New Monitor Time

LEK-89

LEK-89

LEK-89

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11 Oct 2008
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Leicester
Hi All,

I'm currently running a HP L2045w 20" monitor which must be a few years old now, and it's been an ok monitor up to last night when I spotted a dead Thunderfly towards the right hand corner! :mad: I've attempted to dismantle the monitor to remove this thing to no avail and heavily scratching the outer casing so I think I've given up :(

Anyway, I'm on the look out for a new 22" monitor. However, having only recently gone back into the Desktop PC scene I am a bit out of touch with what monitors to go for these days. I know that It's mainly between LED/LCD but I have absolutely no clue as to which one is better and what other things to look out for i.e. contrast ratio & brightness! I will be mainly using the monitor for general PC use & also a lot of gaming, so idealy a highly recommended monitor which will last.

I have been doing a quick browse on the shop, and the first one which catches my eye for having lots of great reviews and fits really nice in my sub £130 budget is this BenQ:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-034-BQ&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat=

Does anybody own this monitor & how they rate it, or how highly it is rated elseware? If not, could anybody else recommend me another good monitor within my requirements? (22" sized, below £130) Oh, and I will be running the monitor through a DVI-D connection but is it worth to switch to HDMI as I have got a HDMI port on my graphics card?

Thanks all - Liam
 
Hi Liam,

That is a very nice monitor for the price and one I would recommend for a budget of around £100. If you want a little step up in build quality and image quality then I would recommend the B2230H instead - put simply it offers superior colour reproduction and is better built. The MagicBright presets are also a lot better than BenQ's Senseye presets and things are set up better out of the box. This can be found for comfortably within your budget.

As far as HDMI is concerned, the G2222HDL doesn't have a port for this anyway. For PC use there is no advantage whatsoever (except for a slightly smaller cable head) to using HDMI. Really it is a standard designed for non-PC devices and it carries an audio signal as well as video. On a PC you only need the best possible visual signal - and theoretically HDMI and DVI are the same as far as this is concerned. I say theoretically because some GPUs treat monitors as HDTVs via HDMI and you have to mess around with black levels and sometimes come across overscan/underscan issues and washed out images.
 
PCM2 said:
Hi Liam,

That is a very nice monitor for the price and one I would recommend for a budget of around £100. If you want a little step up in build quality and image quality then I would recommend the B2230H instead - put simply it offers superior colour reproduction and is better built. The MagicBright presets are also a lot better than BenQ's Senseye presets and things are set up better out of the box. This can be found for comfortably within your budget.

As far as HDMI is concerned, the G2222HDL doesn't have a port for this anyway. For PC use there is no advantage whatsoever (except for a slightly smaller cable head) to using HDMI. Really it is a standard designed for non-PC devices and it carries an audio signal as well as video. On a PC you only need the best possible visual signal - and theoretically HDMI and DVI are the same as far as this is concerned. I say theoretically because some GPUs treat monitors as HDTVs via HDMI and you have to mess around with black levels and sometimes come across overscan/underscan issues and washed out images.
Click to expand...

Hi PCM2 - thanks for the quick reply :)

Ok, so it's safe to say that the BenQ one is the best one on the £100 mark?

I've just looked on that samsung one and the Contrast ratio is only 70000:1, compared to the BenQ one which is 5000000:1 (I thought the higher the better?)

Stepping up from TFT to LED/LCD, would I really notice much of a noticable difference between the BenQ G2222HDL and the Samsung B2230H?

Thanks again - Liam
 
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LEK-89 said:
Hi PCM2 - thanks for the quick reply :)

Ok, so it's safe to say that the BenQ one is the best one on the £100 mark?

I've just looked on that samsung one and the Contrast ratio is only 70000:1, compared to the BenQ one which is 5000000:1 (I thought the higher the better?)

Stepping up from TFT to LED/LCD, would I really notice much of a noticable difference between the BenQ G2222HDL and the Samsung B2230H?

Thanks again - Liam
Click to expand...

I know it is a battle against the annoying people who market these things, but there are a few things to note here:

1) They are both TFT monitors as pretty much any modern monitor is. TFT is just a type of active matrix arrangement and has nothing specifically to do with 'LED' or 'LCD' or any of that stuff.

2) They are both LCD monitors. I absolutely despise the way marketers try to draw a distinction between 'LED' and 'LCD' technology. 'LED' is actually just referring to the backlight of the monitor in which they usually replace the usual CCFL bulbs (used in the B2230H) with little white LEDs around the edges of the monitor. The end result is the same, really - 'white' light shines through the LCD 'colour filter'. The end result is that differences in image quality are negibible but the LED light source is invariably more efficient and the monitor using this source will use less power. It also allows manufacturers to make the products thinner and lighter but in the case of the BenQ they haven't gone mad with that capability.

