Originally posted by: bobov
Can't find MIR for LP2065 on Amazon website. Is amazon an authorized HP reseller?
Originally posted by: bobov
Buy.com sells LP2065 @ 406.99 with free shipping, and they list $40 MIR on their website. You can use GCO checkout to save $10.
Originally posted by: bobov
Buy.com sells LP2065 @ 406.99 with free shipping, and they list $40 MIR on their website. You can use GCO checkout to save $10.
Originally posted by: Torque79
forgive my ignorance, but I am surprised to see no 22" monitors on the list? There are so many out there for affordable prices now, are none of the panels in them any good? Seems like with such a minor price difference, you get more viewing surface for a marginal price increase from 20-22" (widescreen). that GX2 widescreen sure does sound sweet (I just have to save my pennies for longer though!).
Originally posted by: MMo
I haven't been able to test the ColorEyes software, because the current windows (demo) version 3.2 is not compatible with Spyder2. Does the current version clearly indicate whether the corrections are loaded to the graphics card LUT or to the monitor LUT?
If you look at the picture labelled "Measuring" on this review:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/coloreyes_display.html
you see that the new version of the software will tell you if the monitor has a configurable LUT (with standard interface) or not. Is it the same with the current version or is there still hope left?
I agree with you, that without the configurable Monitor LUT, the DDC/CI is nothing special.
Originally posted by: lorlabnew
I'm still having hard time to decide whether to buy LP2065, or 20WMGX2. The HP is about $200 cheaper but bit barebone compared to NEC's model. I however would probably prefer the 4:3 format better - I wish that NEC had similar model as 20WNGX2 in 1600*1200 4:3 aspect... I can't find any other fast response IPS LCD's in 20-21" size. I'd also like to have the fine pixel pitch of about 0.255mm or so, my current NEC 1940cx has 0.29mm pp and I dislike that a lot.
I've been keeping an eye on the topic with regard to S-PVA panel in LP2065 before making the purchase. Are you guys who got LP2065 lately happy with your monitors?
I think that I'll order either LP2065 or 20WMGX2, but leaning towards HP because the screen ratio suits better my needs. Besides normal desktop work I like to fly FS2004 and FSX, and the widescreen aspect distorts 2D panels; there is no meaningful way to correct that...so 4:3 is the only format where 2D gauges are circles, not ovals...
Is there any 4:3 1600*1200 monitor with IPS panel under or around $600 that I overlooked?
Thanks. Dave
Originally posted by: madcow53
Ok, I had a question about monitors that I was hoping you guys could help me.
I'm trying to find a 19in monitor widescreen that would produce HD quality video.
I'll mainly be using it for work at home, movies, and occasional gaming.
I have a 8800 GTS 320 MB video card, so I know it can handle a pretty high resolution.
I had been recommended this Sceptre product:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824112002
But I had heard comments that Sceptre wasn't that good, and so I wanted to see if there were any monitors you guys recommended.
Thanks!
Originally posted by: DaGL1969
Hi everybody.
I need advise because I know nothing about LCD monitors. I have to choose one to purchase that I can buy in local stores.
The list to choose one is:
* Benq FP91G+
* Philips 190C6FS
* LG L1900E
* Samsung 940B
The monitor is to replace my CRT Samsung 793DF. I use the PC for games and office applications.
Thanks in advance for the advice.
Originally posted by: Torque79
forgive my ignorance, but I am surprised to see no 22" monitors on the list? There are so many out there for affordable prices now, are none of the panels in them any good? Seems like with such a minor price difference, you get more viewing surface for a marginal price increase from 20-22" (widescreen). that GX2 widescreen sure does sound sweet (I just have to save my pennies for longer though!).
Originally posted by: lorlabnew
...just received and setup HP2065, and the display looks straightforward incredible; I have my old NEC 1940cx with it side-by-side for comparison, and it's such a significant difference... however, I'll wait with more evaluation until after dark when I should be able to see how even the screen is illuminated etc. I don't see any dead pixels. The display defaults to brightness of 90% and contrast 80%. I use DVI-D connection from 8800gtx and so far I'm very impressed - 1600*1200 is something I've been missing since my CRT days.
