IPS monitors will be the best for almost everything. Some people have said that it's all about the angles at which you look at it, but it's untrue. There's a lot more to it than that (although the viewing angles are in fact a lot better)
TN panels are, for all intents and purposes, trash. Some more so than others, though. A good TN monitor is acceptable at best because the color reproduction is very imperfect. When you see and use an IPS monitor for a while, you don't go back. The Dell U2410 is absolutely amazing - of course it may not be particularly affordable - but the colors are much better.
As for the 120hz thing, it's all in people's heads or they're not being very scientific. It's possible that a 120hz monitor produces a smoother flow than a 60hz monitor, but a 60hz monitor can be smoother than another 60hz monitor. Also, 120hz monitors aren't really made to run at 60hz so it's quite likely that they don't do it very well. Don't forget, people pretend to see a difference between 120hz and 240hz TV when watching content filmed at 24 FPS. They'll make themselves believe anything to justify a purchase.
Long story short, definitely go with IPS if you can afford it, otherwise grab a decent TN panel. It's better if you go look at them in person if you can, ordering online can be quite disappointing for monitors. The way I see it, if you're going to be looking at something for hours at a time, it might as well not be garbage. Definitely a good place to invest.
Also www.100fps.com is a pretty good website for lookin around. in my personal experience with monitors. Once the refresh rate goes beyond 77hz I start to need very special circumstances to tell the difference, and you could quiz me on the hz rate of 77 versus 120 and I would fail a decent amount of them.
500 is reality perfect but not many games can even make theoretical use of that much.
60fps imho are enough for starcraft. non-laggy ips > 120hz tn Make sure to check the input lag (which is not the response time and is usally not listed in the specs) of different monitor models.
The difference in imagequality between tn and ips is really big.
On September 04 2011 12:05 Djzapz wrote: IPS monitors will be the best for almost everything. Some people have said that it's all about the angles at which you look at it, but it's untrue. There's a lot more to it than that (although the viewing angles are in fact a lot better)
TN panels are, for all intents and purposes, trash. Some more so than others, though. A good TN monitor is acceptable at best because the color reproduction is very imperfect. When you see and use an IPS monitor for a while, you don't go back. The Dell U2410 is absolutely amazing - of course it may not be particularly affordable - but the colors are much better.
As for the 120hz thing, it's all in people's heads or they're not being very scientific. It's possible that a 120hz monitor produces a smoother flow than a 60hz monitor, but a 60hz monitor can be smoother than another 60hz monitor. Also, 120hz monitors aren't really made to run at 60hz so it's quite likely that they don't do it very well. Don't forget, people pretend to see a difference between 120hz and 240hz TV when watching content filmed at 24 FPS. They'll make themselves believe anything to justify a purchase.
Long story short, definitely go with IPS if you can afford it, otherwise grab a decent TN panel. It's better if you go look at them in person if you can, ordering online can be quite disappointing for monitors. The way I see it, if you're going to be looking at something for hours at a time, it might as well not be garbage. Definitely a good place to invest.
Colour reproduction on both TN and IPS, assuming both are 6 bit, are close enough when calibrated that a typical user probably couldn't notice a real difference between the two. TN panels also lack the problems produced by IPS panels that is IPS glow, which helps makes blacks look grey, as well as LG's poor manufacturing quality.
Obviously the U2410 has more accurate colours than a TN panel and would look better. It uses true 8 bit and has been precalibrated by Dell - that's also why its $600. If you get a Spyder 3 and get a decent TN panel with well implemented F-ARC, you can get similar colours fairly easily.
Anyway, if you compare the cheaper eIPS panels, there isn't any real image quality difference between TN and IPS...you could even argue that TN panels look better due to the lack of the thick anti-glare that make whites look dirty. In fact, some of the high end TN panels like the new Samsung 950D series of monitors, IMO, look better than most of the IPS panels on the market.
