LCD Buyer's Guide

[im2good4u]

thanks xtknight... i'll probably use the ative res. but i still havent made up my mind on what LCD to buy since i have limited model to choose from. im outside US and a newcomer on LCD...

ok, while walking on a local comp shop i saw this AOC 193FW for about 190$ with an old monitor trade in which is ok to me... however i wasn't able to find good reviews about this monitor and also considering the samsung 940BW but at a higher price at 300$. which should i choose? and BTW what kind of panels do these two use? for the dell E207WFP ill be spending about 350$ for that one

 

[DustyNL]

After searching more forums, I've seen many gamers who use the samsung 215TW and are not bothered by input lag at all. Other hand there are some who think it's irritating.
In the end, I think it's a matter of experiencing it yourself and judge if it's acceptable.
Since I'm not hardcore gamer, I still don't think it will bother me.
So at this point I'm still planning to buy the samsung.

however one thing I'm still concerned about is movie performance.
Since the monitor is nr.3 in the multimedia ranking, I can assume the movie performance is also fine? I'm asking this because Ive seen some comments that the 215TW (all PVA panels for that matter) have a "twinkling effect" in movies.
What exactly is this effect and in which degree can it be seen at the 215TW?

 

[Atorox]

First I have to admire the amount of info this Forum has, its amazing. I have been lurking around now three days, trying to make a decision of
which new 20" 1600x1200 I should get (my 10y old CRT just blanked). My main purposes are programming/text editing, manipulating photos
and occasionally watching a movie; gaming is not an issue. I will make my purchase tomorrow, and by now the strongest candidate is
HP LP2065. According to the forum it has S-IPS panel, but where did you find this info? The web page of HP doesn't tell, and according to prad.de the panel is S-PVA and not S-IPS ( see <http://prad.de/en/monitore/guide_graphic_20_21inch.html> ). So, who is wrong, this forum or prad.de? Or is there some "lottery" issue with HP also, and not only with Dell?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: amking
can someone post that link again that has all the different lcd sizes overlayed with different colors?

thanks.

http://xtknight.atothosting.com/images/lcdsizes.gif

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: DustyNL
After searching more forums, I've seen many gamers who use the samsung 215TW and are not bothered by input lag at all. Other hand there are some who think it's irritating.
In the end, I think it's a matter of experiencing it yourself and judge if it's acceptable.
Since I'm not hardcore gamer, I still don't think it will bother me.
So at this point I'm still planning to buy the samsung.

however one thing I'm still concerned about is movie performance.
Since the monitor is nr.3 in the multimedia ranking, I can assume the movie performance is also fine? I'm asking this because Ive seen some comments that the 215TW (all PVA panels for that matter) have a "twinkling effect" in movies.
What exactly is this effect and in which degree can it be seen at the 215TW?

I suspect they mean that LCDs show imperfections more than CRTs...so what...it's not a flaw of the LCD. Meaningless IMO (just like those who rate LCDs down due to gradation). That's what you get when you use a high-contrast LCD...get better source material. On a properly-focused CRT you would see the exact same thing. You can also see JPEG artifacts better on an LCD since the image isn't as blended as on a CRT, but again, sharp CRTs would show the same thing.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Atorox
First I have to admire the amount of info this Forum has, its amazing. I have been lurking around now three days, trying to make a decision of
which new 20" 1600x1200 I should get (my 10y old CRT just blanked). My main purposes are programming/text editing, manipulating photos
and occasionally watching a movie; gaming is not an issue. I will make my purchase tomorrow, and by now the strongest candidate is
HP LP2065. According to the forum it has S-IPS panel, but where did you find this info? The web page of HP doesn't tell, and according to prad.de the panel is S-PVA and not S-IPS ( see <http://prad.de/en/monitore/guide_graphic_20_21inch.html> ). So, who is wrong, this forum or prad.de? Or is there some "lottery" issue with HP also, and not only with Dell?

http://prad.de/en/monitore/review-hp-lp2065-part8.html

Hewlett Packard did not want to give away any details on what exact panel is being used in the LP2065; we were merely told that it employed Overdrive and that the Overdrive function was a development by the producer of the panel. However, this information is enough for one to be able to safely assume that the panel at hand is an S-PVA panel by Samsung which makes use of Samsung's Overdrive Technology ADCC (Advanced Dynamic Capacitance Compensation).

LG Philips obviously also has overdrive so I don't know why that made them think it was a Samsung. Maybe they didn't back then. However, flatpanels.dk lists the LP2065 as an S-IPS, and the specs match. HP uses tons of other S-IPS panels in their models as well.

