LCD Buyer's Guide

[Vazkor]

Ok, it's 970p or VP930 ... now I have a question :
my desk is really, really short in depth ... how deep is 970p from the base to the screen? The wall is right behind the desk so I have to consider also the base depth.
Can you confirm that VP930 can be wallmounted? Does it require an additional mounting system? The wall is so near ( an arm away ) that I could simply mount it on the wall ...

 

[spectra9]

Originally posted by: Vazkor
Ok, it's 970p or VP930 ... now I have a question :
my desk is really, really short in depth ... how deep is 970p from the base to the screen? The wall is right behind the desk so I have to consider also the base depth.
Can you confirm that VP930 can be wallmounted? Does it require an additional mounting system? The wall is so near ( an arm away ) that I could simply mount it on the wall ...

Yes the VP930 has the standard VESA wall mount

 

[Vazkor]

Wonderful, thank you very much.

 

[yacoub]

If one of my primary concerns is watching DVDs on it, am I better off with a Sony P234 (S-IPS) or 2405FPW (PVA) panel?

Considerations thus being ghosting, black blacks, and vibrant color reproduction.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: yacoub
If one of my primary concerns is watching DVDs on it, am I better off with a Sony P234 (S-IPS) or 2405FPW (PVA) panel?

Considerations thus being ghosting, black blacks, and vibrant color reproduction.

Sony P234 in all categories I'd say.

 

[yacoub]

darn! hahah. The 2405 is still on $799 sale at Dell and the P234 is $1399 in CompUSA and online from non-shady etailers it's like $1200. =[
I'm afraid to order monitors online as it is with the crappy return policies. I would feel best buying in a store but $1400 is ridiculous. $800 Dell I could see since they are pretty good about returns and lately the 2405s have been good quality (my old roommate bought one last month and it was perfect).

 

[xtknight]

The Sony would also have better viewing angles. Is the Philips 23" any cheaper?

HP L2335 (Widescreen) har et 23 tommer 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM230W02) panel.

or

Philips 230W5BS (Widescreen) har et 23 tommer 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LM230W02) panel.
Philips 230WP7NS har et 23 tommer 12 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips) panel.
Philips 23PF4310 har et 23 tommer 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LC230W01) panel.
Philips 23PF9946 har et 23 tommer 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LC230W01) panel.
Philips 23PF9956 har et 23 tommer 16 ms S-IPS (LG.Philips LC230W01) panel.

 

[yacoub]

Are those the same panel as the Sony or does Sony use its own panels? I would feel more comfortable with Sony's quality (my current monitor is a 17" Sony LCD I've had for about four years now and it is still working fine. No dead or stuck pixels, just some backlight leak at the edges I can see when viewing a black screen.

 

[xtknight]

Personally, I wouldn't buy anything Sony because I have had countless Sony devices fail on me, but that's just my experience. The Philips 230W5BS (and probably 230WP7NS) and HP L2235 all use the same panel as the Sony SDM-P234 (*W02). The rest (*W01) are an older revision. According to flatpanels.dk anyway.

 

[yacoub]

From what I remember in reviews the L2335 has pretty poor compos/component/etc inputs.

 

[darXoul]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Do you know what PixPerAn tempo setting 'au mieux' and 'au pire' are?

I don't know but in both cases, it's the same.

"We capture afterglow with a camera at a shutter speed of 1/1000 s. We take 50 pictures per test. We then can see a monitor´s ghosting effects, or all the car´s positions in the entire process.The most important image is the one on the left, the better one. It will be the most displayed on the monitor, while the one on the right is in transition."

They also say "at high speed", so maybe it's max speed, 16.

Do they have the 2090 on display in any stores in Poland? If not find something similar in response images to that 2090 and try and go take a look at it. Decisions...decisions...

Hell, yeah The 2090 is at the moment still very difficult to find anywhere. The monitors should arrive at most stores in about a week. The problem is that I simply won't be able to see one in action and try e.g. Q3 on it

The 12 ms response time of the 230WP7NS sounds decent to me. I'm guessing it uses overdrive because 16 ms is listed on LG.Philips for its panel.