On September 04 2011 12:05 Djzapz wrote: IPS monitors will be the best for almost everything. Some people have said that it's all about the angles at which you look at it, but it's untrue. There's a lot more to it than that (although the viewing angles are in fact a lot better)
TN panels are, for all intents and purposes, trash. Some more so than others, though. A good TN monitor is acceptable at best because the color reproduction is very imperfect. When you see and use an IPS monitor for a while, you don't go back. The Dell U2410 is absolutely amazing - of course it may not be particularly affordable - but the colors are much better.
As for the 120hz thing, it's all in people's heads or they're not being very scientific. It's possible that a 120hz monitor produces a smoother flow than a 60hz monitor, but a 60hz monitor can be smoother than another 60hz monitor. Also, 120hz monitors aren't really made to run at 60hz so it's quite likely that they don't do it very well. Don't forget, people pretend to see a difference between 120hz and 240hz TV when watching content filmed at 24 FPS. They'll make themselves believe anything to justify a purchase.
Long story short, definitely go with IPS if you can afford it, otherwise grab a decent TN panel. It's better if you go look at them in person if you can, ordering online can be quite disappointing for monitors. The way I see it, if you're going to be looking at something for hours at a time, it might as well not be garbage. Definitely a good place to invest.
Colour reproduction on both TN and IPS, assuming both are 6 bit, are close enough when calibrated that a typical user probably couldn't notice a real difference between the two. TN panels also lack the problems produced by IPS panels that is IPS glow, which helps makes blacks look grey, as well as LG's poor manufacturing quality.
Obviously the U2410 has more accurate colours than a TN panel and would look better. It uses true 8 bit and has been precalibrated by Dell - that's also why its $600. If you get a Spyder 3 and get a decent TN panel with well implemented F-ARC, you can get similar colours fairly easily.
Anyway, if you compare the cheaper eIPS panels, there isn't any real image quality difference between TN and IPS...you could even argue that TN panels look better due to the lack of the thick anti-glare that make whites look dirty. In fact, some of the high end TN panels like the new Samsung 950D series of monitors, IMO, look better than most of the IPS panels on the market.
Well try the U2311H then, it can be had for $230 or so and pretty much beats any 23 inch TN panel. 8-bit too. As for calibrating a TN panel to get decent color reproduction, it's still not close.
No it doesn't, when you compare a stock eIPS panel with a good TN panel, you will find it difficult to tell the difference (I'm 99% sure there isn't even a true 8 bit TN panel anyway). Just like how you can't tell a real difference between the 8 bit U2410 or the 6+F-ARC bit U2412M...in fact the U2412M is actually better for general use because it doesn't have the weak constant of the U2410.
Colour accuracy is overrated anyway. It doesn't matter whether or not its accurate, what matters is whether or not it looks good. Its a different story for professional work where you are dealing with print media but we're just lame consumers who want to buy gear that is too good for us.
The positives IPS monitors have are true 8-10 bit processing, good enough response times, and great viewing angles. It however has terrible contrast compared to TN and VA panels, which is especially important in movies and gaming, as well as IPS glow which makes blacks not look black. These are just facts of the technology you can't get around, Hitachi IPS panels are better but most of the industry uses LG manufactured panels.
The anti-glare and poor manufacturing quality on LG IPS panel's, while in some ways subjective, is bad enough to get a significant number of people complain about it and constantly return monitors back to Dell until they don't get one with woeful tinting and backlight bleeding. Its the only reason people even care about Samsung's PLS technology, which appears to be a near-identical clone of IPS.
What I'm getting at is that IPS panels are not some magic bullet technology. What they bring to the table are the best viewing angles of any TFT technology along with acceptable response times, which is why its the most popular professional TFT technology. People still choose TN and VA panels over IPS due to the better quality control, better contrast, better refresh rates (VA panels can generally do ~75hz with some tweaking), and sometimes better image quality.
I've never seen a TN panel that's even close to looking as good as monitors marketed as 8-bit IPS, and even 6-bit ones tend to be better in general. I'm not sure which TN's you consider to be good.
