Help finding a £200 +- £40 monitor

ojrules · 4 May 2011 at 13:03

I'm looking to get a new montior to replace my old 19" syncmaster. I don't do any photo work, i still do a bit of gaming ( but the pc is getting a bit old now and i could probably only max the res out on games like mw2), and may well decide to use said mointor as a t.v .. I'm not too fussed on size, but i don't think i want anything below 23"

I appreciate you get tonnes of these threads, and there is actually one about a gaming monitor just below, however to outsiders the specs of monitors are very confusing as on the whole they dont seem to mean jack, and reccomendations are far more useful

I was having a look at the 23" dell ultrasharp as it seems to have gleaming reviews, but also noticed that those are all from photoshop users, so just looking for some reccomendations for an all round monitor, i will hopefully get a blu ray player for it aswell sometime....

- if there are any other very similar threads that i have missed( which there undoubtadly will be ) i wont take offence in this being closed.

I've had a look at these two: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-046-DE&groupid=17&catid=1425&subcat=
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-124-SA

but as i say im completely clueless to the differences in the monitors.

cmndr_andi · 4 May 2011 at 13:12

The Dell is a lovely monitor - that one would be my choice.

The main difference between that samsung and dell is that the Dell uses an E-IPS panel and is 23in and the Samsung uses a TN panel and is 24in.

Here is an in-depth review of the Dell and here is some info on the panel types.

ojrules · 4 May 2011 at 15:32

thanks very much for that.. i'm going to have a think about what kind of size monitor i want... - i've got a 19" samsung syncmaster with a 5:4 ratio, so my concern is a small widescreen wont feel all that much bigger....- i'm also tempted by the http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-001-HS&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat= hans g 27.5" .. my brothers got the monitor, its not a bad monitor, but i dont remember being blown away by it, it's size is impressive however..

i'm awefully tempted to go for a multi monitor arrangement, but i'm not sure i've got the cash to make it worth while... for the price im also tempted by the 25" hans g http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-001-HG&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat=

EDIT-

the 16:9 ratio of the dell puts me off a fair bit, its going from one extreme (5:4) to the other.(infact it would actually be shorter than my 19"!!).. I'm going to hold off on a monitor for the next few weeks ( i go back to uni for some exams), but will have a look when i get back... I'm not sure about getting a 27.5" Hans.g. firstly they're rather large, and secondly i might sacrifice a bit of size for a bit better quality screen... i may well end up getting that samsung.

thats not set in stone, and i hope you don't think i've completely ignored your advice.. if im being absolutely stupid going for the samsung over the dell given the reasons ive given then let me know

anyways ive got my birthday not far away so i might splash out more on a monitor than i was originally intending

James J · 5 May 2011 at 02:34

I got the dell 2 days ago which you linked to in this thread, upgrading from a 22inch samsung which has the same resolution and the difference between the panels is massive. the E-IPS panel of the dell produces one hell of a clear picture on it and I was comparing it to my dads LG 22inch whilst both of us where playing call of duty black ops and the picture quality was definitely superior on the dell due to the colour reproduction being vastly better.

Will be a big difference coming from what you have as well.

ojrules · 5 May 2011 at 12:51

i've just worked out the dimensions of the dell screen to be 48.3cm wide and 32cm high, .. taller than i originally thought and not the letterbox i was thinking it would be and the 16:9 ratio puts me off less... hopefully i'l get some money together over the weekend and order one before the price goes up...

edit fail maths, just worked it out again to be 50cm wide and only 28 high so its 2cm shorter than my monitor atm rather than 2cm taller

Tediore · 5 May 2011 at 21:47

I'd get the Dell U2311H at that price. You could get one off Dell directly recently for about £210 delivered, but they've since put the price back up.

You can still find it for that price if you shop around, but I wouldn't touch said retailer with the largest barge pole in the world

ojrules · 5 May 2011 at 21:59

im still mulling it over.. on the one hand the dell seems of very very good quality, but its not very big and i can even get a 27" for around that price. -

you can still get it off dell for about £200 if you buy from their small business and foregoe the DSR... the colour accuracy isn't something i need i don't plan on doing any photo work on this monitor- i may well be doing cad work etc, but i doubt much or any photoshop work...

i've tried to understand the links that were reccommended above, but i've got too much revision on at the moment to get stuck into the grit of it... i guess what i want is a monitor good for films and games... the one thing that does put me off about the ultrasharp is, does it suffer slightly in the contrast dept. and motion dep.t? - that link seems to suggest its fairly good on motion, but im utterly confused on contrast specs, they always seem to be a bunch of lies and even seeing a monitor in the flesh isnt always useful unless you can play around with the settings...

i guess to summarise i've got 3 main choices.

