27" Monitor Recommendations

Albuquerque

Albuquerque

Red-headed step child
Moderator
Veteran
First rule: 1080P need not apply!

Second rule: TN is not acceptable!

One of the most obvious answers is the Dell U2711 and I'm certainly a fan. But what other good quality 27" devices should I be investigating?
 
Do you want wide or 16:10? Price or performance? There are some new PLS panels I believe, but can't say I've looked at them if you're looking for something cheaper than IPS.
 
Good questions! Wide format, although I'll take either 16:9 or 16:10. Pricing is OK up to around $1k for a top-tier, top-quality device, although I'm always interested in something that costs less but delivers good performance.

The Dell U2711 is the only one I've really looked into, and it's not an inexpensive unit. :)
 
Uses the same IPS panel as the U2711, so it can't be that bad! But it's entirely glass on the front, which makes it a disaster in rooms with lots of light. Sadly, this disqualifies it from my typical use case (a room that consistently has a lot of natural light.)
 
It's pretty hard to beat the U2711...

Apple's cinema displays are very nice but the main advantage of the glossy screen would probably be a downside for you in a bright room. And the connections are nowhere near as good as the Dell.
 
Yeah, the Apple Cinema display is gorgeous, but unusable in my brightly lit room :( DAMNABLE SUNLIGHT! </nerd rage>
 
If you do go with the dell, you can often find it on sale for between $699 and $749 (they seem to cycle their monitor sales every 2 or 3 weeks). I was considering one myself but wound up getting the U3011 (for just under $1000).
 
HP is a bit bare-bones, but I don't need epic gamut support and a hojillion connectors. That might work... Although the lack of an old-school VGA port might piss off my wife, as she likes to plug in her netbook when I'm not there. My current Dell 2007WFP was gonna be shipped to my brother.

Still worth considering, as it looks like you can find it online for just shy of $600. Also has a 'correct' stand (height, tilt, pan) which is a bonus from the usual 'cheap' IPS panels that I've seen online elsewhere.
 
*cough* *cough* *ahem* :D

I've used this monitor now for several months, and it's performing quite well. The anti-glare coat is very unobtrusive and still does a great job (unlike the Dell Ultrasharp, which appears almost sparkly at times in fine details.) It's bright, and colors look great. There's also no visible overdrive artefacts, and input lag does not seem a big issue; I game quite well in action games like TF2 for example on this monitor. The casing and stand are made partially of plastic and feels a bit rickety when moved around, but is not a problem when the monitor just sits there on the desk.

One weird quirk, at least with my firmware revision, is that the backlight turns on three times after the monitor enters power save to announce that there is no video input. It repeats this procedure for each connected device, so with my PC and a blu-ray player, the backlight goes on 6 times... *shrug*

Also, like many other monitors it seems, it won't handshake HDCP properly unless you've switched to the appropriate input, and then cycle power. Otherwise all you get is the familiar random-like noise HDCP generates. Other than these two niggles there's not much to complain about.
 
As a hint, www.tftcentral.co.uk is the best monitor review site i found on the webz. You can also use their selector to point you towards some more options.

But yeah for 27', as far as I know its the dell, hp or hazro for you.
 
Nice Grall, thanks! I somehow completely missed your thread, so thank you for linking it. Very nice alternative to the Dell, and I value your input. That monitor is absolutely on my short list now :)

Also, thanks entity for the linkage -- I'll check that out too.
 
While I don't have the HP 27", I can certainly vouch for HPs monitor quality (can't say the same for their computers) as I have the LP3065. From my experience the build quality of HP monitors is similar to Dell's although I've experienced less of the odd inconsistencies that Dell always seems to have with new monitor lines with the HP monitors. My solution with Dell is usually wait til the monitor has been availlable 6+ months before buying one in a new line. :p

Dell generally has better (or at least more) connector options however. And I do like that on the higher end Dell monitors they also generally include (or at least used to) memory card readers. That comes in handy as I don't otherwise have one on my desktop. Of course, the flip side of that is you generally pay more for the Dell, even with their sales sometimes.

HP also generally skimps on the scaler but for me that isn't a problem as I rarely go into non-native resolutions. And when I do while in windows I just have my driver do the scaling rather than the panel.

Regards,
SB
 
Found a guy on Craigslist here in Irvine that has a stack of U2711's for $685 each -- purportedly that still have the significant majority of their warranty left. Gonna take a stack of cash, a 4G modem and my laptop down to check them out. You can do the warranty lookup on Dell's website, and he can transfer the warranty right there while I watch him :)

If that doesn't pan out, I'll continue looking...
 
Yeah, and Dell is one of the few places whose warranty includes a zero dead pixel policy.
 
AlphaWolf said:
Oh wow didn't realize their warranty on refurbs is that bad. The new ultrasharps have a 3 yr warranty.
Click to expand...

Almost all refurbs from any company have short warranties in the 30-90 day range. I used to buy a fair amount of refurbs, but have recently stopped after multiple products failed far too quickly. Ended up not worth it to save a few hundred if I have to replace whatever it is 2-5 years earlier than planned. And Onkyo receiver ended up being the last refurb product I'll ever buy.

Refurbs, are basically a crapshoot. Might get lucky, might not.

Regards,
SB
 
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