My WC arrived yesterday - prompt delivery service courtesy of OCUK/DPD, excellent as usual. Here are my first impressions:
Setup/Installation
Monitor was well packaged and secure. After removing the monitor from the box, and finding the screws for the base, it was a matter of laying the monitor on its side and attaching the base. Build-wise the base is not the greatest, but the monitor looks and feels beautiful to me. Also, the base seems to be perfectly level for me. I will consider a stand for this in the longer-term though.
Attached the DVI straight in to the second slot on my 480, and away I went! Only I didn't. In fact, Windows hung at the "Starting Windows" screen for so long that I got all flustered and started messing about with Safe Mode and Repair options. After twigging that there may in fact not be a problem (by detaching the new cable and starting up again with old monitor - which also seemed to be hanging for ages until Windows finally loaded), I re-tried and presto! Same Windows, new Monitor.
Initial testing (Desktop and pictures)
Without modifying any settings, comparing the monitor side-by-side to my old TN, the difference is simply gob-smacking. I am still in a state of doubt and slight confusion, because I am thinking "surely the old monitor wasn't that bad?". Still, the eyes do not deceive, and the image on the WC is much more vibrant, defined and...well, colourful. To corroborate this I copied some images and dragged them onto the old monitor and compared. The new monitor simply looks more life-like and photo realistic (for want of a better word). The final test will be the "wife-approval" one, which I will hopefully do tonight. Basically, that picture Hazro has on its web-site on the WC page comparing TN to IPS? Not far off. Not at all.
EDIT: So far no dead pixels or dust for me. I have not looked at it at the microscopic level, but not noticed anything untoward
Brief gaming test
So I am a gamer primarily, and everything else is just another thing I use the PC for. I love my FPS, be it BC2 or UT3. UT3 is one of the fastest games I have ever played and if there was anywhere that would show up input lag and blur, this would be it. I logged in and because the game res was set at 1900x1200, the screen displayed this with black bars at the side, but scaled to fill the screen. I did not play at this res however, because I wanted to see what the new res looks like in-game. I upped the res and joined a game. Of course, everything looks mind-numbingly lovely, and the flashes etc. from weaponry also shimmer that much more on this screen. In terms of motion blur, I can't say I noticed any at all, although the massive screen seems to contribute to an impression of shimmering when moving about the environments at speed. I still need to play further to confirm, but what I can say is that anything I experienced did not for one second put me off the fantastic image quality I have gained with this purchase.
HOWEVER, I still need to go at it for at least a week in order to reach a final verdict.
Questions
On the noob-level, something that slightly confuses me is that I purchased the non-glass monitor. Yet the monitor that was delivered has a clear message on the box saying "Warning - glass inside". Is this the case with all the boxes for the WC? Or did I get a glass monitor - is there any easy way to check this?
Final Word
So there you have it. I only had about 45 minutes with the monitor last night, but initial impressions are very favourable. I wanted to post screenshots comparing the quality to my old monitor, as well as of running games in a lower-than-native res, but have not had the time to do that yet. I will try and put them in a later post.
Let me know if you have any questions
