Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Tyrian on November 07, 2010, 04:16:51 pm
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For a few years now, I've been using a NEC MultiSync 90GX2 (http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/nec-multisync-90gx2-flat/4507-3174_7-31594505.html). It's served me well over the years and still works great, but the 1280 x 1024 resolution just isn't enough real estate for me now that I'm dual majoring in electrical and computer engineering. I want to relegate it to a secondary monitor, so I'm looking around at some other options. Here's what I'm looking for in a new monitor:
-- 1080 vertical resolution.
-- Approximately 16" in height. (I'm set on these so that it'll line up nicely with my old monitor and give me some uniform screen space. Also, it's a standard resolution.)
-- Traditional contrast ratio of at least 1000:1. (My NEC is 700:1.)
-- Cost of under $200.
This is what I've got on NewEgg so far: Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007617%20600030155%20600012357&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Pagesize=50)
My problem is this: I'm looking at all these brand names and, as I haven't kept up with monitor tech at all, I'm not seeing familiar companies. Also, I'm seeing this "wonderous" mix of contrast ratios, including traditional ratios, dynamic ratios, and ASUS's ASCR ratios. Anyone have any suggestions to weed out the valid specs from the BS? I've done research on the traditional and dynamic ratios, and the former is good while the latter is only quasi-useful. The ASCR is proprietary, so I can't tell if it's valid or made with handwavium.
Any tips?
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im using a samsung syncmaster p2570, and i really like this monitor. it set me back 300 bucks but it was worth it.
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I recently got a HANNSG Hi221. It's hella bright in some situations and required some tweaking, but the picture is great and it's relatively inexpensive. Oh and it's 21 inches @ 1680x1050.
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Are there any monitors out there that do better than 1080 vertical resolution? The 1080p standard seems to be hyped all over the place, but that's only a hundred pixels more than my six-year-old CRT running at 1280x960. I've never fully understood the huge push for widescreen in a computing context, since at least in my opinion, tasks like forum-browsing benefit far more from increased vertical space, rather than horizontal.
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this is a nice one:
(http://www.clevergal.net/images/Down_Under_2006/monitor_lizard.jpg)
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this is a nice one:
I award you one internet.
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samsungs are really good.
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I've flipped through some of the Samsungs, and they're really nice looking, especially the Samsung Syncmaster P2570. I just can't afford the $250 price tag that a lot of them seem to be carrying...
One thing that I saw in my earlier link was Asus monitors that have a *lot* of really good reviews. Plus, they're in my price range. When did Asus get into monitors? And is their apparent good reputation for them accurate?
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personally, i'm a little wary when companies start expanding out into fking everything like asus seems to. could be completely unfounded, but i tend to stick to companies that focus on whatever product.
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i dont even consider anything asus makes to be very high quality. ive just had too many problems with their stuff.
Are there any monitors out there that do better than 1080 vertical resolution? The 1080p standard seems to be hyped all over the place, but that's only a hundred pixels more than my six-year-old CRT running at 1280x960. I've never fully understood the huge push for widescreen in a computing context, since at least in my opinion, tasks like forum-browsing benefit far more from increased vertical space, rather than horizontal.
there are higher resolution screens but rarely in large sizes. but 1080p comes in handy for watching movies and is nice for games that support widescreen. most of the guis in operating systems and most software seems to be geared mainly for a 4:3 aspect ratio. however 16:9 does take better advantage of the human field of vision. i remember running my old crts at 1600x1200, i kinda wish they would have used that resolution on a few lcd screens. only reason i decided to use 16:9 is because of how common its becoming.
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I know that widescreen does take better advantage of our wide field of vision, and I'll admit that it can look really nice for gaming and movies, but I don't really see it as anything but a detriment for text purposes. There's a reason why magazines and newspapers publish articles in relatively-narrow columns; hell, even published books limit the number of characters per line. The longer a line stretches across a page/screen, the harder it becomes for your eyes to follow it, and it gets easier to mistakenly jump onto the previous or next line. To avoid this on something like a 1920x1080 screen, you'd have to scale down your browser/document window horizontally...which essentially nixes some of the benefits that widescreen gives you anyway. Like I said, I know why that standard is pushed so hard, but what I don't understand is why 4:3 seems to have almost completely died out. That goes for TVs, too...things like older game systems look like ass when played on a 1080p screen. :p
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i dont even consider anything asus makes to be very high quality. ive just had too many problems with their stuff.