Yea, actually it looks like on/off time. The press release said 8 ms g2g so I guess it's a 12/8 monitor. Faster than the L2000C or 2090UXi, which are both 16/8.

 

[thor17]

Anyone have any thoughts about Dell 2001fp vs Samsung 204t?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: thor17
Anyone have any thoughts about Dell 2001fp vs Samsung 204t?

The Dell 2001FP probably has wider viewing angles and less response time. Both are 8-bit color depth monitors as far as I can tell.

 

[EviL AnGeL]

Hello I'm looking for a new monitor and have found this thread to be very helpful and informative and would be grateful if you could offer some advice. I have narrowed down my choices to these monitors

Samsung 940b
Samsung 970p
Viewsonic VP930

Having used a 19" Hansol CRT for years I bought a Samsung 913N (same as 915N I think) but have returned it due to it having 3 dead pixels. I probably would have returned it anyway though because text seemed a bit spidery like it wasn't anti aliased or something. Maybe that's just how LCD's are but I was wondering if DVI would make the text better as the 913N was analogue only or is it going to be like that on all LCD's? I did have cleartype on by the way and smooth screen fonts and had done the cleartype calibrator. Just couldn't get it to look smooth on the edges.

I know the bottom 2 monitors I've listed are 8-bit but they also both seem to have problems such as the backlight issue. I surf a lot use word and photoshop a little bit and game a moderate amount so I guess I need a good all rounder. If it was your dollar which one would you go for based on what I need it for or do you have any other suggestions. I don't really want a widescreen though. Thanks in advance.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: EviL AnGeL
Hello I'm looking for a new monitor and have found this thread to be very helpful and informative and would be grateful if you could offer some advice. I have narrowed down my choices to these monitors

Samsung 940b
Samsung 970p
Viewsonic VP930

Having used a 19" Hansol CRT for years I bought a Samsung 913N (same as 915N I think) but have returned it due to it having 3 dead pixels. I probably would have returned it anyway though because text seemed a bit spidery like it wasn't anti aliased or something. Maybe that's just how LCD's are but I was wondering if DVI would make the text better as the 913N was analogue only or is it going to be like that on all LCD's? I did have cleartype on by the way and smooth screen fonts and had done the cleartype calibrator. Just couldn't get it to look smooth on the edges.

I know the bottom 2 monitors I've listed are 8-bit but they also both seem to have problems such as the backlight issue. I surf a lot use word and photoshop a little bit and game a moderate amount so I guess I need a good all rounder. If it was your dollar which one would you go for based on what I need it for or do you have any other suggestions. I don't really want a widescreen though. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forums. They're all 6-bit actually, but the 970P and VP930 have much higher contrast. The VP930 is a fair amount better than the 970P for gaming while having equivalent colors so I'd go for that. As for the text issue, LCDs do have much sharper text than CRTs. DVI would probably make it sharper. It's possible that ClearType and VGA didn't play together nice. The ClearType could introduce color artifacts on VGA or if it's improperly calibrated. Sometimes any amount of ClearType calibration will still make it produce artifacts with VGA.

 

[EviL AnGeL]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: EviL AnGeL
Hello I'm looking for a new monitor and have found this thread to be very helpful and informative and would be grateful if you could offer some advice. I have narrowed down my choices to these monitors

Samsung 940b
Samsung 970p
Viewsonic VP930

Having used a 19" Hansol CRT for years I bought a Samsung 913N (same as 915N I think) but have returned it due to it having 3 dead pixels. I probably would have returned it anyway though because text seemed a bit spidery like it wasn't anti aliased or something. Maybe that's just how LCD's are but I was wondering if DVI would make the text better as the 913N was analogue only or is it going to be like that on all LCD's? I did have cleartype on by the way and smooth screen fonts and had done the cleartype calibrator. Just couldn't get it to look smooth on the edges.

