Need some input for a new monitor

[Bill W]

My priority will be photography, no gaming, no video.


The Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP fits my budget and seems to be technically sound for digital photography work.


Are there any other choices I should be considering?


Thanks


Bill

[steve_m]

I always recommend Eizo monitors. They come with internal calibration hardware and bundled with monitor calibration software. I use them daily and they are, in my opinion, second to none. If you want to see what your images look like BEFORE you print them, go with Eizo. There are other brands that are very good. I just prefer Eizo because I know from experience they do the job well.


If you have any questions regarding a good color monitor, check out Chromix.com. They will help you decide which monitor is right for you. They are color experts. Not just sales people. Here's a link to their site. By-the-way, I don't work for Chromix, I just have had good experience with their technical support regarding anything color/color management.


http://www2.chromix.com/colorgear/?-session=SessID:4C11B7F913ae10D38ENRO18E1509

[Bill W]

Steve, Eizo would be my choice but they're double my budget.

[Chuck Lee]

Bill,


Be careful. Budget or no budget, today's LCD's are getting worse and worse by the model. Before buying you might want Daniel Browning to chime in on this one. He knows his stuff. I'm sure he'll have some good recommendations.


I'd recommend looking at the HP LP2475w, 24 inch. Some testers claim it's an IPS LCD which gives you the most accurate color right out of the box. I have seen reports though thatan "IPS" LCD is not 100% guaranteed, in which case it would be a PVA.


I believe the Ultrasharp by Dell can also vary from IPS to PVA. Niether of these manufacturers advertise what type on LCD they are using. The basic three are TN (extremely cheap, fast refresh, bright vivid color, color shifts drastically at increased viewing angles) PVA (mid-level,slower refresh, vivid more accurate color and wide gamut, color shiftsless noticealbeat increased viewing angles) IPS (high-level, fast enough refresh rates, very accurate color and wide gamut, very wide viewing angle) I'd be willing to bet Eizo's are IPS LCDs. Bill, alot of this stuff is off the top of my head so please don't quote me on all these statements. I think wikipedia and a couple other sites discuss all this at infinitum.


I purchased a HP 2275w inJanuary and am very happy with it. The only Con I can find is that you need to wait about five minutes for it to come up to full brightness. Once it's there it is very nice to work from. I use it as a supplemental monitor for photo processing and extended desktop for my laptop monitor. I wish it was 1920 x 1200 instead of 1680 x 1050. It would then match my laptop res. Thank goodness for Nvidia's dual screen driver. I have no problems with stretching or scaling between the two. It is a PVA monitor so the colors can be a bit over the top in default. Some OSD adjustment is necessary to getaccurate white balance andcolor output.


Here's a nice little piece about these two. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15999regarding the Dell 24" click on the "flurry of problems" link. His findings were very interesting.


Hope it all works out well for you.


Chuck

[canoli]

hey Bill -


When I shopped for a monitor last month, my priority was getting a good 24" non-gaming, "photographer's" monitor, and my budget was about $650. I bought the HP2475w - it was under $600 incl tax - and I've been real happy with it.


I ruled out all TN panels because their color accuracy is awful. That put me into the +$500 range. Then I wanted hardware calibration, but HW calibration - where you can actually change the LUT inside the monitor - put me over my budget. Other things I wanted were a Display Port, pivot-capability, an easy-to-navigate OSD and a clean, solid design. But most important was color fidelity. None of the other things were deal-breakers.


I forget where I came across the HP but I'm glad I did. You don't have access to the LUT but it can be calibrated (of course) via software. If I had $1200 I would've gone for one of the NECs or the EIZOs, but it just wasn't in the cards this summer.


Anyway, check it out before you buy the Dell. I bought my HP at B&H, mostly because of their excellent return policy.


The HP2475w is an H-IPS panel and comes with (practically) every cable known to man - DVI, Display Port (hard to find and expensive when bought separately), HDMI, etc. It supports many different video inputs and has 4 or 6 USB ports. It can pivot and tilt, raise and lower, and it's a 24". It's built really well too, with a solid base and a "minimalist" black border.


Hope that helps - let us know what you get.

[hotsecretary]

I love my BenQ, but it's an older model and I think their new LCDs are unfortunately TN panels... so that's my only recommendation, stay away from TN panels!


http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/panelsearch.htm


Great site for info on panels if you're not sure what they are.

