Help I Am Going Crazy - Monitor Choice

TheHitMan-1973 · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:10

I have a Dell XPS 17 and looking for externeal monitor for general use ie internet use & photoshop CS 5 and looking at photographs and office apps,i am not a games player

Budget £300

I think the graphics card ( 3GB GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card ) should be fine

I am not to sure which resolution to buy between 1920×1080 or 1920x1200 :confused:

Been looking at a few monitors but so many to choose from

Asus VS247H 24
Hanns G 27.5 inch

Such a hard choice grrrrrr

Sin_Chase · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:45

Try go for 1200 if you can, much better for desktop publishing. Rarer, but better. Might be a bit out of budget but the HP LP2475w is well revered as an awesome bang for buck IPS monitor. I rock 2 of them and love them. Huge thread in this section on them also.

Surveyor · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:45

I can't recommend a particular monitor but for non-gaming use I would definately say go for 1920x1200.

Much better for "serious" PC use.

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:46

The laptop will have a 16:9 screen so a 1920x1080 external monitor would make most sense.

Personally I much prefer (and use) 16:10 displays but apparently that just makes me a nasty old reactionary.

Sin_Chase · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:47

bremen1874 said:
The laptop will have a 16:9 screen so a 1920x1080 external monitor would make most sense.

The laptop having a 16:9 native resolution does not prevent him from using 16:10 on an external display.

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:53

Sin_Chase said:
Try go for 1200 if you can, much better for desktop publishing. Rarer, but better. Might be a bit out of budget but the HP LP2475w is well revered as an awesome bang for buck IPS monitor. I rock 2 of them and love them. Huge thread in this section on them also.

The LP2475w is a really nice screen (running three of them here). My oldest one was replaced due to a backlight fault at just under three years, so I’d recommend the very reasonably priced two year warranty extension.

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:56

Sin_Chase said:
The laptop having a 16:9 native resolution does not prevent him from using 16:10 on an external display.

True, but having two screens with different aspect ratios could be annoying. There’s a premium to be paid for a 16:10 screen which needs to be justified.

cmndr_andi · 7 Oct 2011 at 01:59

With that budget and considering your uses I would suggest the Dell U2412M, which uses a high quality E-IPS 1920x1200 16:10 24in panel. This resolution has 120 more vertical pixels than 1080p - so you have a bit more screen real-estate to work with and the IPS panel means the colours are much more accurate than with a TN panel (which us used in the monitors you mention in the OP) and the viewing angles are much wider (so the colours don't shift when you move your head a bit).

Here is an in-depth review.

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:11

cmndr_andi said:
With that budget and considering your uses I would suggest the Dell U2412M, which uses a high quality E-IPS 1920x1200 16:10 24in panel. This resolution has 120 more vertical pixels than 1080p - so you have a bit more screen real-estate to work with and the IPS panel means the colours are much more accurate than with a TN panel (which us used in the monitors you mention in the OP) and the viewing angles are much wider (so the colours don't shift when you move your head a bit).

Here is an in-depth review.

That looks like it should be quite a nice screen.

It does appear that it compares to the Dell U2410 in the same way the HP ZR24w compares to the HP LP2475w.

TheHitMan-1973 · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:12

bremen1874 said:
That looks like it should be quite a nice screen.

It does appear that it compares to the Dell U2410 in the same way the HP ZR24w compares to the HP LP2475w.

Does that have HDMI ?

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:21

TheHitMan-1973 said:
Does that have HDMI ?

AFAIK...

LP2475w = HDMI
U2410 = HDMI

ZR24w = no HDMI
U2412M = no HDMI

I think they all have DisplayPort.

They also vary on their gamut support (some wide, some standard).

TheHitMan-1973 · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:33

bremen1874 said:
AFAIK...

LP2475w = HDMI
U2410 = HDMI

ZR24w = no HDMI
U2412M = no HDMI

I think they all have DisplayPort.

They also vary on their gamut support (some wide, some standard).

So which is better for display ? HDMI or DVI-D or DisplayPort(DP)

cmndr_andi · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:36

bremen1874 said:
It does appear that it compares to the Dell U2410 in the same way the HP ZR24w compares to the HP LP2475w.

Aye, pretty much - it's a E-IPS version of the U2410 with less connections and a lower price.

However, unlike the ZR24w, the U2412M doesn't have any issues with its response time compensation (overdrive/RTC), so motion should appear a bit better on the Dell.

TheHitMan-1973 said:
Does that have HDMI ?

Aye, the U2412M doesn't have HDMI, but you can use this cable to remedy that and connect it directly to your laptop. Using a cable like this offers exactly the same image quality as if it had a native HDMI port - as the video signals used by HDMI and DVI are the same, just with different pin configurations (and DVI doesn't carry sound).

TheHitMan-1973 said:
So which is better for display ? HDMI or DVI-D or DisplayPort(DP)

For driving a 1920x1200 60Hz video signal the image quality of all of these will be the same - so just use whatever is compatible with both your laptop and the monitor. Since your laptop has a HDMI port, then feel free to go for monitors that have DVI-D ports (not just ones with HDMI ports) as there is no image quality penalty using a DVI screen and your laptop - so long as you use a cable like the one I lined to above (HDMI to DVI-D).

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:46

cmndr_andi said:
For driving a 1920x1200 60Hz video signal the image quality of all of these will be the same - so just use whatever is compatible with both your laptop and the monitor. Since your laptop has a HDMI port, then feel free to go for monitors that have DVI-D ports (not just ones with HDMI ports) as there is no image quality penalty using a DVI screen and your laptop - so long as you use a cable like the one I lined to above (HDMI to DVI-D).

Image quality should be identical using the cable mentioned. I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to display a source that requires HDMI as an anti-piracy measure.

cmndr_andi · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:50

HDCP is preserved over a HDMI-DVI link - so you can play stuff like blu rays fine over this connection.

bremen1874 · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:58

cmndr_andi said:
HDCP is preserved over a HDMI-DVI link - so you can play stuff like blu rays fine over this connection.

Yep, the screen supports HDCP so it should be fine.

It's nice to see that new 16:10 screens are still appearing (for the more discerning user).

TheHitMan-1973 · 7 Oct 2011 at 03:02

So i might look at the Dell U2412M & Asus VS247H 24

cmndr_andi · 7 Oct 2011 at 03:07

TheHitMan-1973 said:
So i might look at the Dell U2412M & Asus VS247H 24

If you are doing colour sensetive work (like photoshop) then I would strongly recommend the E-IPS panel dell over the TN panel ASUS. Here is some more information on the difference between the different panel technologies. Also, the dell has more pixels, is taller, has a larger screen area (see here), much wider viewing angles and an excellent stand.

If price is an issue (since the VS247H is a lot cheaper than the U2412M), then I would recommend going for this 23in 1080p E-IPS panel ASUS monitor over the VS247H - since the ML239H costs around the same as the VS247H and will be much better for use with photoshop due to the panel type it uses. (Here is an in-depth review of the ASUS ML239H).