Selecting a Monitor

[Puteya]

Hello all. New to the site. There seems to be a lot of monitor knowledge here. I need a new one and am not happy with the big box retail selection as they all seem geared toward very basic function at about $200. If I am willing to spend $500 or $600, shouldn't I be able to get a better monitor somewhere? I do office work and cad and need clear text but I also need resonable photo and video permance. No gaming. I know $500 or $600 isn't much compared to some of the monitors I've read about on this forum but there has to be some middle ground, right?

Thanks in advance!

[ErnestMcGill]

Is there anything wrong with basic functionality?    

All the $200 monitors you see in the Big Box stores are TN panel technology.     The color shifts on those panels with slight variations on viewing angle, and some of them might only be 6 bit and unable to reproduce sufficient colors for good photo work.     

Look for an IPS panel monitor.

[KirbyKrieger]

Hi Puteya.  Monitor selection is both subjective and technical.  The subjective part is up to you -- do you like it, does it look good to you.  The technical part requires more information about your needs or desires to be answered.  You state that you:

 . need clear text, and
 . also need reasonable photo and video performance

Can you elaborate on those (as Ernest asks)?  Is your text not clear?  What performance deficiencies are you trying to overcome?  On what platform and OS?  At what resolution and refresh rate?  What other solutions have your tried?  What do you mean by "clear"?  All text in all programs at all sizes?  What do you mean by "reasonable"?

Those put some burden on you to think about and provide answers -- but your answers are the only way for others to give you suggestions appropriate to your needs.

Many on this forum edit and prepare for printing photographs and graphics.  Their needs are accurate, stable, wide-gamut hue & saturation, and large dynamic range luminance, screen production, with as close a match to print production as possible.  This is costly, but worth it for many.  Your needs may be different.

[shewhorn]

At what resolution and refresh rate? 

Refresh rate is not really a concern with TFT technology. Unlike a CRT where an electron beam scans across a grid and excites a specific area for a split second (thus requiring a refresh rate that is faster than our brains' ability to take in data thus creating the illusion of a continuous image), once you write a value out to the cathode and anode in a TFT that pixel will stay active until you send another message to that address updating it. You could have a refresh rate of 1 Hz and there would be no flicker. I for one was very sensitive to CRT flicker, the switch to TFT technology was welcome as those issues instantly went away.

With regards to resolution there's a few different things to be aware of. You have the resolution of the screen in terms of how many pixels it can display (1920x1200, 1920x1080, 2560x1600, etc) and then you have the resolution in terms of how many pixels there are per inch of screen real-estate or dot pitch. A 17" MacBook Pro has a 1920x1200 screen as does an NEC 2690. The MBP screen, even though it has the same number of pixels might appear to be higher resolution because those pixels are packed into a more dense area (17 inches diagonal vs. 25.6 inches (if memory serves me correctly) diagonal on the NEC 2690). The dot pitch on the MBP is much smaller.

I have a few recommendations. If a standard gamut monitor will suffice then I'd highly recommend either the NEC PA231w ($545) or the NEC PA2490 (around $660). At those prices if standard gamut will suffice, then you really can't do any better. For wide gamut contenders there is the NEC P221w (which is the least expensive NEC screen that supports the Spectraview profiling package) and the HP LP2475. There is also the Dell U2410 which can be had for around $540 with a coupon code. Asus has their PA246Q which has some impressive specs (uses the same panel as the NEC PA241W) but I'm looking at one right now and for the time being I can't recommend it for various reasons. I'm waiting to hear back from Asus before I publish my review but I suspect the issues I've discovered are design flaws and may have no quick fix (most notably it can't get down to an acceptable luminance level for photographic work without sacrificing the quality of the profile).

Cheers, Joe