[piiooo]

Budget or no budget, today's LCD's are getting worse and worse by the model.

I am glad this is being mentioned. I have an older 24" mainstream Dell, and I think it shows colorsmore reliably and accuratelythan majority of the mainstream modern monitors on the market. In the begining when I noticed itIhoped it was just me (seeing conspiracy even in the monitor industry [^o)]), but the more monitors I looked at, the more convinced I became.Then I did a little research. It's just a shame...

[alex]

Why are LCD's getting worse and worse? Is it just because they are reducing quality to reduce price to make it more of a "mainstream" product?

[Chuck Lee]

Why are LCD's getting worse and worse?

Because the manufacturers seem to care less about accuracy and more about contrast ratio, refresh rates and bling. You must remember who drives the market. Gamers. If it wasn't for gamers we'd be lucky to be sitting behind Pentium IIs right now.Our CRTsalso have been taken over by plasmas and very large LCD TV screens. These components come out of the box jacked to the wall with contrast and over saturated color. In order for the LCD monitor manufactures to keep up they appear (at least in my experience) to do exactly the same thing. I got a Dell LCD with a Vostros system last fall to replace my wifes workstation that was way over the top with vibrant vivid color. But isn't that what gamers are looking for. If you think about it, everything they play is CG oriented so when a laser fires or a bomb explodes the vibrancy of the display greates a more powerful and imersive environment for the person involved.Alas, the color dosen't need to be accurate just bright and powerful.


It also seems to be getting worse as the monitors get larger. I just sold two small 17" dell LCD's that had awesome color reproduction. I never thought about profiling those. What you saw on the screen is what printed out on the HP inkjet. Were they 100% accurate? Probably not, but the reds didn't punch you in the eye and the greens didn't glow like a radioactive ooze. The colors looked normal. So, why the heck did I replace them. Because bigger is better. Higher resolution. More work space. 16:9 Aspect Ratio. Wider Gamut. Dang, forgot to ask about the color accuracy. But that's OK you can now spend another 300 USD on Color Munki or Spyder 3 just to find out that these new state of the art monitors will never give you perfect color accuracy no matter how manysleepless nights and support calls, and wasted weekends you spend trying to tweak it. And I forgot to mention the doulble profiling and the Adobe CS3 management settings and the bla bla bla.


Unless your willing to throw out the bucks for a NEC or Eizo or otherGraphic Art oriented Monitor your going to be stuck with the"gamers choice"that no color profiling software can corral. That's of-course IMHO!


The best you can do for 600 USD or less is to manually tweak until you can tolerate it.


So ends my rant..............whew!!


I'd still rather spend the money on a new lens,camera, or flash than on an Eizo. I don't know what I'm missing, which is very liberating.


So Alex, to answer your question: I haven't a clue dude, I'm just very frustrated with what I'm seeing these days. Your assumptions are closer to the reality of the matter than alot of folks would be willing to believe. I think in this case Mainstream = Gamers but with the proliferation of X-box, PSP, and Wii the PC gaming market is not the tech driving juggernaut it use to be. We may well see in the future a turning of priorities that could yield a slew of cost effective monitor(s) we're as photographers are looking for. Here's hope'n.

[Bill W]

To quickly answer Chuck's "rant" (I agree to an extent) and your questions....but beware; I'm becoming more of cynic as I become older.


Simply, it's today's economics; greed. Just look in the news....from the government, to the private sector corporations to the Madoffs of the world, it's GREED. It's cheaper (easier) to produce quantity and screw your neighbor than to produce quality. Plus a throw-away product means (hopefully, if there isn't a quality product in the same price range) your customer will re-purchase your product in a couple of years.


This isn't a 100% axiom, but it's becoming more and more popular.


I did mention I'm becoming more cynical in my old age...right?


OK, ok....lets re-focus and get off my soap box in Trafalgar Sq.....so far what I'm getting; I should only look at IPS monitors and it seems the only one in the 600 buck range is the HP 24. My readings are saying Dell 24 is PVA.


Is the HP my only choice? Anybody else have experience w/other manufacturer's IPS monitors in this price range?


BTW.....I prefer to spend my $$$ on L glass than an Eizo, NEC, etc.


Thanks


Bill