2-24-07: Here is a little update - I checked the backlighting later last night, and it is very uniform, no apparent bleeding or patches of brighter/darker areas that are so common on many monitors. Also, didn't find any dead pixels. The monitor seems to render highlight separation very well, in terms of photography (I'm more photographer then LCD expert) the old NEC would blow all highlights above zone VII, while this HP shows fine separations all the way up to zone IX. The separation of the dark tones seems somewhat worse, but still not too bad.
I didn't tweak the monitor's gamma or anything else, only set brightness from 90->85 and let contrast on default 80. I also loaded the banding test pattern (downloaded from lcdresource.com), and I didn't see any problem areas except maybe those mentioned dark tones. Since I took a screenshot, would it properly represent what the monitor displayed?
If so, I could probably post it (a link maybe) if anyone is interested. I played FSX a bit, and no ghosting or any other motion related issue, fast response LCD. Also, the LCD has blue/purple tint in black areas when looked at from far off-axis angle - someone mentioned it is S-IPS related thing?
As I said yesterday, I'm very pleased with this LCD and like it more and more (actually, I spent whole day in front of it today). The whole monitor feels solid made and sturdy, the stand itself is fairly heavy too but won't take much footprint - the L-shaped stand lets me slide my 2nd keyboard easily under the LCD (I have two PC's connceted to this monitor) and therefore saving more desk space. The height and tilt adjustments work great, and swivels as well. Perfect. I think that HP2065 is an excellent buy.
Originally posted by: mikuto
I've just bought the NEC 90GX2 for someone else and I'm testing it for a few days. I'll write down my impressions as my very small contribution to this guide that has proven immensely useful. xtknight, if you have any specific tests you want me to run, let me know and I'll be happy to do them.
I'll note various things in the order I've encountered them. One word of warning: I'm veeery picky and have pretty good eyesight; even though I'll mention a few problems below, they don't change the fact that this is one of the best (if not the best) 19'' TN LCD you can get at the moment. I'm just trying to include as much information as possible so you can make an informed decision.
The graphics card was initially configured for 1024x768, so I had a chance to see the interpolation capabilities of the display: not that good. Basically, I couldn't work with text that way; I didn't try any games or movies on that setting, but I doubt they would look good either. I quickly switched to the native resolution. I haven't looked at other LCDs' interpolation capabilities recently, but I was under the impression the situation had improved in the past few years; well, if that's how they all look, it's still unusable to me.
Next, I set it to display a black screen saver, and noticed... lots of backlight bleeding. I had two units to choose from at the store, and both had this problem; I ended up buying the one that had less bleeding - mostly from the bottom edge (the other one had serious problems on all sides). If it were for me, I wouldn't have bought either one, but the final user decided it didn't really bother him with the brightness set to a reasonable level.
A good thing about this range of monitors from NEC is the tilt adjustment: very easy to do (other monitors were much... stiffer, especially Samsungs) and allows for both positive and negative angles. This helps you position the display so that you get a minimum of color distortion due to the narrow vertical viewing angles; speaking of which, it may be just me, but I think the vertical angles on this monitor are slightly better than on other TNs I've seen.
Initially, brightness was at 100% and contrast at 50%. I lowered the brightness to a more reasonable level that would be confortable for everyday use, and ended up at 50%. Then tried to increase the contrast, and... no joy. Anything over 55-60% starts losing middle gray levels, to the point that even Windows taskbar buttons don't look right anymore. Anything below 50% makes it too dull. So I ended up with both brightness and contrast at 50%.
I then displayed some gradients with xtknight's gradlin and started looking at the colors. Standard DV mode and sRGB (6500K) look best to me in terms of color balance and saturation. There is some very fine noise visible in the medium-dark area of the gradients, more easily visible on the gray ones. Even there, I'd say a normal human being will not notice it unless looking very carefully. I personally wasn't able to notice any such issues during normal use - just in gradlin. I guess it must be some sort of FRC side-effect?
