Looking for a monitor... kind of.

[VooDooPC]

I'm thinking about getting a new monitor. Right now I have a BenQ G2400w, which isn't bad, but I'm thinking I'd like something newer, possibly something that looks nicer and maybe a little bigger.

 

What I'd like:

 

I'd like something at least 24 inches, preferably something 25 or 27 inches. A lot of new monitors seem to be 23 inches standard because they are 1080p, not sure how much smaller they are than my current 24 inch. I don't think it's an inch smaller because mine is 16:10 and 1080p is 16:9, so some is lost in the height as well as on the diagonal.

 

Has to have at least one HDMI so I can connect my PS3 and 360 (I have an HDMI switch I can use to connect both from one HDMI) if the monitor isn't 16:9 it has to have some kind of 1:1 scaling or keep aspect ratio so my PS3 and 360 aren't stretched, I've had it stretched on an older monitor and it didn't look great.

 

I'm not sure about the panel, I know IPS has a better viewing angle, which doesn't concern me much, but I heard they look better color wise, which is nice. So IPS or TN, I guess it doesn't matter. I know IPS is much more expensive.

 

I have like, $500 to work with, unless it's something amazing I can spend a little more. I know those Apple Cinema displays are about $1,000, which is way out of my price range.

 

Which monitors should I be looking at?

[NOFX]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254052&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Monitors+-+LCD+Flat+Panel-_-Hanns-G-_-24254052

 

Had this guy for 3 years maybe? I paid around $600 for it then. I love it. It's also a 16:10 ratio, so you get 1920x1200 instead of 1920x1080.

[VooDooPC]

Can it do 1:1 pixel mapping?

[samurai nightling]

I still just have a 19" Hanns-G but its been a solid monitor for me the past 2 years. I also would love to get a new HD monitor especially with this new desk i recently got but don't think i can afford it right now

[VooDooPC]

Well, I spent $600 on a TV which I don't enjoy as much as I thought, so now I'm returning it and buying a monitor. So the money I'm spending is technically already spent.

[VooDooPC]

Do you guys know anything about the Dell U2410?

 

How do you guys feel about 3D stuff? Dell has a 23" monitor with the 3D kit for $650. Nvidia also has a 3D bundle for $550, which uses a Asus VG236HE monitor. 3D stuff is $200 alone.

 

CES is next month, I might have to wait until then and see what happens.

[VooDooPC]

Ohh, BenQ XL2410T looks really nice but I can't find it anywhere to buy.

[Preacher]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6042192&CatId=5988

[VooDooPC]

I'm trying to avoid a TV since I bought that last one.

[bushwack]

Do you guys know anything about the Dell U2410?

 

I have a U2410 and it's Grrrrrreeat! It's S-IPS panel looks sooooo much better then a TN. Plenty of inputs. Fast enough for gaming. Movies don't have that washed out look like my last Asus did. I like the extra horizontal pixels.

 

Is there a 120hz and 3D capable IPS monitor out there? Get that one.

 

So when are the super fast OLED monitors coming out??? C'mon already.

[VooDooPC]

In the end I went with the Asus VG236H and the Nvidia 3D kit. Newegg had a combo deal where you buy the monitor and the glasses together for $70 off. Bringing the total to $500, which is exactly how much I wanted too spend.

 

I was really thinking about getting the BenQ 120hz monitor but even though it's not out in the states yet, only Europe and Japan, I heard some bad things about it. It uses LED back lighting, which I think is cool and new, but I heard a lot of stories about bad back light bleeding. Possibly related to the LEDs.

 

The Asus though, totally awesome. Even if it's technically smaller than my 24" BenQ I'm not disappointed in the least. The size difference is hardly noticeable, in the dark when I can't see anything but the screen it feels the exact same size.

 

The monitor itself looks great, on my BenQ I noticed several times in games where it has the gamma slider with a bunch of white to grey boxes I couldn't always tell the difference between the boxes, on this monitor I have no trouble at all. I looked at reviews and they say the color representation is really good. Of course not as good as an IPS panel, but really good none the less.

 

The monitor has a glossy screen, I know a lot of people hate that, but I don't mind at all. I have a dimmer on my bedroom light so I don't have to have it all the way up and the angle of the light between my monitor means it's not even reflected on the screen. I also have black curtains on my window which is behind me to the left, you can't see it at all in the monitors reflection. I've heard glossy screens make colors pop because matte screens tend to dull images. I don't know about that, but I know it does look great.