The LP2065 does seem perfect for your purposes.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: im2good4u
thanks xtknight... i'll probably use the ative res. but i still havent made up my mind on what LCD to buy since i have limited model to choose from. im outside US and a newcomer on LCD...

ok, while walking on a local comp shop i saw this AOC 193FW for about 190$ with an old monitor trade in which is ok to me... however i wasn't able to find good reviews about this monitor and also considering the samsung 940BW but at a higher price at 300$. which should i choose?

AOC isn't a brand I'd choose, so I'd go with the Samsung.

and BTW what kind of panels do these two use? for the dell E207WFP ill be spending about 350$ for that one

All three LCDs you mentioned use TNs. The e207WFP is probably your best choice if you can't get the Samsung 205BW.

 

[Atorox]

Thanks xtknight, that solved my problem (almost). My photo retouching needs are more like semi-professional than mundane, so I'm a little bit concerned about the color purity of LP2065. But the price difference between it and f.ex. more interesting NEC LCD2090UXI is too huge.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Atorox
Thanks xtknight, that solved my problem (almost). My photo retouching needs are more like semi-professional than mundane, so I'm a little bit concerned about the color purity of LP2065. But the price difference between it and f.ex. more interesting NEC LCD2090UXI is too huge.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by color purity, but there are lots of factors that determine how ideal an LCD is for photo editing. First and foremost are the gamma curves.

It would be hard for a manufacturer to screw up the gamma curves that ship with an LCD panel (unless the brightness/contrast controls clipped either end of the curve). Since the U05 is newer and LPL's latest S-IPS panels perform admirably in the category, we can assume that the LP2065 (LPL S-IPS LM201U05) has even tighter curves than the LCD2070NX (LPL S-IPS LM201U04).

I don't suppose widescreen would be an option? The 20WMGX2 is very affordable compared to the 2090, and has the tightest gamma curve of almost any LCD. It's just about as good as the professional NEC 90 series ones.

LCD2070NX (U04 S-IPS) gamma curve: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/20inch_4.html

20WMGX2 (AS-IPS) gamma curve:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/20-21inch-2_15.html

LCD2190UXi (A-TW-IPS) gamma curve:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/20-21inch-2_19.html

BTW, on the 20WMGX2 review you can disregard the horrible contrast ratings. I'm certain they got a faulty model as all 20WMGX2s I know of have a black level no higher than 0.4 and typically 0.25. Here's a deltaE graph (bottom=calibrated): http://62.204.32.7:10973/20WGX2/calibra...WGX2_120cdm2_6500k_adv-off_fullres.jpg

The second thing I'd worry about is black level, and almost all S-IPS LCDs (including all four mentioned in this post) are great there. White level is debatable. Some people say highest possible, some say not over 120 or even 100 nits for photos. I calibrated mine for 120 personally and it's plenty bright. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure any of those LCDs can reach at least 120 so you're good there. The extremely-bright 20WMGX2 scales great when lowering brightness. That's how they got such accurate colors above.

Lastly I'd worry about color saturation. The two regular aspect S-IPS LCDs should be great in that regard (better than TN/MVA) and the 20WMGX2 may excel because of the coating.

Hopefully that made your choice easier.

Edit: the black levels on those X-Bit reviews seem abnormally high for all of those LCDs. They're crazy...

 

[JohnStrack]

Hi all!

I´m also looking for a photo editing LCD. I live in France and the prices here are different from the US. I have narrowed my choices down to 3 monitors:

a) HP LP2065, price 470 euros.
b) Philips 200W6 (16ms S-IPS panel), price 380 euros.
c) NEC 20WGX2, price 520 euros.

I´m also thinking if I could skip buying a calibrator, i.e. if any of this monitor has low enough Delta E out of the box?

What I like about the monitors above is the price of the Philips, 4:3 of the HP (more rez) and the pivot function. What I like about the NEC is the glossy panel and good reputation.

So, what should I buy?


John

 

[Atorox]

Originally posted by: xtknight
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by color purity

You are right, that was loose terminology.. I mean, it's important to be able to calibrate the monitor such a way, that the colors of the screen will match (with icc-profile, of course) to the colors of the commercial printing service I'm using.
I can and will borrow a colorimeter, if needed.

If I understood it correctly, in those more expensive models user can modify the internal ``color search table´´ of the monitor (sorry, I don't know the right English word; I mean the mapping between the DVI input signal and the actual displayed color). In cheaper models (like HP) the control electronics has only 8 bits, so the mapping is fixed.