I know the bottom 2 monitors I've listed are 8-bit but they also both seem to have problems such as the backlight issue. I surf a lot use word and photoshop a little bit and game a moderate amount so I guess I need a good all rounder. If it was your dollar which one would you go for based on what I need it for or do you have any other suggestions. I don't really want a widescreen though. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forums. They're all 6-bit actually, but the 970P and VP930 have much higher contrast. The VP930 is a fair amount better than the 970P for gaming while having equivalent colors so I'd go for that. As for the text issue, LCDs do have much sharper text than CRTs. DVI would probably make it sharper. It's possible that ClearType and VGA didn't play together nice. The ClearType could introduce color artifacts on VGA or if it's improperly calibrated. Sometimes any amount of ClearType calibration will still make it produce artifacts with VGA.

Thanks for the welcome. ok so that's eliminated the 970p (I wasn't that sold on the style and colour anyway and the VP930 is a touch cheaper) but do you think it's worth spending the extra £110/$191 on the VP930 over the 940b. I don't mind spending the extra money as long as it's worthwhile but from looking at the specs the VP930 has a slower response time but with higher contrast and is supposedly 8-bit or 6bit + 2x2 dither whichever way you look at it as opposed to the 940b's 6bit. Also the backlight bleeding issue has put me off a bit. I'm sort of selling myself the 940b but I don't want to be dissapointed.

I'd like to see both of them in person but theres no chance of that as I don't know anyone with either and all the shops around here don't stock them.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: EviL AnGeL
Thanks for the welcome. ok so that's eliminated the 970p (I wasn't that sold on the style and colour anyway and the VP930 is a touch cheaper) but do you think it's worth spending the extra £110/$191 on the VP930 over the 940b. I don't mind spending the extra money as long as it's worthwhile but from looking at the specs the VP930 has a slower response time but with higher contrast and is supposedly 8-bit or 6bit + 2x2 dither whichever way you look at it as opposed to the 940b's 6bit. Also the backlight bleeding issue has put me off a bit. I'm sort of selling myself the 940b but I don't want to be dissapointed.

I'd like to see both of them in person but theres no chance of that as I don't know anyone with either and all the shops around here don't stock them.

I think the backlight issue has improved lately but I'm not certain. Anyhow, I have a VP930 with the mild X backlight issue, but it has ceased to annoy me in any way. I turn down the brightness to thwart it, and also the lower brightness gives more accurate colors and less eye strain. Brightness/contrast both at 50% is a good setting. I'd say overall the VP930 is worth it. You get wider viewing angles and better colors (courtesy of the higher contrast) than the 940B.

 

[xtknight]

I plan to index every LCD review I find. So far I have completed indexing all of PC World, prad.de, and X-Bit Labs in the Index of Reviews section.

 

[imported_Ebola]

Will they be indexed in terms of relevance/honesty/trustworthiness/utility/whatever you want to call the supra-notion that I'm getting at? For example, some sites have the most superficial reviews possible that basically boil down to I liked this or not. Other sites go all out with an oscilloscope and 50,000 dollars worth of calibration gear and they review three of the monitor at once and take each one apart to see how uniform the welding is. Then there's other sites that present what appears to be a comprehensive review but actually ignore some traits in order to give certain monitors better scores then others.

I can't name these sites because these are all exaggerations of some of the sites out there. I'm just hoping that when you finish compiling all of the reviews that you precede this section with an area about which sites you can trust, which sites are kind of trustable but they focus and grade based on details irrelevant to you, and which sites are irrelevant because they have advertising to worry about and are reviewing for the mainstream crow.

Along those lines, a list of things that make a good review and a list of things that make a bad review would be great along with relevance. Telling me the refresh rate is X instead of the claimed Y means very little; drawing it on a graph is helpful but at the same time I'm not buying a graph and I'm not typing, web browsing, gaming, rendering, photoshopping etc on a graph. I'm not saying these have to be included, especially since you've done this for all of our benefits and I really appreciate all that you're doing. Just wanted to share some ideas that I thought could make it even better.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: darXoul

Originally posted by: xtknight
Do you know what PixPerAn tempo setting 'au mieux' and 'au pire' are?

