does anyone know of a good monitor?

[scmindseye]

I'm looking to buy a 20" or 19" led flat panel monitor. I'm a freshman college student and I will have professional mac labs but I would also like to edit photographs that I am payed to do from the privacy of my own dorm room that I'm not sharing with anyone. Does anyone know of a quality flat panel for under $130.00 that they would suggest? pros please comment (well anyone) but yeah thanks guys! glad to be here officially

 

[JustAnEngineer]

For $239 + tax with free shipping, it's hard to argue against the Dell UltraSharp U2311H (23" 1920x1080 eIPS). You might also consider the $223 +tax UltraSharp U2211H (21½" 1920x1080, eIPS) or the $212 +tax UltraSharp 2209WA (22" 1680x1050, eIPS).

 

[KmH]

You will only find TN (Twisted Nematic) displays for $130.

(paid)

For image editing you would want an IPS (In-Plane Switching) display.

TFT LCD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You really need to profile what ever monitor type you wind up with and would need a decent colorimeter and its associated software, to do so:

X-Rite i1Display 2 Colorimeter Monitor Profile Solution EODIS2 -

Good luck with your business venture. :thumbup:

 

[Garbz]

PVA are a good compromise. They don't offer the excellent viewing angle and colour stability of an IPS screen, but they do at least give you 8 full bits of colour, unlike TN panels which technically can't achieve that.

 

[dcmountaineer]

For $239 + tax with free shipping, it's hard to argue against the Dell UltraSharp U2311H (23" 1920x1080 eIPS). You might also consider the $223 +tax UltraSharp U2211H (21½" 1920x1080, eIPS) or the $212 +tax UltraSharp 2209WA (22" 1680x1050, eIPS).

Where are you finding these deals? Do I need a coupon code?

 

[scmindseye]

ok I don't understand something... what the heck is a "twisted nematic" display?! and the ultrasharp is that truly a great monitor? what about a viewsonic or an nec? what's great? what's good? what's trustable? and answer all of those questions for the price? I'm really confused.

 

[JustAnEngineer]

It's hard to argue against the Dell UltraSharp U2311H.

Where are you finding these deals? Do I need a coupon code?

There are several deal websites that track the Dell deals. I check SlickDeals.net pretty frequently, but you can use any of the others to catch the next sale. Dell has had this monitor on sale one or two weeks a month since it was introduced. There are also options of ordering some of these Dell monitors over the phone from Dell small business representatives who are willing to offer the deal prices at any time.

 

[Garbz]

ok I don't understand something... what the heck is a "twisted nematic" display?! and the ultrasharp is that truly a great monitor? what about a viewsonic or an nec? what's great? what's good? what's trustable? and answer all of those questions for the price? I'm really confused.

There are three fundamental technologies for making an LCD screen. TN, PVA, and IPS.

Twisted Nematic is by far the cheapest method to produce an LCD. It also produces LCDs with the fastest refresh rate which was the thing that mattered most back 10 years ago, but some reason marketing doesn't keep up with technology and the large majority of companies still think users give a damn. The downside to this display are many. Other than cost and and refresh rate you get **** viewing angles, so bad that at extreme angles the display colours will actually invert, extreme changes in gamma with vertical viewing angle, and the inability to display 6bit colour.

Patterened Vertical Alignment is the great compromise display. It is still sufficiently easy to manufacture and comes at a nice price, has far better viewing angles in that there won't be severe chroma shift laterally, and while there's a gamma shift vertically the colours on many displays won't get to the stage where they actually invert. Oh and it can display 8bit colour, just like the displays from 1995 could This is important in that you can actually get smooth gradients with these displays.

In-Plane Switching displays are the gods of quality display world. They are thick and heavy (mine is just a bit over 2" thick). They have perfect viewing angles and colour nor gamma will change with viewing angle. They are a true 8bit display. They suffer a bit from refresh problems making them a pain to play some computer games, but all around they are quite acceptable. They are hard to manufacture and about the only screens these days which you buy where you may actually still end up with a dead pixel.