Firstly, a dell ultrasharp- tonnes of reccomendations, but put off by the size
Secondly a highish end 24" like the samsung
or Thirdly a cheaper 27" like the Hans g, which i've already seen in the flesh and is perfectly acceptable

cmndr_andi · 5 May 2011 at 22:21

The dell handles motion fine - loads of people on the forums use these monitors for movies and gaming and it does well.

As for contrast it is pretty much just as good as any modern LCD monitor (TN or IPS panel). Contrast isn't one of the strengths of IPS panels, but these days they do them well and are on-par with any of the TN panel monitors you have mentioned. You are quite correct that most of the contrast specs are lie - specifically the "dynamic" contrast ratios where they totally game the tests. In true tests of static contrast ratio the dell scores around 950:1 which is bang-on the level modern TN panel monitors have.

One thing I should mention that is really important to mention is the main benfit of IPS panels (apart from colour accuracy) is wide viewing angles. Most say "but I sit straight on to the monitor so I don't really need wide viewing angles" but this misses the point, with a TN panel and you are looking straight on it you see one thing, but if you move your head slightly - the colour tone shifts. This can be really annoying. However, with IPS monitors (and to some extent VA panel monitors) the colours don't shift like this and stay very constant at different viewing angles - this makes them really nice to work with for extended periods of time.

If you want to try this colour shift test, go to a highstreet shop that sells PCs and macs, look at a colourful image on the PC and move your head a bit (like you would normally when at your desk), then go to the 27in iMac (which uses an IPS panel) and try the same thing.

gilljoy · 5 May 2011 at 22:31

I got the monitor a few weeks ago and I absolutely love it. The dell is simply amazing everything looks more vivid and crisp.

I was abit worried about 16:9 but it really looks great in game and playing movies.

As for gaming theres no ghosting that I can notice, I've been playing bad company 2 recently and I've not had a single problem to be honest

ojrules · 10 May 2011 at 17:27

- not going to go for the 23" dell at the moment, thinking about possibly getting a 25" hans g, but quite frankly im being stupidly indesisive at the moment. I'm a student, so spending 50% more for a perfect monitor isnt neccersarily a luxury i can afford.. £150 is a very tempting price for the hans g, i certainly dont need any larger just gotta decide if its a high enough spec,

ojrules · 20 May 2011 at 21:57

I'm still on the hunt for a monitor... The price of the pre order hazro 27"s caught my eye, although i know its basically double my original budget...

Would it be a silly investment for someone doing no photo work?- also i've got a fairly old rig- just a 4850 512mb, i will obviously upgrade eventually, but probably not for another year..

if i do get a monitor, and dont get a tres expensive one i'm very sure i'l go for an ultrasharp 23" the shear ammount of good reviews i've heard for it cant be ignored..

tl;dr summary: would the 27" hazro be complete pointless overkill for me?

cmndr_andi · 20 May 2011 at 22:14

ojrules said:
tl;dr summary: would the 27" hazro be complete pointless overkill for me?

In a word, yes.

But it does sound like a fantastic monitor (27in, 2560x1440 res, H-IPS panel, very low input lag), I want three

But that said, there have been issues with these monitors in the past (mainly to do with dust between the panel and the glass cover) so hopefully this has been resolved with the new non-glass covered versions - but I would still wait a week or two to hear back from people who bought one.

Also, your HD 4850 would not be able to run any modern games well at that resolution (and you can't just run it at a lower resolution as the cheaper hazro doesn't have a scaler)- so you would have to spend money much quicker on a new GPU (preferably one with a lot of VRAM, like the HD 6950 2GB), which adds to the costs.

As you can imaging, the 1080p 23in Dell U2311H is the best sane choice (plus it is an excellent monitor at a good price) and the hazro is the "awesome" choice - though not particularly practical and much more expensive.

Almasy93 · 21 May 2011 at 21:21

The dell is a 6bit monitor... why would you buy something to watch TV on that has 64 times less colours?
go with a 8bit VA monitor like the BenQ ew2420.
not only does it have 3.5 times the dells contrast, it has 64 times more colours it can display, it has MUCH deeper dark colours(black is very dark grey* and not medium grey) and it has no dithering (which adds strain to the eyes)

*My very dark grey has a habit of being other peoples black, i just refuse to call it black as black by definition would require a complete absence of light

ojrules · 22 May 2011 at 09:32

Almasy93 said:
The dell is a 6bit monitor... why would you buy something to watch TV on that has 64 times less colours?
go with a 8bit VA monitor like the BenQ ew2420.
not only does it have 3.5 times the dells contrast, it has 64 times more colours it can display, it has MUCH deeper dark colours(black is very dark grey* and not medium grey) and it has no dithering (which adds strain to the eyes)