I don't know but in both cases, it's the same.

"We capture afterglow with a camera at a shutter speed of 1/1000 s. We take 50 pictures per test. We then can see a monitor´s ghosting effects, or all the car´s positions in the entire process.The most important image is the one on the left, the better one. It will be the most displayed on the monitor, while the one on the right is in transition."

They also say "at high speed", so maybe it's max speed, 16.

Do they have the 2090 on display in any stores in Poland? If not find something similar in response images to that 2090 and try and go take a look at it. Decisions...decisions...

Hell, yeah The 2090 is at the moment still very difficult to find anywhere. The monitors should arrive at most stores in about a week. The problem is that I simply won't be able to see one in action and try e.g. Q3 on it

The 12 ms response time of the 230WP7NS sounds decent to me. I'm guessing it uses overdrive because 16 ms is listed on LG.Philips for its panel.

Yea, actually it looks like on/off time. The press release said 8 ms g2g so I guess it's a 12/8 monitor. Faster than the L2000C or 2090UXi, which are both 16/8.

Paint it black.

 

[tm101]

Hi, I've searched all over the web for an explanation about the weird color problem I've been experiencing lately with my VP930B and this is closest explanation I can find. I've had this LCD for about 4 months until suddenly it started showing weird flickering "lines" on certain color. It appears mostly on the red/orange hue, which I verify by using Paint's color gradient (by choosing the menu Colors->Edit Colors->Define Custom Colors). The problem is less severe in higher refresh rate e.g. 75 Hz than 60 Hz, however it's still very noticeable. I can't take a picture atm since I've already RMAd it and still waiting for a replacement. However, seeing your post I'm worried that the replacement will have this defect too, or worst, it will be ok for a few months, only to show up after the warranty period is over .

Are there any other VP930B owners experiencing this? If this is a known issue, I'm surprised that it does not come up more frequently on the web, it certainly didn't come up when I was researching this LCD .

@tm101, how's your 3rd model going now? Can you still see this flickering in color gradient like those in Paint? FYI, mine is manufactured on Sept 2005 like your 1st and 2nd model. I just hope they get fixed in later ones.

Sorry, I did not read this post for long. My third model had less flickering than the other two. Today my fourth model (october build) arrived and it has less flickering than all the other three. You have to look very closely and know what you're looking for to see it conciously. Like with all the other models it can be made visible by looking at black after turning brightness to 113% in the graphiccard's driver, but on this one it's really very subtle. It has very little backlight bleeding.

This latest model seems to have a little less contrast than the last one, but therefor the checkboard-like patterns that I reported for moving things are far less noticeable. Unfortunately this one came with one dead green subpixel. I would keep it nevertheless, but there is a scratch on the right side of the panel and also some minor scratches on the bezel. Especially that vertical scratch on the panel is nothing I want to live with after paying about 500 Euros and having put so much time into getting a usable unit. So it's going back again *sob*.

Actually I wonder why they send me this unit anyway, since just three days ago german/dutch customer-service told me that their boss would have to talk to Viewsonic England and they'd give me a callback afterwards to discuss which monitor they would finally send me.

 

[EviL AnGeL]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: EviL AnGeL
Thanks for the welcome. ok so that's eliminated the 970p (I wasn't that sold on the style and colour anyway and the VP930 is a touch cheaper) but do you think it's worth spending the extra £110/$191 on the VP930 over the 940b. I don't mind spending the extra money as long as it's worthwhile but from looking at the specs the VP930 has a slower response time but with higher contrast and is supposedly 8-bit or 6bit + 2x2 dither whichever way you look at it as opposed to the 940b's 6bit. Also the backlight bleeding issue has put me off a bit. I'm sort of selling myself the 940b but I don't want to be dissapointed.

I'd like to see both of them in person but theres no chance of that as I don't know anyone with either and all the shops around here don't stock them.