Furthermore the IPS screens are widely regarded as the top of the colour world so a lot of manufacturers cram more features into them, such as internal 12bit lookup table to be used with colourimeter. That way rather than reducing the output and quality of the image at the graphics card in the name of calibrating a monitor you can actually write a correction table to the screen's own processors.

What can you trust? Only the source and type of panel. The monitor world is one where very few manufacturers actually make panels. Many implement them, and many more simply re-badge. For example the Lacie monitors are made by NEC, a large portion of NEC monitors use LG/Philips panels. Beyond that each company produce both chalk and cheese. NEC will provide a bottom of the line mass produced 17" TN screen, but for a price can also provide the ASTOUNDING NEC PA241W SpectraView which has a 14bit lookup table amongst other features.

This site here: Monitor Panel Search Database can help you search what type of panel is in what monitor.

 

[KmH]

ok I don't understand something... what the heck is a "twisted nematic" display?! .

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_nematic

If you're going to college, get used to doing research.

 

[scmindseye]

so what brand do you guys trust? because as far as I know, there is only one monitor I have spent literally hundreds of hours editing photos, probably thousands of hours if I thought about it, would be a dell monitor. Now I'm not sure if they were the ultrasharps although the computer was a dell workstation with 8gb of memory and dual xeon processors so they probably were. But, I know that monitor is good but I also have another question. What in all of your professional opinions is a better screen ratio for photo editing? one that is designed as a 3:4 monitor? or 16:9 widescreen?

 

[Double H]

Eizo monitors, hands down.

 

[usayit]

How about for monitors that will be used in portrait (on its side) positioning? I had a cheap samsung seems to suffer from color and gamma distortion when it was positioned on its side. Fortunately, it died last week leaving me with my Apple Cinema now positioned in the same manner (it doesn't have the same problem). I'm thinking I'll just get another one (but I need to save up more).

 

[Garbz]

How about for monitors that will be used in portrait (on its side) positioning? I had a cheap samsung seems to suffer from color and gamma distortion when it was positioned on its side.

The result of the angle of the various elements on the screen. Cheap TN panels have far greater viewing angles side to side than they do vertically. This is because our eyes are set apart. When you position them so you're effectively looking at them sideways you end up with a different viewing angle and thus different gamma for each eye. This is one of the reasons I never bought a Motorola Razor. They had the bloody screen in sideways. I don't know why that phone was so popular, it would have driven me mental.

so what brand do you guys trust?

My earlier point is that what comes out of a brand? Is LG a bad brand? They make the panel for the Eizo SX2462W, which is the identical panel to the NEC LCD2490WUXi. Dell make a lot of cheap crap, but for the price I would definitely hands down recommend a Dell Ultrasharp 2209W which is probably the best bang for buck IPS screen you can buy.

NEC make displays that get scrutinised to all hell in medical imaging applications, abused like anything at our oil refinery, and also make some cheap and nasty stuff that you can't stand looking at.

Stop thinking bands and look into models. But if you must think brands, NEC and Eizo are amongst photographer favourites, LG and Samsung and Hitachi are panel manufacturers so they likely supply your photographic favourites, Dell offer some bargains if you look very closely and know what you're looking for, and HP arguably makes one of the best screens in existence but the rest of their product line is crap.

 

[user3977]

not to hijack the thread or anything but i think this might be relevant in a way. does anyone use an imac or an apple display? i know in stores they look wonderful but what quality are they for editing? for the price they should be one of the top line models.

 

[Garbz]

For the most part, Apple desktops incorporate IPS screens. Definitely worth owning. The multimedia industry is (or was) their life blood remember? They know how to make quality screens.

Easy way to tell is to just look at it from a really extreme viewing angle. 178 deg is the standard viewing angle quoted for IPS screens. Combine one of those with a calibrator and you'll be laughing. (though look at your wallet and you'll be crying )