242 on 2/6/2010 at 21:47
ZB, I think you want an IPS panel (truest colors among LCDs), but they won't cost less than 500$. NEC does some good IPS LCDs.
ZylonBane on 3/6/2010 at 00:03
Not necessarily. As I pointed out above, not all TN panels are created equal.
EDIT: D'oh! Turns out I've been wrong about the 2001FP. It does in fact use an S-IPS panel. I always assumed it was a TN panel because of the dither pattern I keep seeing... which it turns out is an artifact of the particular panel used in these monitors.
EDIT2: And now I'm seriously considering putting off widescreen and just picking up a couple of 2001FPs off eBay, where they're currently going for less than $100 apiece. That's insanely cheap for a 20" 1600x1200 IPS monitor.
Zerker on 4/6/2010 at 12:10
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
EDIT: D'oh! Turns out I've been wrong about the 2001FP. It does in fact use an S-IPS panel.
I was about to say... I have one of these at work, and it is indeed a fantastic (& IPS) monitor. It's actually my personal monitor, but I've since upgraded at home to the 3007WFP-HC, work got the hand-me-down.
ZylonBane on 4/6/2010 at 14:52
If I don't go for the 2001FP, I'm eyeing the NEC LCD2490WUXi, a 24-inch 1920x1200 IPS panel. I'd prefer the LCD2690WUXi, but it's a wide-gamut monitor, dammit. The trend toward all large panels being wide-gamut anymore is really irritating. I know they have sRGB emulation modes, but from what I've read they all suck and/or introduce additional latency.
Renzatic on 4/6/2010 at 18:52
Yup. So far, just about every new, halfway decent monitor uses wide gamut these days. The only thing I can do is point you in the direction of (
http://www.artstorm.net/journal/2009/07/color-management-wide-gamut-dell-2408/) this article, and see if you can use this info to work out some compromise.
Or if you don't want to read it, the digest version is a wide gamut monitor will give you perfect, exquisite colors in applications that are ICC profiled (Photoshop, pictures that are ICC tagged, ect), but if it's not, you're good and well screwed. Best you can do is grin and bear it until everyone else catches up and starts making everything adobe color aware. Since wide gamut displays are the future and all, you might have no other choice beyond sticking to 4:3 or CRT screens.
Muzman on 4/6/2010 at 19:49
Do you think a colour interpolation mode is something the video card driver could include effectively?
Namdrol on 4/6/2010 at 22:34
I've had a NEC MultiSync EA231WMi BK 23" Widescreen IPS for a few months now and I'm more than happy.
Superb monitor with fantastic black levels.
My only gripe is it's now too small.
I've never had a monitor even close to this size but I'd easily take and use another couple inches.
And I see the 24" NEC also has the dynamic brightness setting, where the monitor can auto adjust depending on either ambient brightness, or on screen brightness.
I found it annoying within half an hour, turned it off and do it manually.(Rarely)
ZylonBane on 4/6/2010 at 22:55
Have I mentioned I've got my heart set on a 16:10 monitor (or failing that 4:3)? Yeah, I've painted myself into a bit of a corner... must be IPS, must be sRGB-gamut, must be 1600x1200, must maintain non-native aspect ratios, must be less than $1000. Granted, a used 2490WUXi satisfies all of those requirements, but it feels bizarre having the entire huge field of LCD monitors reduced to a single choice.
Sigh. I hope 16:10 doesn't die. HD-aspect monitors may be ideal for watching movies, but they suck for general-purpose computing.
Renzatic on 5/6/2010 at 00:30
Quote Posted by Muzman
Do you think a colour interpolation mode is something the video card driver could include effectively?
(everything I say below is based on my somewhat lacking layman's understanding of wide gamut color. Keep that in mind)
As far as I know, the videocard doesn't have much to do with it. It displays whatever its being told to. The problem is the way the OS and programs distribute the colors. Basically, a wide gamut monitor can display a goodly bit more colors than regular sRGB, but most things aren't currently set up to take advantage of it properly. So when you have a wide gamut monitor displaying something set up for sRGB, you end up with oversaturated colors and off looking hues.
You can correct some of it by goofing around with your HSL settings. Thing is, some things
are being displayed properly on your monitor. If you correct for one, you goof up the other. There isn't an easy compromise, other than getting an sRGB monitor. The shift from wide gamut to sRGB just means your colors are a little less vivid, whereas the shift from sRGB to wide can leave things looking like they've been painted on by French hookers.
Course this all is very much a YMMV type situation. You can correct for alot of interface oversaturation problems in XP/Vista/7 just by goofing around with your color settings or choosing the right color profile. Sure, you still might come across a few pictures off the internet that aren't properly color managed, but really...will you notice it? Most people probably won't unless the colors are just too bright to bear. Will you be screaming "THE PICTURE OF THIS NAKED LADY HAS SLIGHTLY TOO RED A HUE" at some picture you've downloaded off the internet? Probably not. You'll more than likely be more interested in some sanddollar nipples. For most, if it looks good enough, it looks good enough. Simple as that.
ZB, if you do graphics design stuff (which I think you do, considering you're part of SHTUP and that SS1 conversion project down at the bottom of the forums), you actually stands to gain more from a wide gamut monitor than you'll lose. If you have to compromise on anything on your super exacting LCD requirements, it should be this. Just use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, tweak a couple of settings, and choose a properly aligned color profile, and you won't have to worry about way-too-vivid colors on your desktop.
