Are there any screens without faults around?

[LeeC22]

Well, I am still in the process of trying to move to an LCD screen. So far, I have had 2 faulty Dell 2007WFP's, one with a flicker, the other with a colour shift across the screen and both with horrendous backlight bleed.

So I sent those back and ordered 2 HP LP2275W's from HP. Both arrived on Friday, both have definite darkening to both edges and both have poor font quality in a lot of cases. I am finding pretty bad red or green fringing in the majority of fonts,...which is a real problem when you sit programming all day and already have to wear glasses. It makes it feel real hard work to see the letters without wondering if your eyes are making the letters fuzzy. On top of that, if the monitors go into "sleep" mode, I can't get them out of it without resetting my PC. So it looks like they are going back too.

So then I started looking into the NEC 20WGX2, managed to find a thread on here and it quickly fell into talk of dead pixels and backlight bleed.

So by this time, I'm pretty hacked off that a search for monitors doesn't just run to finding ones that do the job, it seems to revolve around finding ones that do the job and work. I can't believe that we are dealing with such a flaky technology that doesn't seem to be able to provide consistently good hardware.

Is there a monitor out there that actually works as it should, or is every screen on a varying scale of slightly broken - badly broken?

 

[bobbydigital]

Seems to depend on how fussy the end-user is obviously you pay for what you get, but I've never had any problems when I had the ocuk value 24" and now I am using a dell 2407 and its perfect amazing infact.

Also I wouldn't always go on just one or two peoples complaints as with the amount of people buying monitors there is gonna be some bad ones and only these people will complain, people with a perfect monitor ain't gonna make posts about it unless asked

Look through here and you will see a lot of peoples past experiences and praises of various models of monitors.

 

[p0rks0da]

I personally think the Dell S2309W/S2409W are great screens for the money. Yes, they are TN panel and perhaps the 1920x1080 might put you off if you are particularly looking for the extra vertical resolution, but imo they are the best bang for buck screens around at the moment.

My own experience is that they have next to no backlight bleed, and the text is extremely sharp with no nasty edge artifacts etc.. I use mine for long hours and i've yet to experience any kind of eye strain.

Have a read through the fairly long S2409W thread on here and see how many complaints there are, there may be issues with some of these too, but i haven't had any myself.

 

[LeeC22]

Well I actually ordered the Dells after seeing a thread on here where someone rated them highly, plus I have seen reviews that rate them the same.

So does that mean that people are reviewing them with a lower perception of quality than I want? Is a flickering screen, colour shifts, backlight bleed or poor font quality, really a case of being fussy? If that's the case, where does someone go to get a review, or find information that is reliable?

The Dell's were £230 each, the HP's worked out at £250+ each. How much do you have to pay before you get working screens? Can I really have been that unlucky 4 times out of 4?

The place that sold me the Dells would only refund the cost as they said they probably weren't going to be of an acceptable quality. Which I found kind of surprising as my acceptable quality level = working and usable... is that too much to ask for?

p0rks0da: a pair of 22 inch only just fit on my desk, I am guessing the 2309/2409 are 23 and 24 inches respectively. Also, TN screens are unfortunately out of the question, I am a professional games artist as well as programmer, so I need a screen where top to bottom colour accuracy is imperative.

 

[Hudzy]

You're right about how it's more a case of finding the least offensive screen for your needs though, which sucks a lot.

 

[bobbydigital]

So does that mean that people are reviewing them with a lower perception of quality than I want? Is a flickering screen, colour shifts, backlight bleed or poor font quality, really a case of being fussy? If that's the case, where does someone go to get a review, or find information that is reliable?

I am a professional games artist as well as programmer, so I need a screen where top to bottom colour accuracy is imperative.

I don't believe you are being fussy with the faults you describe on your dells they are genuine faults, well bar the backlight bleed which basically just seems to be a TN panel fault so avoid them, never had a problem with any of my VA panels.

As for your job sadly you will need to be really fussy it comes to a monitor and I would normally recommend the dell 2408, but I have no idea with the 22".

 

[philjohn]

I don't believe you are being fussy with the faults you describe on your dells they are genuine faults, well bar the backlight bleed which basically just seems to be a TN panel fault so avoid them, never had a problem with any of my VA panels.

As for your job sadly you will need to be really fussy it comes to a monitor and I would normally recommend the dell 2408, but I have no idea with the 22".

dell 2408 is also bad for fringing text...it's the whole wide-gamut thing IMHO. A few minutes spent with a cleartype tuning app would probably have fixed the other monitors the OP had.

 

[LeeC22]

dell 2408 is also bad for fringing text...it's the whole wide-gamut thing IMHO. A few minutes spent with a cleartype tuning app would probably have fixed the other monitors the OP had.

I still have the hp monitors, but the microsoft cleartype tuner is for xp but I am using vista. I will have to do a search for a vista version, if there is one.

The annoying thing was that the Dells were a gorgeous screen, certainly a lot better than the HP's, so I was hoping to get replacements. If I can't solve the font problem, I might have to chance the NEC's.

Thanks for all the help though, it is appreciated.

 

[p0rks0da]

Have you thought about going for a high end screen from Eizo (or somebody similar) ? I know they are a lot more expensive than Dell etc.. but i would have thought since they cater to the design market they would have very high QA standards.

 

[philjohn]

I still have the hp monitors, but the microsoft cleartype tuner is for xp but I am using vista. I will have to do a search for a vista version, if there is one.

The annoying thing was that the Dells were a gorgeous screen, certainly a lot better than the HP's, so I was hoping to get replacements. If I can't solve the font problem, I might have to chance the NEC's.

Thanks for all the help though, it is appreciated.

You can visit the Microsoft ClearType Tuner website in IE, it installs an ActiveX Control. There is also a little app to tweak "hidden" cleartype registry settings posted over at HardForum.

 

[LeeC22]

Have you thought about going for a high end screen from Eizo (or somebody similar) ? I know they are a lot more expensive than Dell etc.. but i would have thought since they cater to the design market they would have very high QA standards.

Yeah, I did think about that but I need 2 screens. I am usually running either 2 IDE's at once, or photoshop and 3ds max. ALT tabbing is impractical for what I do.

Unfortunately, game development isn't the cash cow people assume it is, so my budget is tight.

I'll give that cleartype tuner a go, thanks.

 

[caff]

Eizo's offer simply amazing build, screen and colour quality. I bought a 21" WS from OcUK around 3 years ago and it's still going strong. After 6 months usage (and selling my 2nd kidney ) I added a second of the exact same model, and I've not looked back. They are still as good as new - however I now mainly use the 2nd monitor for watching TV instead of work.

If you can't get your money back, I would consider 'gradually replacing' what you have with some top-end stuff that will last you years - like Eizo. If it's too much I would seriously consider NEC.