Here's a contradictory anecdote. :)
One thing that I saw in my earlier link was Asus monitors that have a *lot* of really good reviews. Plus, they're in my price range. When did Asus get into monitors? And is their apparent good reputation for them accurate?
Asus started selling monitors under their brand, about 2-3 years ago (at least thats when I noticed). I am a huge fan of Asus main boards. I don't think they actually make the panels themselves though. Asus has been making laptops for much longer, and have earned a fantastic reputation in that as well.
As for the monitors, from what I have seen they have very good picture quality, the screens are evenly bright with a good contrast and great colour saturation (ie. they don't look washed out like the cheap Acers/E-machines do). They also have a wide viewing angle. Unfortunately, I have never owned any.
Personally, I have yet to see one returned to the store where I work at for any reason (which is more than I can say for E-machines).
To directly answer your last question, yes, I think there is every reason to believe that the apparent good reputation is actually very well deserved.
I've flipped through some of the Samsungs, and they're really nice looking, especially the Samsung Syncmaster P2570. I just can't afford the $250 price tag that a lot of them seem to be carrying...
My current monitors are Samsung SyncMaster 932bfs. I haven't had any issues with mine, and in general what I have seen and understand from my research is that Samsung along with Dell, HP, and Apple are the premium monitor manufacturers. Thats not to say the monitors are any better, they just have more features.
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:nervous:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews3255.html
:yes2:
:wakka:
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i dont even consider anything asus makes to be very high quality. ive just had too many problems with their stuff.
Here's a contradictory anecdote. :)
perhaps i should have just said asus is ****. but i was trying to be nice. :D
I know that widescreen does take better advantage of our wide field of vision, and I'll admit that it can look really nice for gaming and movies, but I don't really see it as anything but a detriment for text purposes. There's a reason why magazines and newspapers publish articles in relatively-narrow columns; hell, even published books limit the number of characters per line. The longer a line stretches across a page/screen, the harder it becomes for your eyes to follow it, and it gets easier to mistakenly jump onto the previous or next line. To avoid this on something like a 1920x1080 screen, you'd have to scale down your browser/document window horizontally...which essentially nixes some of the benefits that widescreen gives you anyway. Like I said, I know why that standard is pushed so hard, but what I don't understand is why 4:3 seems to have almost completely died out. That goes for TVs, too...things like older game systems look like ass when played on a 1080p screen. :p
its not really that wide screen is inherently bad for everything that needs to display large blocks of text. its that programs are not optimized to use wide screen resolutions. you could have your start menu in a side bar form and have application toolbars and menus to the sides of the screen instead of at the top and bottom. or they could display multiple things at once side by side instead of stacking stuff. id like to see things like split screen views in browsers and other text applications. i really like widescreen when programming in some ides that support side by side views. it lets you work in two (or sometimes more) files simultaineously or at 2 different places in the same file. i find stuff like this really useful. such layouts may not be as useful for viewing web pages or word processing, but considering how much multitasking is being done these days, im surprised those dont have side by side views.
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such layouts may not be as useful for viewing web pages or word processing, but considering how much multitasking is being done these days, im surprised those dont have side by side views.
Windows 7 supports a side by side view of two different windows. It is a part of Aero Snap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7#Window_management_mouse_gestures). Obviously its not implemented by an application directly like VS2010 can do, but it generally works pretty well with a large enough screen and something like Office 2007/2010 (with their ribbon bar) and a web browser.
It also falls down when you have two monitors, but another Snap feature, that allows you stretch a window to be full screen hight by touching a vertical resize to the top or the bottom of the screen, allows you get get around the dual monitor issue pretty well.
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snap is nice when dealing with programs that have fairly simple interfaces, like notepad. or working between a couple programs. but professional programs which allow for multiple files to be open in the same interface would really be powerful with split screen features. its better than having 2 instances of the software each with a duplicate interface taking up space. its better to keep both the files in the same interface so theirs not a whole lot of interface duplication. if theres one thing im picky about in a gui, its wasted space.
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I've actually had nothing but positive experiences with Asus products. That's why I was asking about their monitors. I have an Asus laptop that's three years old that I use as an experimental platform and it's performed very well in that regard.
The reason that I want widescreen is because all of my coding is done over SSH in my university's Unix share. Many times I'll have a web browser open, along with 3 or 4 text editors and a terminal. Hence my need for horizontal screen space.
