W.

The real problem with the new one is what the old one did best, the black. The U2711 has not such a nice deep black and viewing from the side, the picture stays good, but the black (and dark colors) fades away into silver. Also the lower outer corners appear somewhat brighter. It's not lightbleeding, more like a reflection based on your viewangle, looking at those parts from a straight angle and it looks fine. The old monitor had those reflections too, but they were less bright and noticeable.

People say the U2711 has no lightbleeding. I'd say almost. There is still a little bit light bleeding at the top corners, like the 2709W had it, too, but they appear very dark blueish, which makes them as good as not visible, while the 2709 had them brighter and more noticeable.

Especially when playing Infiltration I always noticed a reddish tendancy with dark/black colors on the older 2709W, the new one looks better.

If you're using a brighter wallpaper and theme, than the picture looks flawless, but since I prefer dark themes and wallpapers and like night levels in games and watch films, the black is important to me. While I will surely miss it, I'm still glad I had the chance to have my old monitor being exchanged with this one. I'd say the pros outweight the cons.

[Cpl Ledanek]

Sweet that you were able to sort it out

[Psychomorph]

Yeah, I hope technology developes further soon enough, so that we might have monitors with perfect black and no light bleeding, like combining the best features of CRT and TFT/LCD.

[Cpl Ledanek]

not sure if this is an option for you:

try not to have anything that will glare on your monitor, i.e lamp or some multi-color posters facing your monitor.
the wall facing my monitor is blank with 50% gray paint.
it helps reduce any unnecessary effect on my monitor.