Best site for monitors?

[London Geezer]

Title says it all. Oh, in the UK of course.

By the way, it would be nice if you could help.

I need a 21" monitor. Maybe more... And i don't want to have to sell my sexual abilities yet again to be able to afford it.

Doesn't need to be the best of the best, but it needs to be good, and at a good price.

Decent resolution and definitely good black levelsand contrast cause i'm very sentitive to that. What would, say, £200-300 buy me?

 

[Skrying]

For buying? Reviewing? What?

 

[London Geezer]

For buying? Reviewing? What?

both actually

or u could just skip the reviewing if you can give me a few models i should look at. really dont wanna go through tens of reviews trying to find the best monitor out there for that price...

 

[Skrying]

Behardware has a rather good section on monitors. Its hard to keep up the market but they do a decent job and at the very least the reviews will give you a solid foundation on what you should be looking for, what prices you can expect, etc.

 

[London Geezer]

What's the difference between these two?

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=78642

* 1680 x 1050 pixels resolution for sharp and brilliant images, text and graphics
* Offers wide-viewing angle of 160° (horizontal) and 160° (vertical)
* 800:1 contrast ratio and up to 300 cd/m² brightness for excellent colour accuracy and uniformity
* 5ms response time reduces ghosting and jagged edges
* DVI with HDCP support helps to ensure high quality image and enables viewing of protected high-definition content

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=59233

* Display sharp and brilliant images with 1680x1050 Pixels resolution
* Wide viewing angle of 178º — horizontal and vertical
* 800:1 contrast ratio and 16 millisecond typical response time for distortion-free, sharp images
* Ideal for multi-taskers, high-end graphic designers, content creation users, financial sector analysts and gamers
* Supported by Dellâ„¢ Technical Support

One is Ultrasharp, but it's quoted at 16ms response time, where the non-Ultrasharp one has a 5ms response time? And it's cheaper?

I'm confused... The have the same contrast ratio and brightness... (not that i believe the numbers they quote anyway)? Viewing angles are different but the rest is the same... What's the difference?

 

[Skrying]

The panel used. The E207WFP uses a TN-Film panel. That's as crap as it gets when it comes to LCDs. The 2007WFP on the other hand probably uses either a *VA or ISP panel, those are two the you want with IPS being decently better than the VA panels.

Also, the E207WFP in NO WAY has 16.7 million colors, that is reached using dithering and can result in some pretty crappy image quality. Of course it is the cheapest.

This forum post at HardForums (good for something!) actually gives a decent run down of the different LCD panels out there.

 

[Tahir2]

Also, the E207WFP in NO WAY has 16.7 billion colors

You mean million right?
6bit panel with dithering giving you approximately 16.2 million dithered colours or 262'000 'real' colours.

 

[London Geezer]

The panel used. The E207WFP uses a TN-Film panel. That's as crap as it gets when it comes to LCDs. The 2007WFP on the other hand probably uses either a *VA or ISP panel, those are two the you want with ISP being decently better than the VA panels.

Also, the E207WFP in NO WAY has 16.7 billion colors, that is reached using dithering and can result in some pretty crappy image quality. Of course it is the cheapest.

This forum post at HardForums (good for something!) actually gives a decent run down of the different LCD panels out there.

ISP?! *shivers*

I'm only up to date with HDTV panels, where things have moved on from ISP a LONG time ago... I guess it's ok for PC monitors...

Still makes me laugh at how they quote same contrast ratio figures for both panels, when one is obviously worse than the other. Of course the quoted figures are wrong anyway so it's not like i put too much weight in them...

The Dell Ultrasharp one seems well regarded, might just go for that one...

 

[Skrying]

Billion to million and ISP to IPS. Sigh, not a good day for typing!