3) The 'contrast ratio' figures quoted are 'dynamic' rather than 'static'. Under the dynamic contrast mode the backlight shifts its intensity depending on the colours on the screen. The manufacturers measure a completely white scene (where the backlight will be on as bright as it will go) and a completely black scene (where the backlight will be on very dimly) and compare the two values. An LED backlight can produce very low intensity light without flickering and an LED-backlit monitor can therefore produce 'blacks' for the dynamic contrast mode that are very deep - the backlight is as good as off. The problem is that images in the real world are not entirely black or entirely white so this mode is fundamentally flawed and does little to improve image quality. The contrast of the B2230, from what I have tested, is better under normal (non dynamic) operating modes.

The BenQ is a good thing to spend £100 or so on but I still consider the B2230H a slightly better model and it's still only around £123-£130.
 
I forgot to add, would I still be able to view full HD content in it's view HD quality if I stuck with the DVI-D method, or would I still need to be able to use HDMI to benefit using full 1080p HD?

Thanks all - Liam
 
LEK-89 said:
I forgot to add, would I still be able to view full HD content in it's view HD quality if I stuck with the DVI-D method, or would I still need to be able to use HDMI to benefit using full 1080p HD?

Thanks all - Liam
Click to expand...

As I said the visual signal is the same. Although I don't want to confuse things DVI (if you use a dual-link cable) can actually support much higher resolutions than 'Full HD' (1920 x 1080) and is also required to support 120Hz refresh rates at 'Full HD resolutions'. For the monitors you're looking at DVI gives you the 1920 x 1080 resolution at 60Hz without you having to worry about your GPU thinking the monitor is an HDTV of some sort.
 
Right,

I sort of over estimated my original budget and I could only stretch to just over £100 on my spare funds after just looking on my bank account (doh!) before placing an order for a monitor. So, I have just decided to go ahead and place an order for the BenQ G222HDL. I have took onboard everything that you said about the Samsung monitor but I simply could not stretch to £123 at this time due to limited funds, and the fact that I am a bit impatient and cannot wait another 25 days until pay day! If I had the full £123 I would have snapped the Samsung one up straight away.

However, I think I will still be just as happy with the BenQ G2222HDL monitor and I am really looking forward to receiving it!

Many thanks for your very helpful output PCM2, you have taught me a lot and now for the future I will know spec wise which monitors to go for! I will also reply within the next few days on my thoughts on the BenQ G222HDL monitor.

Thanks again :) Liam
 
If you mean HDCP compliance, you need the DVI port to support HDCP too, but I'm sure the one on the Benq does (careful though, not all monitors support HDCP through DVI).

If you don't mean HDCP compliance, then very much so. HDMI and DVI ports send the exact same signal, although they have different interfaces.

EDIT: Whoops. Too late.
 
Finally received my new BenQ G2222HDL monitor today, and wow - I am blown away by how much better the brightness and crisp picture is compared to my old HP L2045w!

Spent the last hour playing about with the settings, I have left the brightness on the default 100% and the contrast at the default value of 50% too.

However, I am having a bit of difficulty with deciding with which setting is the best for the sharpness. The options given is to choose between from 1-5 (3 set by default) and I know for sure that 1 & 2 are way to soft and blurry for the picture, 5 looks brilliant but in some web pages, the text looks a little too sharp if you know what I mean? For the time being - I think I am happy with it being set at number 4. What do you guys think?

Another thing that I'm not 100% sure on is the color. The default values were 93% for all Red, Green & Blue but I have decided to keep them all set at 100% as to me, the colour stands out more and looks miles better - but after discovering the different picture type settings i.e. eco, RGB, movie, picture etc. I'm not so sure yet.

Overall so far, I am really impressed! The only 1 minor let down is that during a dead pixel check I have identified 1 dead pixel and 1 stuck pixel :( However, I'm not bothered that much and I'm not going to send it back.

Thanks all - Liam
 
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Yep - just tried that program, left the test running for 20 minutes without sucess and then tried the cloth finger massage to no avail :(

Aaahh well, worth a try - I'm just going to leave it as it isn't really bothering me too much.

Thanks anyway - Liam
 
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Am I right that OcUK would not honour an RMA request if a monitor had 2 or less dead pixels? Or is it the case that I would only be covered by the manufactuer under the DSR? I'm just curious as to weather it would really be worth sending it back and how long it would be until I get a replacement sent, that's if I am honoured an RMA?

Edit 2 - I have just realised that under a white background, 1 pixel appears red and the other appears green. Does this mean that both of them are stuck? (under a blue background, 1 appears black and the other just appears green. Hence why I thought I had a completely dead pixel)

Thanks all - Liam
 
LEK-89 said:
Aaahh well, worth a try - I'm just going to leave it as it isn't really bothering me too much.
Click to expand...

That didn't last very long ;)

You need to look at the product information and find BenQ's pixel policy.

If the defects you have are within the policy then the monitor is not considered as faulty so technically you couldn't return at as such.

Even if an RMA was accepted you would have to wait for OcUK to test it and probably then have to wait for them to get a replacement from BenQ.

They don't seem to like providing replacements out of their own stock.

As you say you can always use the DSR but you would have to pay for return postage (non-refundable) and wait for your initial purchase price to be refunded.
 
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