I'm not really a fan of anything in widescreen less than 1080, as I think it looks unnaturally "skinny".
I think I'm going to spend some more time looking at Asus and Samsung monitors, unless anyone has any additional suggestions?
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most of the monitors ive owned have always been bought based on how cheap they are. ive only ever owned 2 lcd screens, the last one was a 19" 1280x1024 screen from a manufacturer whos name i no longer remember. before then i used whatever crt screens i could get my hands on. crt screens can be had for free if you know where to look. on the other hand ive always had a somewhat badass video card, and i thought it somewhat wasteful to be using monitors which i have acquired for practically beans with a $300+ video card. so i spent another 300 bucks and was somewhat satisfied with my samsung.
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I can't belive no one mentioned what actually matters when buying a monitor: the TFT panel.
Regardless what brand you buy, what really matters though is what technology the panel uses.
There are 3 flavors:
TN:
Pro:
- It's cheap
- It has a really good gray-to-gray response time
Con:
- Bad color fidelity, a lot of models only have 6 pixels/base color.
- Bad black level
- Narrow view angle
All in all good for gaming*, office work and nothing else. Color fidelity is so bad your graphical efforts will be butchered. View angle is too narrow and black is too bright to watch movies.
*for those who don't care that what they view looks like ****e
MVA/PVA
Pro:
- Better view angle
- Excellent black level and contrast
- Good color fidelity
Con:
- More expensive (+50-100% compared to TN)
- Worse response time than TN
- Worse color fidelity than IPS
All in all a very good compromise and excellent for watching movies.
IPS
Pro:
- Best color fidelity
- Good black level and contrast
- Very good view angles
Con:
- Very expensive! (+100-300% compared to TN)
- MVA/PVA have slightly better contrast
- Worst response time (nowadays still good enough for anything
The cream of TFT monitors, though unless you're rolling in money or produce graphics professionally you won't need one.
More on them here:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/panel_technologies.htm
Final word:
Response time and other "magic numbers" matter little nowadays. Like response time, dynamic contrast, g2g numbers, etc. Most of that is pure marketing bull****. If you see a monitor a lot more expensive chances are it is *better* too, as it uses a more expensive technology. Most monitor reviews are also useless and are nothing more than marketing rabble. Unless they used an expensive color meter and monitor calibrator like
this (http://www.xrite.com/home.aspx) then they were just japing their mouth without doing any *testing*.
You should look up your monitor before buying and should do so with a clear idea in mind as to what you want. (MVA/PVA or TN).[/list][/list]
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IPS response times are actually not far off from TNs these days. VAs are much worse in this respect. Response times in general hit the limitations of LCD technology a long time ago, and we haven't seen any real improvements there for at least 3 years.
I don't think TNs are actually that bad anymore. They still dither colors, but the viewing angles have improved and the black levels are at least as good as IPS these days. They're also the only type of display you can get with 120hz input right now. I would probably take a 120hz TN over a 60hz IPS if I was buying something today, as it makes a big difference in motion quality.
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I've actually looked a little at different panel types. Most of what I've found on NewEgg is listed as either a generic "TFT" label or as a TN panel. My current NEC is actually a three year old TN panel and I think it looks really good, so I'm inclined to agree with CP5670. I'm also aware of the dithering, but again, I can't really see any difference. Blacks look great on it too.
I also don't really have any need for a 120Hz display either. My current NEC can do either 60Hz or 75Hz, but I can't really see a difference between the two. I just set it to 75Hz on the policy of a bigger number with no performance hit is better. A 60Hz refresh rate works just as well for me.
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what does GTG mean?
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Refresh rate for TFTs is irrevelant, hence why response time become the new measure stick.
The reason is that unlike a CRT where each pixel fades between the moment it was last scanned and lit up, TFTs just display a still picture, so you get no flicker with them.
....and any more than 50 FPS, much less 60, you *won't* notice any difference, unless you had the genes of a fly mixed into your genome who can watch a 1 kHz neon light flicker.
As to color fidelity: your brain does a hell a lot of compensation, so it tricks you with its very good "image enhancement". Try this: put a TN and a PVA/MVA/IPS monitor next to each other and run them from the same computer with the same image. The difference will be like day-and-night. By just seeing a single TN you have nothing to compare color fidelity to.
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My current NEC is actually a three year old TN panel and I think it looks really good, so I'm inclined to agree with CP5670. I'm also aware of the dithering, but again, I can't really see any difference. Blacks look great on it too.