With these settings, working with text and viewing the occasional image is a pleasure, as it should be with any decent LCD. I can see no banding in the middle tones of the color gradients, but both ends of the scale (say, 10 levels) are pretty much uniform. Frankly, I was expecting a bit better. I tried adjusting the gamma curve of the graphics card, but it didn't make much of a difference; unless, of course, I chose extreme variations from the middle line, in which case other bad things happened... Maybe I don't know how to do it properly - any help greatly appreciated. I ended up leaving the gamma curve at the default setting, at least for now.
Another thing: the black level. I suppose that's how it is with all TNs, but it's far from being truly black. Even if you lower the brightness to unusable levels, it's still far from what a CRT would display. That said, this is easily noticeable when viewing images or movies in full screen with black bands around them; that's when you immediately realize those bands are not quite as they should be. Otherwise, especially when viewing images against a normal background (say, on web pages), because of the way our eyes and brains work, blacks look... well, let's say good enough.
Movies and games: not that bad overall, taking into account the issues noted above. There is some blurring, but not enough to make it a problem, at least to me. I didn't notice any artifacts caused by overdrive. One minor exception: when flying in BF2, distant flags appearing against the background of blueish gray fog leave a short trail of lighter gray when moving around quickly. There's one other problem in BF2, caused by the lack of distinction between very light grays: the crosshair on the chopper TV guided missile is barely visible when looking up at the sky on bright maps such as Dragon Valley.
My personal opinion on the infamous OptiClear coating: If I were to use it in a brightly lit office, I would probably hate it. At home, if you can control the position and intensity of the light sources in the room, it shouldn't be a problem. Frankly, if I were to choose between two monitors based only on the coating, everything else being exactly the same, I would probably choose the matte one, as I too hate reflections on the screen. Not having the luxury of such choice, I found I can very well live with the glossy coating in the above conditions.
Well, that was it. Hope it helps, and sorry for the length of the post; I suppose if you're not sound asleep by now, you're really interested in the subject .
Originally posted by: Jackyl
I bought both the Samsung 225bw and 226bw. I ended up returning the newer 226bw. I ran LCD gradation and banding tests on both monitors and could see no difference in quality. The 226bw had the same amount of backlight bleed as the 225bw. The 226bw has a "dynamic" backlight that adjusts it's brightness to whatever is on screen. In games, it seemed to give a little better black level, but not much.
For $100 less, I kept the 225bw. It's stand has adjustable height, the buttons are on the front of the monitor easy to press, and it has a smaller thinner frame. I don't want a bulky frame around the monitor. If they could make a frame even thinner, it would be better. The 226bw with it's silver frame on bottom is not needed and looks bulky. Although the current Viewsonic monitors are even bulkier.
My 225bw was manufactured in January '07, and it seems to be a true 8-bit panel. The gradient tests show smooth colors throughout the range. One suggestion on calibrating the 225bw and 226bw. Do not max out the contrast or brightness, or it will cause banding and blow out some colors. I have my contrast set to 71 and brightness 19, MagicColor OFF, Color Tone NORMAL, Gamma Mode1.
Here is a link to the gradient tests and monitor test images.
http://lcdresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=39
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
Originally posted by: hyper
So I just got an NEC 20WMGX2... and it's like... a mirror. on my desk.
Any tips on limiting the reflections? =\
Thank you for any help.
Originally posted by: cheap
I appreciate all the work that you've done, but how can you recomment an LCD for gaming that isn't even capable of doing 75fps??? I'm shopping around right now for an LCD and I like fps games, I want it to be at least 20" widescreen. Well, the only one you recomment only does 60hz which is pretty low for fps games. My crt monitor is set at 85hz right now and I'm willing to go down to 75fps in games but the problem is none of the good, big widescreen lcd monitors are even able to do 75hz at their native resolution.
Originally posted by: cheap
I appreciate all the work that you've done, but how can you recomment an LCD for gaming that isn't even capable of doing 75fps???