*My very dark grey has a habit of being other peoples black, i just refuse to call it black as black by definition would require a complete absence of light

thanks, seems an interesting one. I'm not sure its as clear cut as it would seem; there would appear to be qc issues with that monitor, and the response time, in practice, seems to be poorer than the ultrasharp. On the other hand its a reasonable bit bigger, cheaper, and better contrast ratios...

cmndr_andi · 22 May 2011 at 15:50

Almasy93 said:
The dell is a 6bit monitor... why would you buy something to watch TV on that has 64 times less colours?
go with a 8bit VA monitor like the BenQ ew2420.
not only does it have 3.5 times the dells contrast, it has 64 times more colours it can display, it has MUCH deeper dark colours(black is very dark grey* and not medium grey) and it has no dithering (which adds strain to the eyes)

*My very dark grey has a habit of being other peoples black, i just refuse to call it black as black by definition would require a complete absence of light

Yea, you are highlighting the benefits of VA technology over E-IPS. However you aren't mentioning the other side of the coin.

For one thing the dell displays the same number of colours(16.7 million), it does use FRC to achieve this number, but from all the reviews and user experience of it describing "very accurate colours" then they must have set up the FRC right. It was a few months before anyone knew it was a 6bit panel and the image quality is so good that most just assumed it was an 8 bit E-IPS like the 2209WA.

As for the contrast and black level - I completely agree, VA panels are inherently better than IPS or VA for these things - as is shown in this review.

The benefits the E-IPS Dell U2311H has over the VA BenQ is wider viewing angles, less ghosting (faster response time and well implemented RTC impulse) and lower input lag. Also the Dell's build quality is generally great and Dell's premium panel guarantee (see any bridge pixels, get a next working day replacement) and standard 3 year warranty offer a better service to the customer than BenQ's. Hence why I would suggest the Dell U2311H over the BenQ EW2420 for an all-round monitor for the OP.

ojrules · 24 May 2011 at 12:13

thinking of getting the 23" LG IPS231P its £155 at the moment and is supposed to be the same pannel as the Delll ultrasharp... i don't need this today

got an exam later..

edit- it can be got for £160ish at a few places, although reviews suggest the responsiveness to be poor... very tempted by the price though.. a good £40-£70 cheaper than the dell... for the same panel..

bobdigi · 24 May 2011 at 13:48

ojrules said:
thinking of getting the 23" LG IPS231P its £155 at the moment and is supposed to be the same pannel as the Delll ultrasharp... i don't need this today got an exam later..

edit- it can be got for £160ish at a few places, although reviews suggest the responsiveness to be poor... very tempted by the price though.. a good £40-£70 cheaper than the dell... for the same panel..

Have you totally dismissed the idea of going for a 24" Samsung?

I'm kind of in the same dilemma where everybody is saying how great the Dell is yet i'm drawn to a larger cheaper screen. Is the Dell really THAT notably greater?

ATM I'm thinking to go for the Samsung XL2370HD
cheers

ojrules · 24 May 2011 at 13:51

bobdigi said:
Have you totally dismissed the idea of going for a 24" Samsung?

I'm kind of in the same dilemma where everybody is saying how great the Dell is yet i'm drawn to a larger cheaper screen. Is the Dell really THAT notably greater?

ATM I'm thinking to go for the Samsung XL2370HD
cheers

the 24" samsungs seem very good for fast pace gaming, but they use TN panels, which produces an inferior image to IPS

i havnt totally dismissed the idea of a TN panel, -- OCUK have got an iiyama (labelled as OCUK) 24" up for £120 which is a crazy price...

i was going to get a ultrasharp in a couple of weeks, but now the choice looks like, iiyama, LG IPS or Dell IPS.. Although the price of the LG, with the same panel as the dell looks very attractive...

bobdigi · 24 May 2011 at 14:14

Is the image THAT much worse though?

I'm not doing no graphic design or photography or anything... also all the reviews and ratings for the Samsung before the Dell came out say it looks amazing

ojrules · 24 May 2011 at 14:19

bobdigi said:
Is the image THAT much worse though?

I'm not doing no graphic design or photography or anything... also all the reviews and ratings for the Samsung before the Dell came out say it looks amazing

ahah thats the big question isnt it

... i need to have a think what i'm going to be using this monitor for... because if i went for the ocuk 24" i could pick up a new or 2nd hand card and start playing at full res...

if you are just gaming, i'd consider just going for a responsive TN.. but it all depends on what you want--- i don't even know what i want, so im not sure i can help you