That 90GX2 was one of the best TNs back in the day. I have one on an old system too. It has the glossy coating though, which makes blacks look much better than on a matte panel. (at least with some amount of ambient light in the room; not so much in a dark room)
The worst example of TN dithering I've seen is actually in the updated nebulas in FS2, which looked nasty in motion, but newer TNs are somewhat better with this.
Refresh rate for TFTs is irrevelant, hence why response time become the new measure stick.
The reason is that unlike a CRT where each pixel fades between the moment it was last scanned and lit up, TFTs just display a still picture, so you get no flicker with them.
No, this is wrong. The refresh rate still controls how fast the display accepts pixel input from the video card. The 120hz LCDs can display higher framerates, have more flexibility with vsync and also have reduced RTC errors and input lag. I personally find the difference very noticeable even when just moving the mouse in Windows, as well as old games that can sustain high framerates.
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this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001439
OR THIS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052
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Im leaning toward the samsung but it has no DVI, is there a DVI to HDMI converter?
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I've seen the Samsung, but frankly I'm not impressed by it. The stand is *extremely* filmsy. There's no metal in it at all. Plus, at the "neck's" narrowest point is a snap joint that attaches the panel to the base. Again, all plastic. When I looked at it in the store, I just tapped the upper left corner and it started swaying wildly. It's a big problem for me, as I travel with my computer a lot.
I also took a look at that Asus too. In reading the reviews on it, the vast majority are really positive. However, if you go into the one/two egg reviews, you'll start seeing the same thing over and over again: The panels start picking up dead pixels around the 6 - 12 month period. I'm currently looking for other reviews from other sources, but I've been really busy lately, so I haven't had a lot of time to devote to it.
Over my Thanksgiving break, I hit the Best Buy near my house and looked at all their monitors. What really bugged me was that even though they all played the same source footage (not totally uniform quality, but on the whole decent, I think), there were huge disparities in image quality. On most of the monitors, there were major problems with the dithering. On the images where there was supposed to be a nice, smooth transition from white to gray, I could see blocks of pixels that were all one color, measuring 1/8" on a side from two feet away. Only one monitor could display that pattern correctly, an LG. I'll see if I can hunt up the model number; I have it written down here somewhere. Most of the monitors that had dithering issues got even worse looking when there was a lot of motion involved too. The high motion video I have the most faith in, as it was shot by BBC America, so I'm pretty sure it was the monitor. Of course, it could have all been caused by the huge splitter they had the monitors plugged into, though, but I think that's unlikely, because of the aforementioned good quality on the LG.
After that, I got so disenchanted with the quality of "modern" TN panels, that I looked at IPS monitors on a whim. I ended up stumbling across the ViewSonic VP2365wb (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116421). Granted IPS isn't "supposed" to be very good for gaming, however, there are a couple of reviews on NewEgg stating that the traditional ghosting problems incurred by gaming on an IPS panel aren't present here. I'm currently looking for other reviews to corroborate those claims, but any additional feedback would be welcome.
Thanks again!
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I got the samsung and its awesome.
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How stable is the stand on your monitor?
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demo models in stores are a TERRIBLE way to judge monitors. they have been there god knows how long (on the entire time), and have had god knows how many people screwing with (up) the settings.
my samsung's stand is fine. the only thing is the piece that sticks into the base of the monitor that the baseplate attaches to won't come back out. i just had to cut a chunk out of the styrofoam packing to make room for it when moving it. the lack of metal doesn't bother me at all.
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I always get annoyed when I think about my monitor, the monitor itself is fine for quality (though not the most stable base in the world), a Flatron W2486L, but 2 days after it arrived, the place I got it from started selling a touch-sensitive monitor of the same size for only 30 quid more :(
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How stable is the stand on your monitor?
stable enough, it isn't very pose-able but other then that no complaints. As for video quality it does dither blacks, but thats to be expected from a tn/tft. The response time is super fast and video games are great on it. So far the most annoying thing are the menu buttons. There no real buttons it just uses little light sensors so there is no tactile response. It makes adjusting the monitor a big pain.
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i just learned that my stand can tilt. it always seemed like the angle was fixed, but upon further examination i realized that it was indeed tiltable.
