People may have seen a couple of my threads asking for advice on what new monitor to get. I settled on an Acer GD245HQ after testing a friend's model, and having received it this morning, I have to say that I'm epically satisfied with what I've bought 
. Cost £145 second hand. Hopefully this post might help some people choosing between an IPS and a 120Hz gaming monitor.
My old monitor was the venerable Hazro 1920x1200 HZ26Wi; brushed aluminium frame with a top quality H-IPS panel, 8ms pixel response and virtually no input lag, this was the perfect monitor for me for 2-3 years. Colour accuracy was nearly perfect and gaming was pretty good too.
I recently decide to change for two reasons: I needed something to mirror my TV with (1080p), and also wanted something that was better for gaming. I am pretty susceptible to motion blur - some monitors are practically unplayable for me for this reason, and 8ms response time was just about acceptable for me. As I mostly use my build to game nowadays, I thought I'd go 120Hz having heard great things about these new gaming monitors. I'm also a keen amateur photographer however, and for this my Hazro was perfect - viewing angles were out of this world and colour accuracy and range was crazy. The NEC pro-series monitor with the same panel currently sells for some £800, so I was fully expecting downgrading to a TN to be a massive change.
At all stages I was comparing this panel to a 1920x1080 image on my calibrated Panasonic Plasma, and the Hazro, both of which boast near perfect colour.
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Inital Impressions
Not as classy in appearance as the Hazro (you can't beat 100% brushed metal) but the dark orange stand is surprisingly attactive and matches the function keys on my logi keyboard. On turning it on for the first time - matte screen is very nice and the subjective image quality and clarity is on par with the H-IPS. However, I could immediately notice a very cool tinge to the entire image, especially in the grays which were distinctly blue.
Menu is very easy to operate and I could immediately find the 'cool' setting that was causing the blue tinge. Switching this to 'warm' made everything appear pinkish, but switching it to 'user' immediately made the colours appear a lot more realistic. Grays were instantly gray, and skin tones were pretty on par with the other panels, if a bit on the pink side.
Viewing Angles
A lot lot better than other TN panels I've used in the past with one caveat. Even when sitting directly in front of the panel, when viewing a gray screen, colours towards the edges develop a very slight pink tinge. Slightly disappointing, but it is TN. Vertical viewing angles are of course horrible.
Gaming
STUNNING. No other word for it...gaming on this is day and night when compared to the Hazro. Even movement of desktop windows was crisp, but playing Brink and Bad Company 2 on this was a quite ridiculous improvement to my gaming experience. 120Hz and the great pixel resolution of this monitor (less than 2ms) meant that there wasn't a trace of motion blur. Sniping at 120Hz is something else entirely.
Colour Calibration
I tested the monitor before and after calibration - unfortunately my DisplayOne can't produce fancy charts of DeltaE. After changing colour setting from 'cool' to 'user', colour appeared subjectively to be pretty accurate for a TN panel. Measuring it produced an average DeltaE of 3.8, with blues and reds measuring 5-6. A surprisingly good out of the box result, but not perfect. After a detailed calibration (you need to delve into the service menu to change RGB settings), averate DeltaE became 1.8 with one or two blue and red shades measuring 3-4. Subjectively at this point, colour was almost identical to the image on the Hazro and the plasma, with the caveat that colour on the edges of the panel carried a distinctive pink tone. Aside from this however I was very surprised and very happy.
Photo Editing
My other main use for this panel. I find that as long as the photoshop window is maximized, I can easily adjust for the colour tinging on the peripheries. It started off as an annoyance but after a while I simply got used to it. I don't think it will affect how my photos turn out, and as the panel is mirrored with my plasma, I can simply use the TV as a reference monitor.
Colour range is obviously a lot smaller on the Acer, but there's the compromise bonus that primary colours don't appear horribly garish. As I often work in sRGB anyway this doesn't affect me that much, but lots of my previously edited photos appear less vivid on the Acer.
------------------------------------------------------
In summary I'm very happy about the change. The Acer is said to have the best colour out of all the 120Hz monitors, and generally very good colour for a TN panel: I would wholly support this claim. The matte screen is very helpful when photo-editing and as long as I'm sitting directly in front of the panel I would say the experience is not unlike using my old monitor. For an amateur flickr photographer who primarily games, I wouldn't go back to my old Hazro, and having throughly tested the Acer I would now go and pay full price for it as a replacement. But if you're a semi-professional photographer, or you do any kind of colour critical work then obviously a TN panel isn't going to be for you.
