monitor for designers

Xfactor · 5 Mar 2006 at 11:40

Hey all,
i have finally decided to switch from my crt and need some advice on a good tft alternative. I am a web/graphic designer, so picture accuracy and colour is important.. also do some video editing/animation so it needs to handle motion graphics well.. not much of a gamer tho.

I have around £350 to spend on a 19" (with DVI).. considered sony -x-black but that may produce unrealistic oversaturated colours which isnt that great when im designing for the average screen..

any recommendations?

ta,
Chris.

fish99 · 5 Mar 2006 at 12:24

Viewsonic VP930 is generally rated as the best all round 19" screen. It's an MVA screen, so it's full 24-bit 16.7 M colour, has good viewing angles, and is quick enough for most people to game on. There are quicker screens around (TN Film panels) but they sacrifice colour depth (18 bit plus dithering to make the number of colours up to 16.2 M) and viewing angles to get that speed. Certainly the VP930 is quick enough for video I would think.

Samsung SM970P or SM193P+ are another couple to look at. Slower than the VP930, but again quality screens.

Pretty much all TFTs use overdrive now (an agressive way of reducing latency) which can introduce some video artifacts (known as twinkling). If that sounds like it might be a problem, then you might want to find an older screen that doesn't use overdrive, although they are slower. Baddass would be able to help there. I think I'm right in saying the widescreen Dells don't use overdrive, the Apples too I think, but they're probably not the sort of screens you're looking for.

Btw when you say web/graphic designer, are you sure 1280*1024 is enough screen space?

Also check out the reviews on BeHardware, tons of excellent info.

hittman · 5 Mar 2006 at 12:26

look at the two stickys. may prove helpful

Ashcrapper · 5 Mar 2006 at 14:41

19" monitor is nowhere near big enough if you are actually using it for design. not unless you like a lot of hassle anyway

Xfactor · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:00

thanks for the breakdown.. the viewsonic certainly looks like a good choice. It seems the price for 20+ monitors is quite a substantial difference for what you get.. could you get a 20+ screen with good specs for 350-400??.

I will probably use the tft in addition with my crt in a dual setup so ill be able to have my canvas on one and controls on another.. ive worked on some rubbish monitors in the past ..you be surprised what some respected design agencies give you to work with

..this is for personal design use.

glitch · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:12

Xfactor said:
picture accuracy and colour is important..

Then you'll need a hardware calibration unit, assuming you don't already own one.

fish99 · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:55

Xfactor said:
thanks for the breakdown.. the viewsonic certainly looks like a good choice. It seems the price for 20+ monitors is quite a substantial difference for what you get.. could you get a 20+ screen with good specs for 350-400??.

Check out the 20"+ screens page (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/lcd20.html). The NEC is highly rated at the moment. Depends whether you want 16:10 or regular 5:4 though. The Dell 2001FP fits your criteria if you can afford it and you don't want widescreen.