As for color accuracy being overrated, I don't agree, but regardless IPS monitors have more "vibrant" looking colors. To fake it, TN monitors oftentimes use a "glossy" screen surface (which is garbage, as it's meant to "fake" vibrant colors) whereas the U2410 and U2311H have matte surfaces.
TN panels with matte surfaces don't look nearly as good.
The Dell UltraSharp U2410 uses a native 8 bit H-IPS panel (which is much, much better than the 6 bit panels in use everywhere else) and has very good AFRC for 10 bit simulation, so you can display 1.07 billion colors with no noticeable flickering at all. It’s like a native 10-bit panel.
Along with that, it has 12-bit hardware LUTs internally, but you can’t officially reprogram them (I’ve heard you can hack it, but that breaks warranty).
The colors can be calibrated down to 0.2 dE average deviation.
U2410′s color space was measured at approximately 110% NTSC, which allows you to display a huge variety of gamuts with ridiculous ease, including Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB. It comes with a built-in sRGB and aRGB emulation mode factory calibrated down to dE 3.
Gamma response, when calibrated, was absolutely perfect – with an ideal 2.15-2.35 (depending on Luminosity, as per the sRGB definition) gamma factor for all color levels.
The white point was natively adjustable via the R/G/B gain and offset sliders to match D65′s 6504K with an error margin of 0.3 dE, and I could get it to match 9300K and 5500K without any problems whatsoever.
The cd/m^2 should be lowered to 120 for standard sRGB.
2311H, 2412W are all 6 bit, e-IPS panels with 72% NTSC color space – not much better than a TN (except for viewing angles).
TFT Central calibrates a lot of TN panels properly, you can check out some reviews - even some of the shitty 120hz TN panels do pretty well in the colour reproduction front once calibrated. They are not as good as the high end $600-2000 S/H-IPS panels however they're more than effective for basic photo and picture work. You should not be able to tell a real difference with your eyes.
TN panels especially have changed so much over the years so what you saw two years ago means nothing. IPS on the other hand seems to be stuck in the hellhole that is the inability to bring professional technology to consumers and VA has been rejected by everyone but Eizo, Sony, and Samsung.
Why should I even care if you try and fake colours with glossy fronts if the end result is nice? I can tell you that I ditched my Dell U2711 so quickly after seeing how well the Apple Cinema Display displays blacks and whites in a controlled light situation; the U2711's anti-glare made reading journal articles unbearable, the blacks were dark greys, and its contrast was adequate at best. Even if TN/VA don't use glossy fronts, their matte surfaces are way better than the shit Dell puts on their Ultrasharp lineup, that's for sure.
Sounds to me like someone's biased after screwing up a $1000 purchase.
Maybe I should check out some reviews from TFT Central's TN panels but people don't know what they're talking about anyway, so I'd have to see for myself.
As for VA panels, I haven't seen enough of them to have much of an opinion. I have used one for an extended period of time and it was hell. The F2380 from Samsung is a giant POS and a disgrace to VA panels, without a doubt!
"Screwed it up", sold it, and spent another $1000 on a better IPS panel yeah that's right I hate all IPS panels. No, I'm just realistic about what it does and doesn't do well. As I said, its not the silver bullet of TFT technology it does a lot of things well and a lot of things amazingly badly. The problems with IPS technology, especially those manufactured by LG, are well documented, especially with Dell's Ultrasharp lineup because they're the easiest manufacturer to deal with.
VA panels are not good for gaming, which is why they're unpopular with just about everyone. They have awful response times that are so bad that you WILL see ghosting even if its using overdrive. The Samsung you had is even worse, I believe the F2380 applied overdrive but did it so poorly that it introduced a lot of input lag in the process (lol). Nice contrast and blacks though, Sony's Bravia lineup uses PVA panels for this reason.
I received my U2312HM yesterday. It's better than TN in every way except at producing black. Black seems to look grayer than my old Dell 20" TN monitor. Due to lack of deep blackness, movies actually look better on my old Dell 20" TN monitor. Also I find the monitor too big for my 68.5cm deep desk so I may need a deeper desk.