. Cost £145 second hand. Hopefully this post might help some people choosing between an IPS and a 120Hz gaming monitor.
My old monitor was the venerable Hazro 1920x1200 HZ26Wi; brushed aluminium frame with a top quality H-IPS panel, 8ms pixel response and virtually no input lag, this was the perfect monitor for me for 2-3 years. Colour accuracy was nearly perfect and gaming was pretty good too.
I recently decide to change for two reasons: I needed something to mirror my TV with (1080p), and also wanted something that was better for gaming. I am pretty susceptible to motion blur - some monitors are practically unplayable for me for this reason, and 8ms response time was just about acceptable for me. As I mostly use my build to game nowadays, I thought I'd go 120Hz having heard great things about these new gaming monitors. I'm also a keen amateur photographer however, and for this my Hazro was perfect - viewing angles were out of this world and colour accuracy and range was crazy. The NEC pro-series monitor with the same panel currently sells for some £800, so I was fully expecting downgrading to a TN to be a massive change.
At all stages I was comparing this panel to a 1920x1080 image on my calibrated Panasonic Plasma, and the Hazro, both of which boast near perfect colour.
------------------------------------------------------
Inital Impressions
Not as classy in appearance as the Hazro (you can't beat 100% brushed metal) but the dark orange stand is surprisingly attactive and matches the function keys on my logi keyboard
. On turning it on for the first time - matte screen is very nice and the subjective image quality and clarity is on par with the H-IPS. However, I could immediately notice a very cool tinge to the entire image, especially in the grays which were distinctly blue.Menu is very easy to operate and I could immediately find the 'cool' setting that was causing the blue tinge. Switching this to 'warm' made everything appear pinkish, but switching it to 'user' immediately made the colours appear a lot more realistic. Grays were instantly gray, and skin tones were pretty on par with the other panels, if a bit on the pink side.
Viewing Angles
A lot lot better than other TN panels I've used in the past with one caveat. Even when sitting directly in front of the panel, when viewing a gray screen, colours towards the edges develop a very slight pink tinge. Slightly disappointing, but it is TN. Vertical viewing angles are of course horrible.
Gaming
STUNNING. No other word for it...gaming on this is day and night when compared to the Hazro. Even movement of desktop windows was crisp, but playing Brink and Bad Company 2 on this was a quite ridiculous improvement to my gaming experience. 120Hz and the great pixel resolution of this monitor (less than 2ms) meant that there wasn't a trace of motion blur. Sniping at 120Hz is something else entirely
. Colour Calibration
I tested the monitor before and after calibration - unfortunately my DisplayOne can't produce fancy charts of DeltaE. After changing colour setting from 'cool' to 'user', colour appeared subjectively to be pretty accurate for a TN panel. Measuring it produced an average DeltaE of 3.8, with blues and reds measuring 5-6. A surprisingly good out of the box result, but not perfect. After a detailed calibration (you need to delve into the service menu to change RGB settings), averate DeltaE became 1.8 with one or two blue and red shades measuring 3-4. Subjectively at this point, colour was almost identical to the image on the Hazro and the plasma, with the caveat that colour on the edges of the panel carried a distinctive pink tone. Aside from this however I was very surprised and very happy
.Photo Editing
My other main use for this panel. I find that as long as the photoshop window is maximized, I can easily adjust for the colour tinging on the peripheries. It started off as an annoyance but after a while I simply got used to it. I don't think it will affect how my photos turn out, and as the panel is mirrored with my plasma, I can simply use the TV as a reference monitor.
Colour range is obviously a lot smaller on the Acer, but there's the compromise bonus that primary colours don't appear horribly garish. As I often work in sRGB anyway this doesn't affect me that much, but lots of my previously edited photos appear less vivid on the Acer.
------------------------------------------------------
In summary I'm very happy about the change. The Acer is said to have the best colour out of all the 120Hz monitors, and generally very good colour for a TN panel: I would wholly support this claim. The matte screen is very helpful when photo-editing and as long as I'm sitting directly in front of the panel I would say the experience is not unlike using my old monitor. For an amateur flickr photographer who primarily games, I wouldn't go back to my old Hazro, and having throughly tested the Acer I would now go and pay full price for it as a replacement. But if you're a semi-professional photographer, or you do any kind of colour critical work then obviously a TN panel isn't going to be for you
.
would fit in really well with my rig
Any particular reason?
. Would honestly be interested to know what you found awful 