 

Since the monitor is 3D it's required to do 120hz. 120hz is clearly noticeable. I didn't think it would be, but it was. When I first set my desktop to 120hz from 60hz I was shocked. It's so much smoother on 120hz. I know the big draw of the monitor is 3D, but playing games at 120hz when you are getting 100+ fps it's SO smooth. No tearing upto 120 fps is a nice side effect of 120hz as well.

 

Monitor has HDMI and is 1080p, so no black bars on the top or bottom playing on my PS3 or 360 which is cool. I bought an HDMI switch and optical splitter a few weeks ago, but those are totally unrelated to the monitor.

 

Dual-Link DVI cable. Needs this for 3D, luckily the monitor came with a cable for it because the 3D kit only came with a DVI to HDMI cable.

 

When 3D first started coming back I figured it was just a gimmick and would die. CES last year was all like, "Oh, check it out, 3D in your house!", then this year it was even more in your face 3Dness. No glasses, new glasses, all this other crazy stuff. I had no experience with the new 3D before last weekend. I went to see Tron, it only used polarized lenses, but I thought it was cool. The 3D monitor is active-shutter 3D. For those of you that don't know, it basically displays two images on the screen at the same time, switching between them every frame. The glasses have lenses that independently turn on and off in sync with the monitor, so each eye gets it's own images, which your mind interprets as 3D.

 

The 3D on the monitor looks pretty darn good, much better than Tron with polarized. I looked at the Nvidia list of compatible games and tried maybe 10-15 games in the past two days. The ones that Nvidia have labeled as "3D Ready" or "Excellent" look great. Batman, Assassin's Creed 2, Mafia 2, Just Cause 2, and Darksiders all look amazing and do the 3D really well. The 3D emitter has a dial on it that adjusted the 3Dness, so if it's too intense you can turn it down or if you want more 3D, turn it up. Some games also have special settings Nvidia recommends for the best 3D. Like in Fallout 3 the crosshair doesn't work right, so Nvidia has it's own 3D crosshair overlay it provides and they ask you to disable the in game one. Sometimes it's disabling motion blur, sometimes depth of field, things like that.

 

Overall I'm really impressed with this monitor, even if there was no 3D compatibility I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again, it looks great. I also have no dead/stuck pixels.

 

Only a few negatives for me. 3D, after a few hours, gives me a big headache. Nvidia says in their documents you should start at 15% convergence and then raise it as your eyes get used to it for better 3D. Well, it didn't look good enough for me at 15% so I just bumped it to around 45% and it looks awesome, just painful after awhile. I could listen to them, but I don't want to wait until I'm old and my eyes hardly work to get passed 30%.

 

Some games you think would have 3D, don't, or aren't compatible. Like Dirt 1 is rated "Good", but Dirt 2 is rated "Not Recommended", which basically means it's pretty janky. Mass Effect 1 is "Excellent" but Mass Effect 2 is only "Fair". The new Need for Speed is "Not Recommended". Any Source game I tried would give me a max fps of about 15, even though I can run the game not in 3D at around 200fps. So I'm running Counter-Strike in 120hz, which on the good side, performs amazingly smooth.

 

Since 3D is displaying twice as many frames a second it's rendering twice as many frames a second which is a big hit on performance in games and limits your fps to 60 in 3D. Games that are locked at 60fps, like some console ports, means those games are only going to run at 30fps in 3D, which sucks.

 

The glasses are turning off and on so quick is makes the image a lot darker than it would be without the glasses, luckily the monitor is extremely bright. While playing games in 3D I usually have to crank up the gamma in game to lighten the image some. When I opened Google for the first time and the big bright white screen popped up my brother said, "Did I just get hit by a flashbang?". Out of the box the brightness was set to 100%, in Windows my eyes can only handle about 75% before it seems too bright.

 

All in all, I have no regrets. This monitor is fantastic. I haven't seen any ghosting or input lag either. I thought it would be really good after comparing the 3D monitors available and looking at reviews, but I didn't expect it to be this good.

 

I'm bringing it to Fragfest this year, so if anyone wants to play some games in 3D or 120hz, just ask.