Looking for a good 27" LED monitor

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Anybody recently got a good 27" LED monitor, not sure which ones are good or what to look out for.

Gaming is the main focus, but I do also watch films/digital art also.

True black & no ghosting is also important.

Would like to spend as little as possible for the best picture - don't really care about other fancy extras.
 
Well the best no-frills 27" LED monitor for a very nice price would be the Hazro HZ27WC.

It's a fast IPS panel so suitable for gaming and since it's IPS the colors look brilliant. It is however 2560x1440 which requires a high-end graphicscard if you want to game on it.

You might want to mention the resolution you're after along with your budget if you want better advice.
 
He is referring to the ability to run the game at an interpolated 1920 x 1080 mode which is lower than the monitor's native resolution. I would have to strongly disagree that it looks 'great' at anything other than native resolution. The pixels can't shrink in size so you inevitably lose a decent degree of sharpness. Running 1920 x 1080 on any 2560 x 1440 monitor (I've done this on the Apple Cinema Display, Dell U2711H and Samsung S27A850D to name but a few) is never ideal. It doesn't exactly look terrible but you get nowhere near the texture clarity of an equivilent sized and decent 1920 x 1080 monitor and it looks like running a lower resolution than that natively. If you don't have the graphics horsepower to run 2560 x 1440 and don't plan to achieve this horsepower in the near future I would strongly suggest sticking with 1920 x 1080 native for games to avoid disappointment. To that end the ASUS V278Q is an excellent deal at the moment for native 1920 x 1080 gaming.
 
Game textures are designed to scale, the only issue is with text and games generally use much bigger fonts than you'd see on a desktop anyway. However unless you need the 2560x1440 for desktop/apps I wouldnt bother...theres no benefit in games other than to require much beefier hardware.
 
The 'blur' you get with text is generally the easiest comparison to observe but it is due to the makeup of the pixels which as I've said can't alter in size. Exactly the same applies to everything else, textures and all. It's similar in effect to applying a morphological AA filter. Textures become a lot softer! As I've said I have had a lot of experience observing this and have made specific side-by-side comparisons. I am glad you are happy enough using interpolated 1080p but don't try telling me and others that textures and the general image in games look the same as on a native 1080p monitor because frankly that's rubbish.
 
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I suppose I took issue with the word 'great' (and so did iBSOD it seems). Personally I can't stand to use anything other than native resolution on such a monitor and never really have done. I last tested this just yesterday on the S27A850D when assessing its scaling and interpolation performance. I had previously tested on the Apple Cinema Display, too, which is very similar to the Hazro in this respect. But it depends how discerning you are about that kind of thing.
 
In regards to the OP I would be hesitant to buy a "cheap" monitor.
I know he said he didnt need all the fancy extras that make some monitors come at a premium but in my experience with computer items you get what you pay for.
High price monitors "might" come with added extras that you may not need but with that price also comes build quality and good customer service/warranty options.

You may think you are saving a few quid buying a cheap monitor but you will be the one kicking yourself when/if something goes wrong and the manufacturer doesn't want to know, or when you have to keep RMAing monitors over and over due to dead pixels, major backlight bleed etc.

Just my 2p worth :)
 
Having just bought an Asus V278Q I have to second PCM2's reccomendation. It is a very nice monitor for the money.

Colours out of the box were pretty good although the contrast and brightness did make my eyes bleed a bit. 30 minutes of tinkering gave me a very nice image and the 2ms response time makes it great for gaming. Sure the viewing angles are not as good as and IPS or VA screen but it is a damn sight better than my previous TN panel (Samsung 226BW).

There are a lot of settings to tweak to give you a good image and the conectivity is also very good with pretty much any connector you could want. PIP and HDCP means I can watch a DVD while writing an essay and it also does 1:1 pixel mapping which even some of the higher priced Hazro's wont do.

All in all I am very impressed with this "budget" 27" monitor. Especially as I picked it up for £200 from MM unused with the protective plastic still on the bezels ;)

/Salsa
 
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