How much do you have to spend on a quality monitor?

[Brammers]

Hi all,

I'm going through monitors the slow way.  I started off with a terrible TN panel screen, progressed to a much better TN panel and then bought a calibrator.  I'm now looking at spending some money on a screen that I'll be really happy with for quite a while yet.

I've got 2 major questions.  The first is whether or not I want an extended gamut screen.  I'm leaning towards no at this point.  Most of my work is outputted in sRGB, and for that which isn't (prints) I'm more interested in getting the calibration spot on (especially the brightness) than correctly viewing the minute difference between 2 very similar shades of red.  Would people agree with this conclusion?  I also think that on my budget it's somewhat of an academic argument anyway.

The second question is how cheap I can go before I may as well stick with a TN screen.  There's a couple of screens around at £300 now, in particular the NEC EA231 http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_ea231wmi.htm which looks excellent.  However, despite appearing to be very accurate once calibrated and being based around IPS tech, they feature 'inferior' tech to some others - 16:9 instead of 16:10 ratio and 8bit LUTs.  Is this something that cripples these cheaper IPS screens, or will they still satisfy when calibrated as photo editing screens?

Finally, a quick question about multi-monitor set-ups.  I've got a standard Geforce 9400 graphics card with Display port, VGA and DVI outputs.  If I output the better screen to the display-port and my older screen to DVI, I believe that I'll only have one LUT available from the GFX card to calibrate.  I'd therefore calibrate the better screen, do my editing on this and use the other for displaying tools etc.  Is this correct?  Win 7 64 bit.

Looking forward to your help and advice!

[Brammers]

Thanks for your comments on extended/normal gamut screens - interesting.

I'm already set on an IPS screen, my question is whether the cheaper IPS screens are worth it, or whether you have to be going for at least the midrange, if not the advanced screens.  Does anyone have any input on this?  From the reports the NEC linked to above seems to calibrate very well, but a little firsthand perspective of a similar spec of screen from a photographer's perspective would be most welcome

[JGreon]

Have you considered a refurbished model?

I currently use a Dell U2410.

It's an extended gamut screen with selectable presets for sRGB and Adobe RGB (with a plethora of others). These come factory calibrated although this should be taken with a pinch of salt and self calibrating gave a better end solution.

I bought mine on eBay as a factory refurb for £315 from the following supplier (although they've now gone up to £345).

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DELL-U2410-24-WIDESCREEN-ULTRASHARP-TFT-MONITOR-/170535713154?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_Monitors&hash=item27b4b87982

No connection, just a satisfied customer.

A good review of this monitor and the issues involved can be found here.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2410.htm

[Brammers]

JGreon - thanks very much for that suggestion.  I phoned up that company and they seemed excellent, even calling me back to discuss something that came to mind after the 1st call.  My question was would I notice the differences between a £300 or £400 IPS screen - a question that you made irrelevant by suggesting a £500 screen at a much cheaper price!  Many thanks