I don't suppose widescreen would be an option?

It would be, but not with 1680x1050. I need at least 1200 points for y resolution, but 1920x1200 is out of my budget. Perhaps at 2008 or 2009 the price for that will be more reasonable.

Hopefully that made your choice easier.

Thanks for a very good amount of extra info, I will melt it down at evening. BTW, I already ordered the HP, but if your links will modify my decision, I can still return it.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: JohnStrack
Hi all!

I´m also looking for a photo editing LCD. I live in France and the prices here are different from the US. I have narrowed my choices down to 3 monitors:

a) HP LP2065, price 470 euros.
b) Philips 200W6 (16ms S-IPS panel), price 380 euros.
c) NEC 20WGX2, price 520 euros.

I´m also thinking if I could skip buying a calibrator, i.e. if any of this monitor has low enough Delta E out of the box?

What I like about the monitors above is the price of the Philips, 4:3 of the HP (more rez) and the pivot function. What I like about the NEC is the glossy panel and good reputation.

So, what should I buy?


John

Well, just out of curiosity how much does the Pantone Eye One Display 2 (best value for calibrator) go for over there? What about the Gretag-Macbeth Eye One Display 2? Unless they're prohibitively expensive I wouldn't eliminate the calibrator.

Actually, if you went with the cheapest of those plus the calibrator you may not even get as good results as just getting the LCD20WGX2 and using default settings.

So, get the 20WGX2, but I'd still like to know how much the calibrators are in France.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Atorox
You are right, that was loose terminology.. I mean, it's important to be able to calibrate the monitor such a way, that the colors of the screen will match (with icc-profile, of course) to the colors of the commercial printing service I'm using.
I can and will borrow a colorimeter, if needed.

If I understood it correctly, in those more expensive models user can modify the internal ``color search table´´ of the monitor (sorry, I don't know the right English word; I mean the mapping between the DVI input signal and the actual displayed color). In cheaper models (like HP) the control electronics has only 8 bits, so the mapping is fixed.

Yeah, the more expensive Eizos and NEC 90 series LCDs have hardware gamma look-up tables that can be calibrated by some calibration software. Most LCDs have a static 8-bit look-up table configured by the panel manufacturer (AUO, Samsung, LPL, etc). The Eizo and NECs also often have >8-bit data processing, and sometimes 10-bit display (8-bit with dithering). "Gamma" is actually a property of the panel describing how it displays colors. What we are talking about is gamma correction. The panels implement a chip to shape the gamma to the video card's output as close as possible. Further gamma correction (and unit-specific) is needed for photo editing.

A lot of ICC profiles contain 16-bit gamma tables but they are downscaled to 8-bit to fit your video card's look-up table. Plus, a 16-bit gamma table is useless on an 8-bit display. A calibrator would be good to have for photo editing. It's hard to imagine what my colors would be like without calibration now. I mean, it's not that the default gamma is horrible, but you need just the right settings on the LCD, and only a colorimeter can determine that. My eyes don't measure nits.

I don't suppose widescreen would be an option?

It would be, but not with 1680x1050. I need at least 1200 points for y resolution, but 1920x1200 is out of my budget. Perhaps at 2008 or 2009 the price for that will be more reasonable.

Hopefully that made your choice easier.

Thanks for a very good amount of extra info, I will melt it down at evening. BTW, I already ordered the HP, but if your links will modify my decision, I can still return it.

Well, that's good. If you don't want the widescreen then the HP is the way to go.

 

[JohnStrack]

Originally posted by: xtknight



Well, just out of curiosity how much does the Pantone Eye One Display 2 (best value for calibrator) go for over there? What about the Gretag-Macbeth Eye One Display 2? Unless they're prohibitively expensive I wouldn't eliminate the calibrator.

Actually, if you went with the cheapest of those plus the calibrator you may not even get as good results as just getting the LCD20WGX2 and using default settings.

So, get the 20WGX2, but I'd still like to know how much the calibrators are in France.

Thanks Xnight!

Eye one display LT sells for 220 euros, similar as Monaco Optix XR.

I read somewhere that people were complaining about the black level on the NEC. Do you get satisfactory results with your monitor?


John

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: JohnStrack
Thanks Xnight!

Eye one display LT sells for 220 euros, similar as Monaco Optix XR.

I read somewhere that people were complaining about the black level on the NEC. Do you get satisfactory results with your monitor?


