Monitor Confusion - Time No Help!!

Flying Anorak · 29 Jul 2010 at 13:08

Hi All,

I've been trying to decide what is the best 24" + monitor to get for the last six months or so and having deliberately avoided this site for the last couple of months, I returned expecting to find the decision much easier. Needless to say, it isn't!

Earlier this year there were various new IPS and OLED monitors in the pipeline all of which sounded better than the Dell U2410 - have any of these now materialised or is the Dell still a good bet? My needs - I do a bit of gaming (CoD, Crysis etc) and flight simming but I also do a lot of semi-pro photography work as well as the usual internet stuff.

So, I throw myself at your feet and wonder - should I go Dell, NEC, HP or Samsung? I've nearly clicked 'Buy' so many times....but know I'll regret it if I do.

Oh btw - my new PC has an ATI 5870 card so does this rule out any 120Hz monitors now?

Thanks in anticipation...

Paul.

ShaolinDreams · 29 Jul 2010 at 13:25

5870 is a nice card so youll want something half decent to compliment it.

Question is do you prefer picture quality or speedy gaming? And yeah i would suggest either a Dell for quality or 120hz monitor for gaming and 3D.

Flying Anorak · 29 Jul 2010 at 13:26

Is there a happy medium?

ShaolinDreams · 29 Jul 2010 at 13:34

Flying Anorak said:
Is there a happy medium?

Good question

well an IPS will game ok many people who have one will say its not a problem but it wont be a quick/smooth as a TN or a 120hz monitor. Saying that if you are extremely anal about colours and need professional equipment for your photography work IPS is what you need, you could still use a non IPS screen if you dont have to be so professional and it would be very responsive for gaming. Im sure that if there was an IPS with super quick response time it would be selling like hotcakes even with mega high pricetag.

Do you need the quality from an IPS monitor?

Weazle · 29 Jul 2010 at 15:30

The HP ZR24w is the best fit to my eyes ... literally

I moved from a Samsung 226BW which is one of the fastest 22" TN monitors to the HP ZR24w which is an S-IPS screen 3 or 4 months ago. Its got no ghosting or input latency that I can notice ..... I used a Dell 2408WFP briefly and that had horrible input latency.

When you first get it the factory settings are way too bright so you'll need to tweak the brightness/contrast and some of the colours as well. TFTCentral has a good guide on calibrating it (look for the added info after the review itself) .

Atm the I believe the Dell U2410 has a lot of quality control issues.

Bint Box · 29 Jul 2010 at 19:55

For quality photographic work an Eizo Colour Edge, LaCie or NEC should be high on your list.

For decent photographic work and other office work and gaming the the HPZR24w and Dell U2410 are obvious options. You could also consider Eizo Flexscan in this category. The risk with the Dell is the tinting issue and I am not sure if the HP is similarly affected to the same degree.

Rgds
Binty