I'm shopping around right now for an LCD and I like fps games, I want it to be at least 20" widescreen. Well, the only one you recomment only does 60hz which is pretty low for fps games. My crt monitor is set at 85hz right now and I'm willing to go down to 75fps in games but the problem is none of the good, big widescreen lcd monitors are even able to do 75hz at their native resolution.
Originally posted by: xtknight
Hrm...reduce ambient lighting or get drapes? Try using it for awhile and see if it really bothers you? It's like a lot of things. You'll get used to it, most likely. (Just like response time.)
Originally posted by: xtknight
For all intents and purposes, such LCDs do not exist. The fifth frame in a 75 Hz stream is discarded to convert to the internal 60 Hz rate, making motion jittery on most LCDs. The only one I know of that doesn't do this is the VP930b (well, at least I didn't feel it).
Indeed, there are no 2x2 patterns that I can discern. What I did notice though is a strange effect in the gradients: every fifth pixel seems to be more clearly delimited from the others by what could be described as more pronounced black vertical 'lines' (as in, the lines that create the screen door effect). Not sure if this makes any sense; I should probably take a picture and see if the effect is visible, but I don't know where to host it (yeah, I'm so lazy). Now, five is the width of each color band in a full-screen 1280x1024 256-level gradient, so it clearly has something to do with the transition from one level to the next, but I'm not sure in what way. A closer inspection with a 2x magnifying lens reveals nothing of interest; all the subpixels are how they should be, no visible patterns, and no visible effect either - I can only discern it with the naked eye. Is this a common optical illusion, or am I looking at something else?Originally posted by: xtknight
Good to know it uses FRC (motion dithering) and not 2x2 dithering.
Yeah, and, as I played some more rounds of BF2, I noticed a couple more things. First of all, not just flags, but any 'interesting' object on a gray background gets a very thin 'halo' (trail) of lighter gray when it moves quickly on the screen - and that happens a lot when flying and targeting planes or choppers. Mind you, I don't find it annoying - if anything, it makes the objects stand out better - some people may even see it as a feature .The response time artifacts are definitely due to overshoots in overdrive.
Don't get me wrong: the coating is great - it's the reflections people don't like . As long as you can create a suitable working environment to avoid them, you can really enjoy the nicer colors. But that's not always possible, that's why I would tend to go for the 'safer' option if given a choice.I'm surprised at the number of people that actually dislike the coating. I think if you saw the 90GX2 without the coating (essentially a "Samsung 940BF"), you'd like the coating more.
I won't dispute the smoothness argument on a CRT - no need for any of us to change colors - as it works the same for me; and as far as experience goes, I started my FPS player career on Wolfenstein 3D, so I know what you're talking about. But have you actually tried playing a FPS game at 60 Hz on an LCD - a good, latest generation one? The fact is there's still a considerable amount of blurring compared to a CRT, and that makes it feel smooth enough (for me at least) - I guess it's the same effect that makes film at 24 fps look good.Originally posted by: cheap
mikuto: It's not that lag, I can deal with couple more ms of lag. I regularly play on servers with 100+ ms ping. It's the overal smoothness of a game. The lower your fps in games the more jittery the game becomes and the less responsive your mouse gets. So low fps affects your aiming and overall performance in shooting games. Say in 90 vs 60 fps comparisson someone in the game comes behind you and opens fire. It would take you I would guess about .3 seconds to do a 180 degree spin in the game. More or less depending on your mouse sensitivity. If you're running at 60hz, your pc will be able to draw about 20 frames during that time or a frame every 9 degrees of movement, while at 90hz you will get about 30 frames or a frame every 6 degrees of movement. 30% give or take less smoother game. In the end the person running at 90hz will just have a 50% smoother 180 degree flick rotation and 50% more responsive mouse which in turn will allow him to zero in on his enemy faster. I've been playing fps games for 10+ years and we can argue about frames per second and human eye until we turn purple. All I know is that for me and my eyes, tested on CRT monitor at resolutions where it's capable of doing 100hz + and a pc which actually could push it to limits, I could clearly feel and see the game become smoother or sluggish as I raised or lowered fps in game to 60, 90, and 120.