IPS Monitor - Which for under 300?

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furnace

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I'm looking to buy an IPS monitor. I've not used one before, although I use a mac at work which may have one - the colors on it look great.

The gotcha is that I'm really after one with a 16:10 aspect ratio. As a programmer the vertical height is more important to me, although I do game in my spare time too and plan to get in to a but of photography in the new year.

I'm a little bit anxious about black levels in dark games too - I've heard this is a bad thing about IPS monitors. Or coming from a TN panel, will any IPS still be an improvement..?

Does anybody have a recommendation? What would you do with 300 quid if you were going to buy a monitor in my position?

Thanks in advance for your responses!
 
You really don't have many (any?) options if you're after 16:10 and to spend under £300.

The HP ZR24W is a possibility, if you can find it for under £300 somewhere (it's £340 at OcUK).
 
Will the black levels on the HP still beat a TN panels? How do you think this monitor compares to a dell u2311h? I suppose I wouldn't want to get something inferior just for the sake of 16:10.
 
If you read the review of the U2311H on TFTCentral, they do some comparisons with it and the ZR24w. From the plain numbers, the U2311H is overall a better package - better black levels, contrast, out of the box colours and response rate. The HP beats it for input lag though, but only marginally (10ms vs 10.6ms) and it's likely not going to be perceivable in actual use anyway.

I believe I read somewhere the average black level for TN panels is 0.14cd/m2 which according to TFTCetrnal is what the U2311H has. The ZR24w is slightly higher/worse at 0.18cd/m2. I don't really know how big of a difference that is in real life though.
 
Would just like to point out that I have a very sensitive light meter and the 'average' black level under the usable settings of a TN panel is probably closer to 0.5 cd/m2. You know all of the people complaining about excess backlight light bleed in a lot of modern TN panels? If you can see a purple haze instead of anything close to black the luminance is unlikely to be any lower than 0.4 cd/m on average. Black levels aren't exactly a strength of any LCD panel type other than VA. IPS panels are usually better made than your average TN panel but the glow kind of kills the appearence of blacks somewhat.

If you would like a good relative comparison I have reviewed (on my website) the contast of the U2211H, U2410 and PA241W as well as several TN panels and 2 VA panels.
 
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yeah i think it depends which TN Film panel you are referring to. Old models from a few years ago used to be very weak in regards to black depth / contrast ratio, but then again so did IPS panels. However if you compared a modern IPS panel with an old TN Film panel, there may well be an improvement. Modern tN Film panels can be very good though so tough one to answer

which TN Film based model are you referring to?
 
I haven't actually used the HP ZR24w myself, so running past the figures... How would you say the apparent contrast differs between the ZR24w and U2311H? I mean was there a noticeable difference in practice or was it just one of those things where there were different values recorded for each? I suppose the difference looks more extreme on the table if you compare like-for-like OSD brightness levels, but actually the ZR24w has a much stronger backlight so its 50% is like the U2311H's 100%.
 
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i think it's probably best to compare the "calibrated" results, where each monitor has been set up and calibrated to achieve a 120 cd/m2 luminance value. If you use the ZR24W at the default settings (ie 80% contrast) then returned black depth is only 0.28 (contrast ratio = 425:1). The Dell U2311H on the other hand is 0.14 / 857:1. there would be a noticeable difference in practice between these two, and you will lose some shadow detailing in darker scenes on the HP at those settings. if you run black level tests (such as those on Lagom) you will see better dark grey rendering from the Dell as well.

if however you follow the guide to improving the HP ZR24W (with 100% contrast setting), the black depth is a much better 0.18, and contrast ratio of 694:1. not quite as good as the Dell but much better. in practice to the naked eye you would probably not notice much real difference, although in very dark grey detail you may lose a little on the HP. Most average users would be more than happy with a 0.18 / 694:1 i think, but the original 0.28 / 425:1 is too low and can present problems
 
PCM2 said:
Would just like to point out that I have a very sensitive light meter and the 'average' black level under the usable settings of a TN panel is probably closer to 0.5 cd/m2.
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Ah, it's that low now? That's quite surprising. As Baddass somewhat mentioned, I probably read a very old article on TN Panels if I got the average as being 0.14cd/m2 in my head.
 
0.5 cd/m2 is higher :p. But this is at the kind of brightness levels you would want to use for enterainment purposes not office use. :)
 
PCM2 said:
0.5 cd/m2 is higher :p. But this is at the kind of brightness levels you would want to use for enterainment purposes not office use. :)
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Haha, oops, I completely read that wrong. I thought you said 0.05cd/m2 :D

That's still quite surprising as IPS panels are generally regarded as having weak black levels. I guess the newer ones (i.e. U2311H) are much better than their previous counterparts.
 
Indeed. It also seems that the visual sheen caused by IPS glow isn't as detremental to the recorded black level as excess bleedthrough would be. Just something I have observed anyway, could be nothing ;)
 
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