I think the backlight issue has improved lately but I'm not certain. Anyhow, I have a VP930 with the mild X backlight issue, but it has ceased to annoy me in any way. I turn down the brightness to thwart it, and also the lower brightness gives more accurate colors and less eye strain. Brightness/contrast both at 50% is a good setting. I'd say overall the VP930 is worth it. You get wider viewing angles and better colors (courtesy of the higher contrast) than the 940B.

Ok thanks. I've decided to go with the VP930. I'll post my thoughts when it arrives. Just hope I get a good one.

 

[spectra9]

Also make sure to check that you don't have the color flickering problem like the one I had, see my post a few pages back. Use a color gradient like those in MS Paint cause it may only be visible on certain color/hue. Don't mean to scare you or anything, just making sure you're getting a perfect unit

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Ebola
Will they be indexed in terms of relevance/honesty/trustworthiness/utility/whatever you want to call the supra-notion that I'm getting at? For example, some sites have the most superficial reviews possible that basically boil down to I liked this or not. Other sites go all out with an oscilloscope and 50,000 dollars worth of calibration gear and they review three of the monitor at once and take each one apart to see how uniform the welding is. Then there's other sites that present what appears to be a comprehensive review but actually ignore some traits in order to give certain monitors better scores then others.

Well, the generic ones ("PC World", et al) are there to serve if there are no other more professional reviews of the product. That way it will give you at least some kind of peace of mind, I guess (combined with knowledge of the panel, etc).

I can't name these sites because these are all exaggerations of some of the sites out there. I'm just hoping that when you finish compiling all of the reviews that you precede this section with an area about which sites you can trust, which sites are kind of trustable but they focus and grade based on details irrelevant to you, and which sites are irrelevant because they have advertising to worry about and are reviewing for the mainstream crow.

Yeah, I'll make that crystal clear.

Along those lines, a list of things that make a good review and a list of things that make a bad review would be great along with relevance. Telling me the refresh rate is X instead of the claimed Y means very little; drawing it on a graph is helpful but at the same time I'm not buying a graph and I'm not typing, web browsing, gaming, rendering, photoshopping etc on a graph. I'm not saying these have to be included, especially since you've done this for all of our benefits and I really appreciate all that you're doing. Just wanted to share some ideas that I thought could make it even better.

That's good, I didn't even think of that but it would be very helpful. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[spectra9]

Sorry, I did not read this post for long.

No problem

My third model had less flickering than the other two. Today my fourth model (october build) arrived and it has less flickering than all the other three. You have to look very closely and know what you're looking for to see it conciously. Like with all the other models it can be made visible by looking at black after turning brightness to 113% in the graphiccard's driver, but on this one it's really very subtle. It has very little backlight bleeding.

This latest model seems to have a little less contrast than the last one, but therefor the checkboard-like patterns that I reported for moving things are far less noticeable. Unfortunately this one came with one dead green subpixel. I would keep it nevertheless, but there is a scratch on the right side of the panel and also some minor scratches on the bezel. Especially that vertical scratch on the panel is nothing I want to live with after paying about 500 Euros and having put so much time into getting a usable unit. So it's going back again *sob*.

Actually I wonder why they send me this unit anyway, since just three days ago german/dutch customer-service told me that their boss would have to talk to Viewsonic England and they'd give me a callback afterwards to discuss which monitor they would finally send me.

That's too bad, especially when that's the fourth one. When my first unit went south, I checked 3 VP930B the store have in stock and ALL 3 exhibit the same problem!. I'm pretty discouraged at that point since I really like this LCD, when it works. So the store sent my first unit to Viewsonic and they finally sent me a replacement which I'm using now. So far it's working great, but I found myself checking the color gradient in MS Paint from time to time, checking if it's still OK. Heh, talk about being traumatized by an LCD .

However, I get the feeling that what we're experiencing is not exactly the same, since I can see this defect clearly, in any brightness settings, and only with certain color (red ones mostly)

Anyway, I hope your fifth time is the charm