Which non-tn, non-gaming 24" ?

fundy

fundy

fundy

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Oxfordshire
Hi all,

Seem to be going round in circles as the which monitor to buy. I currently have a 24" Samsung SM245B and 2 19" Samsung monitors. I am planning to change to initially 2 24" (with the likelihood i'll add a third in the near future).

Main uses are trading the stockmarket (mainly text/line charts and coloured candle charts), playing online poker (between 4-8 tables at once), a fair amount of work on spreadsheets/text documents and editing a website.

Viewing angle is critical as is colour uniformity. A large proportion of the work I do is on a white background (charts and text).


Contenders:

Benq FP241W - can get for £320ish (now seems discontinued so may be harder to get a 3rd one if wanted)

NEC 24WMGX3 - £410 on OC (wary of buying a "gaming monitor" and concerns about flexibility of stand)

HP LP2475W - £400ish, confused by the wide gamut that is often mentioned

Dont really want to spend more than £400 per monitor and would prefer to spend less. Are either of the HP/NEC going to be worth the extra £100 each over the Benq? Is there a better alternative I've not considered?


Any advice gratefully received as I'm driving myself crazy trying to decide what to do
 
Dell Ultrasharps are great if your not gaming (I game on them and find them fine), good muti adjustment stand too.
 
The BenQ is based in a P-MVA panel. I am a great fan of these screens and just bought a second one (unfortunately, I do not have the space for three :(). It is a very good panel and it still comes highly recommended by reviewers and users. From my personal experience, you do notice a slight contrast and colour shift as you move off centre. As one of my screens does not directly face me, I can see a slight difference between the two when displaying the same image. I am not totally convinced that you would notice this difference under normal usage and I think some of it may be due to the setup of the two screens; the newer one comes with updated firmware which seems to provide more features and a different configuration (although I have tried to keep the same settings).

The NEC is an A-MVA panel. It's a more advanced version of the panel technology used within the BenQ. The NEC is designed more for gaming and multimedia applications and includes some nice features which make it more attractive to users in these areas. I do not have any first-hand experience of this screen, but some reviewers have suggested that it is not worth the price premium over the BenQ.

The HP is a S-IPS panel. It should offer the best colour uniformity over the viewing angles, the high colour gamut should give you more accurate colour representation. It also offers a greater array of inputs and more USB ports over the BenQ. Usually, the only problem with S-IPS screens is their representation of blacks, but this screen has scored very well in this area. However, it does require calibration to get the best from it, I have heard that the default colour accuracy is not brilliant.

These screens are all very good and the differences between them are minimal (you are right to have a hard time deciding :D). The BenQ does has a hefty ~25% price advantage over the other two, which made it a no-brainer for me.
 
Total-Game said:
The HP is a S-IPS panel. It should offer the best colour uniformity over the viewing angles, the high colour gamut should give you more accurate colour representation.
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This is generally not true. The situations where more than sRGB gamut is beneficial are few and very far between for normal users. The real benefit is really only when working with print within colormanaged applications. Content that isn't going on print is always created to be viewed within sRGB or REC. 709, which a normal gamut monitor will display more accurate. Not saying it can't look subjectively good (some people like "strong colors"), but don't confuse that with accuracy.

Unless you get a really expensive wide-gamut monitor with a high-resolution programmable LUT, like the NEC 2690WUXi-SV2 or the HP 2480ZX, they can be clipped and calibrated to sRGB without much banding or any of the issues you get by "cheating" with a software LUT.

The NEC is an A-MVA panel. It's a more advanced version of the panel technology used within the BenQ. The NEC is designed more for gaming and multimedia applications and includes some nice features which make it more attractive to users in these areas. I do not have any first-hand experience of this screen, but some reviewers have suggested that it is not worth the price premium over the BenQ.
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This is the updated panel from the old BenQ, you can also get the same panel without paying the NEC premium in the Benq FP241WZ.
 
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Thanks for the correction on the gamut Goofball, that's what I get for replying last thing at night. :rolleyes: Indeed, the increased gamut will give you a more vivid colour representation, but will often actually cause a slight decrease in accuracy.

As for the FP241WZ; you do get the A-MVA panel just like the NEC. However, this particular model was never as popular as the FP241W and cost considerably more to manufacture. As a result, BenQ actually discontinued the FP241WZ a while ago, so it is now very hard to source.

fundy said:
Have decided to go for the Benq and ordered 3 today :D
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Hehe. I really wish I had the room for three! Good luck. :D
 
the monitors arrived yesterday, got them set up and turned the brightness down and very impressed. need to get them better calibrated but first impression im very pleased (no dead pixels across all 3 a result)
 
for all in one, go for the nec 24"

without a doult the best all rounder i have used..

movies and gameing the monitor excells at and web viewing is awsome aswell but for photo critical work its not that good but its still better than most.

you wont regret it ;)
 
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