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I've done more digging and now I'm down to these two monitors:
Samsung BS2331 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001439)
-- or --
Viewsonic VX2450wm-LED (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-116-447&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=2#scrollFullInfo)
Right now I'm leaning more towards the Viewsonic, mostly because it's cheaper and comes with a 3 year manufacturer's warranty, as opposed to the Samsung, which only has a one year warranty. I'm probably going to buy through Amazon though, as they have a better return policy if there's a problem.
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I'd go for the samsung, looks like higher quality product, and with 2/5ths the response time, moving stuff will look better.
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What about Dell? Their prices are a bit higher but their tech support and warranty is rumored to be top-notch... and they've also released some IPS monitors with *very* competitive prices:
Dell UltraSharp U2311H (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-9270&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=6&baynote_irrank=0) - 23" wide, 320$
Dell UltraSharp U2211H (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-9271&~ck=dellSearch&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=7) - 21.5" wide, 230$.
Both of these have IPS panels and the actual (worthwhile) reviews (http://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php?subaction=showfull&id=1275291737) I saw praised them for their good color fidelity, both models cover the sRGB colorspace, so are good enough for graphical work too. Their price is competitive, because they use E-IPS panels (e-for economic) which are *only* as good as older S-IPS panels instead the latest tech used in top line models (which cost 500-1000$ models). BTW said "older" models are used by graphic professionals (who paid a good thousand bucks for them, back in the day), so IMHO these models are still well worth your money.
Their response time is "only 8 ms" - this proves they're indeed IPS panels, since TN are usually quick to point out their "superior" 2 ms response time... absolutely irrelevant and does little to offset their drawbacks (poor black level and color fidelity).
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U221H: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-9271&~ck=dellSearch&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=7
UltraSharp monitors also support DisplayPort, so anyone with a Radeon HD 5800/6800 can take advantage of that output (and, if you're made of money, run Eyefinity with three IPS panels).
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Those Dells look pretty nice for the prices. If they're based on older generation IPS tech though, then the black levels may be inferior to current TNs. Blacks have never really been a strong point of IPS, despite its other advantages.
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Those Dells look pretty nice for the prices. If they're based on older generation IPS tech though, then the black levels may be inferior to current TNs. Blacks have never really been a strong point of IPS, despite its other advantages.
Not older, but "cheaper". They're up to the same specs as top of the line old S-IPS panels were and graphic designers use those.
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why are you so hung up on the graphic designer thing? unless he IS a graphic designer and that's what this monitor is intended for, there are much better choices than something that displays finer color that you'll likely never notice. for watching movies and playing games, response time IS important and IS noticeable.
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Those Dells look pretty nice for the prices. If they're based on older generation IPS tech though, then the black levels may be inferior to current TNs. Blacks have never really been a strong point of IPS, despite its other advantages.
Not older, but "cheaper". They're up to the same specs as top of the line old S-IPS panels were and graphic designers use those.
It seems that graphics designers are more concerned with accurate midtones and bright colors than blacks. I've seen a lot of LCDs geared towards professional graphics that have mediocre blacks, and the reviews of such displays don't seem to give much weight to blacks either. As I said, the best TNs right now have better blacks than most IPSs.
I think IPS panels are still the best overall, but they are not ideal in every way and do have their own tradeoffs.
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Heh...I'm not a graphics designer; I'm just looking at another monitor for games and coding/web browsing.
I took a look at the two Dell monitors. The U2311H I definitely can't get, it's just too far outside my price range, even though it looks great. (I've negotiated with my parents to pay for half of the monitor as a Christmas present, so my limit went up to $250.) The U2211H is more what I can spend. I think I'm going to do some more research on that one, plus the other two I mentioned earlier. The only thing I'm a little concerned about is that 8ms GTG response time from the IPS panel. (This (http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3414/quick_review_dell_u2311h_lcd_monitor/index.html) review from the site Retrevo, mentioned below, seems to indicate some ghosting issues.) The Samsung and Viewsonic both have times of 2ms GTG.
In looking all over for reviews, I've run across a review aggregator, Retrevo.
Here's what it says about these monitors: Viewsonic (http://www.retrevo.com/s/Viewsonic-VX2450wm-Monitors-review-manual/id/23719bh240/t/1-2/), Samsung (http://www.retrevo.com/s/Samsung-BX2231-Monitors-review-manual/id/23824dj688/t/1-2/), Dell (http://www.retrevo.com/s/Dell-U2311H-Monitors-review-manual/id/23700bh134/t/1-2/).
Based on that, and some of the other reviews I've seen, I'm leaning more and more towards the Viewsonic.
What do you guys think?