John

Certainly good results (0.25 nits if I remember right). The glossy coating helps, if you have some ambient light, to make the black appear blacker. It's by far the most uniform screen I've used, so you don't get ugly backlight bleeding even if the black is slightly dark gray. I don't know of a screen with a deeper black than the NEC except perhaps a Samsung 215TW by a couple hundredths of a nit (which has worse gamma curves).

 

[DustyNL]

xtknight, what do you think about the viewsonic VX2025WM?
All reviews are quite good, it's fast with good colors.
I wonder how this one compares to samsung 215tw

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: DustyNL
xtknight, what do you think about the viewsonic VX2025WM?
All reviews are quite good, it's fast with good colors.
I wonder how this one compares to samsung 215tw

The VX2025WM is fairly good for the price, but I don't think ViewSonic has fixed the DVI problems. The colors are rather washed out (not necessarily worse than TNs), though it is fast. It's faster than the 215TW but the colors can't compare. The OSDs on the ViewSonic LCDs annoy me to hell though...it pops up with an annoying, unmovable, strong blue 'DVI' every time the screen syncs to a signal or changes resolution. The other DVI problems I'm talking about are ones where the DVI simply doesn't work at all. Google 'vx2025wm dvi hardforum'.

 

[Kung Foo]

Back here again.

I bought the LG L204WT-SF 20.1" last week (after over a month of waiting due to LG's problems in shipping). Seems that this monitor is selling quite good.

We'll, today I returned it due to sheer disappointment in the quality.
Here's a list of reasons which made me return it:
1) The colors of the panel were lousy. This was because the white level was too high no mather what I did with the settings (contrast, brightness, color settings). The picture just seemed washed out, or how would I describe it - "burned" perhaps.
2) The black level really was a downer. I tested this with a test program which made the screen completely black (blank). The screen still was glowing due to the backlight bleeding (and it was worse on the top and bottom edges of the panel).
3) The screen changed it's look around moving things. This was especially irritating when the screen around my moving pointer arrow was changing slightly with a radius of about 4-5 cm around the pointer. Could this be due to the 6-bit colors and the dithering, or perhaps the LG F-Engine?
4) Last but not least, the panel seemed to somehow "turn off" at random. Nothing but a complete restart of the both computer and the monitor would fix this. The monitor power led was still on, but nothing but the (bleeding) backlight was shown on the screen. I think this happened (especially) when the screen modes were switched (e.g. to a different resolution, or when starting windows).

We'll, thats for the "great black levels" and "good colors", which everyone around the net seems to say.
Perhaps mine was a defective one, but I'll still definitely stay away from this LG's model.

So I guess I'm now looking for an LCD which has a better panel - propaby S-IPS.
I have a DELL 2007WFP @ work, and it seems to have no problems like these. We'll its a true 8-bit panel, so I guess that's the key here.

BTW: If someone's interested, this monitor had the panel "CPT20.WIDE" (read from the service menu).

 

[DustyNL]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: DustyNL
xtknight, what do you think about the viewsonic VX2025WM?
All reviews are quite good, it's fast with good colors.
I wonder how this one compares to samsung 215tw

The VX2025WM is fairly good for the price, but I don't think ViewSonic has fixed the DVI problems. The colors are rather washed out (not necessarily worse than TNs), though it is fast. It's faster than the 215TW but the colors can't compare. The OSDs on the ViewSonic LCDs annoy me to hell though...it pops up with an annoying, unmovable, strong blue 'DVI' every time the screen syncs to a signal or changes resolution. The other DVI problems I'm talking about are ones where the DVI simply doesn't work at all. Google 'vx2025wm dvi hardforum'.

ah okay. So I know the viewsonic would be somewhat faster for games, well as I said I'm not too worried about that. However which one would be better for movies?
because some reviews talk about twinkling effect and "noisy video playback" on the 215TW.

 

[mrpuck]

Hi All, I went through much of this post but still can't find a solid answer on my best bet for a pure gaming LCD. I saw the recommendations in the guide, but all are mostly 19.1" models and I really want to get something around 22-24"

I was looking into the 30" Dell 3007WFP LCD originally especially with the recent price drop, but the reviews I have read say it has a lot of ghosting in fast moving games FPS primarily. Plus the Native Resolution is like 2400 X 1900 or something insanely high. So as much as a "cool" factor as it excretes, I think it's more of a CAD type monitor unless I was running SLI or XFire.

I typically play games at 1920 X 1200 so thats where I am shooting resolution wise. So I think so far my best bet is the Dell 24" 2047WFP LCD. I know they had a lot of problems early but are on their 3rd revision and I believe are problem free for the most part now.

Anyone have any other recommendations?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: DustyNL

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: DustyNL
xtknight, what do you think about the viewsonic VX2025WM?
All reviews are quite good, it's fast with good colors.
I wonder how this one compares to samsung 215tw

The VX2025WM is fairly good for the price, but I don't think ViewSonic has fixed the DVI problems. The colors are rather washed out (not necessarily worse than TNs), though it is fast. It's faster than the 215TW but the colors can't compare. The OSDs on the ViewSonic LCDs annoy me to hell though...it pops up with an annoying, unmovable, strong blue 'DVI' every time the screen syncs to a signal or changes resolution. The other DVI problems I'm talking about are ones where the DVI simply doesn't work at all. Google 'vx2025wm dvi hardforum'.

ah okay. So I know the viewsonic would be somewhat faster for games, well as I said I'm not too worried about that. However which one would be better for movies?
because some reviews talk about twinkling effect and "noisy video playback" on the 215TW.

Despite that I still think the 215TW would be better for movies. The higher contrast would make movies look a lot better. The ViewSonic may not have as much twinkling, but it also doesn't have as much contrast, which I think is the key factor since I can barely even see this twinkling they're talking about.

 

[niall]

Originally posted by: xtknight
My eyes don't measure nits.

No, they just pick them endlessly - for which we are all very thankful and grateful!

(Sorry, simply could not resist! )

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Kung Foo
Back here again.

I bought the LG L204WT-SF 20.1" last week (after over a month of waiting due to LG's problems in shipping). Seems that this monitor is selling quite good.

We'll, today I returned it due to sheer disappointment in the quality.
Here's a list of reasons which made me return it:
1) The colors of the panel were lousy. This was because the white level was too high no mather what I did with the settings (contrast, brightness, color settings). The picture just seemed washed out, or how would I describe it - "burned" perhaps.
2) The black level really was a downer. I tested this with a test program which made the screen completely black (blank). The screen still was glowing due to the backlight bleeding (and it was worse on the top and bottom edges of the panel).
3) The screen changed it's look around moving things. This was especially irritating when the screen around my moving pointer arrow was changing slightly with a radius of about 4-5 cm around the pointer. Could this be due to the 6-bit colors and the dithering, or perhaps the LG F-Engine?
4) Last but not least, the panel seemed to somehow "turn off" at random. Nothing but a complete restart of the both computer and the monitor would fix this. The monitor power led was still on, but nothing but the (bleeding) backlight was shown on the screen. I think this happened (especially) when the screen modes were switched (e.g. to a different resolution, or when starting windows).

We'll, thats for the "great black levels" and "good colors", which everyone around the net seems to say.
Perhaps mine was a defective one, but I'll still definitely stay away from this LG's model.

So I guess I'm now looking for an LCD which has a better panel - propaby S-IPS.
I have a DELL 2007WFP @ work, and it seems to have no problems like these. We'll its a true 8-bit panel, so I guess that's the key here.

BTW: If someone's interested, this monitor had the panel "CPT20.WIDE" (read from the service menu).

Interesting...well, yes the L204WT does have a pretty decent reputation. It isn't quite as good as S-IPS panels though.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: mrpuck
Hi All, I went through much of this post but still can't find a solid answer on my best bet for a pure gaming LCD. I saw the recommendations in the guide, but all are mostly 19.1" models and I really want to get something around 22-24"

I was looking into the 30" Dell 3007WFP LCD originally especially with the recent price drop, but the reviews I have read say it has a lot of ghosting in fast moving games FPS primarily. Plus the Native Resolution is like 2400 X 1900 or something insanely high. So as much as a "cool" factor as it excretes, I think it's more of a CAD type monitor unless I was running SLI or XFire.

I typically play games at 1920 X 1200 so thats where I am shooting resolution wise. So I think so far my best bet is the Dell 24" 2047WFP LCD. I know they had a lot of problems early but are on their 3rd revision and I believe are problem free for the most part now.

Anyone have any other recommendations?

Your best bet is the BenQ FP241W for 24"/1920x1200 gaming. It'd be faster than the Dell 2407WFP.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: niall

Originally posted by: xtknight
My eyes don't measure nits.

No, they just pick them endlessly - for which we are all very thankful and grateful!

(Sorry, simply could not resist! )

I can say with honesty that's the funniest thing I've read in weeks.