After seeing IPS monitor in person, I don't recommend this monitor for gaming unless it's very closely priced to other TN monitors since it's not much of an improvement. Lack of deep blackness kind of ruins movies and gaming experience and it's hard to tell the colour difference while gaming and watching movies anyway.
120Hz doesn't make a huge difference over 60Hz for RTS games, but in FPS gaming, the difference is huge.. IPS over TN is not that big of a difference for RTS gaming if you're using a high quality TN panel and have it configured properly.
IPS over TN is not that big of a difference for RTS gaming if you're using a high quality TN panel and have it configured properly.
You're right. After I calibrated my U2312HM the black is about the same or slightly darker than my old Dell 20" TN monitor. Sc2 looks slightly better but not as vibrant as I imagined. So I'd say go for IPS if it costs similarly to TN for it's slightly better colour. But if not than TN is just as good and you're not missing out on much for gaming.
I read your post on Whirlpool. If you are really bothered by the tinting and dodgy panel uniformity, you can try returning it back to Dell and play IPS panel roulette and hope you end up with a perfectly fine one.
Bad blacks and common (relatively unnoticeable) manufacturing flaws is, sadly, one of the things you just deal with when buying IPS panels.
If you are really bothered by the tinting and dodgy panel uniformity, you can try returning it back to Dell and play IPS panel roulette and hope you end up with a perfectly fine one.
If you've read my edited post after calibration, the blackness was fixed after calibration. The blackness is as black as my old 20" Dell monitor now. There's a slight tint on 3 corners but it's not as bad as you think and this could be due to the edge-lit LED. Although I still rather have a tint-less one, I don't know if it exists. Does anyone own U2311H or U2312H that doesn't have tints?
I had to go back to my old 20" Dell monitor even though it has a worse colour. I don't know if it's because of the monitor size or IPS technology but while I was using it the whole day I began to feel sick in my stomach. I don't feel sick now that I switched to the old monitor which is strange.
I don't know why everyone was recommending the 23.6" monitor. My desk is 68.5cm deep but it's still not deep enough for this monitor. I tried sitting back as far as I could but it still felt weird using the monitor. I could tolerate the size when watching movies or playing Sc2 but I find it way too big for browsing the web to the point it gets counter-productive.
I'm either going to return this monitor or use it for my gaming PC in the living room. Are you guys sure that 23.6" is the optimal size for Sc2? If 21.5" is too small can't you sit closer to the monitor to get the optimal FOV or am I missing something here? I heard some Sc2 pro say their game play got better after switching to >22" monitors but I'm starting to doubt that now.
On September 04 2011 12:05 Djzapz wrote: IPS monitors will be the best for almost everything. Some people have said that it's all about the angles at which you look at it, but it's untrue. There's a lot more to it than that (although the viewing angles are in fact a lot better)
TN panels are, for all intents and purposes, trash. Some more so than others, though. A good TN monitor is acceptable at best because the color reproduction is very imperfect. When you see and use an IPS monitor for a while, you don't go back. The Dell U2410 is absolutely amazing - of course it may not be particularly affordable - but the colors are much better.
As for the 120hz thing, it's all in people's heads or they're not being very scientific. It's possible that a 120hz monitor produces a smoother flow than a 60hz monitor, but a 60hz monitor can be smoother than another 60hz monitor. Also, 120hz monitors aren't really made to run at 60hz so it's quite likely that they don't do it very well. Don't forget, people pretend to see a difference between 120hz and 240hz TV when watching content filmed at 24 FPS. They'll make themselves believe anything to justify a purchase.
Long story short, definitely go with IPS if you can afford it, otherwise grab a decent TN panel. It's better if you go look at them in person if you can, ordering online can be quite disappointing for monitors. The way I see it, if you're going to be looking at something for hours at a time, it might as well not be garbage. Definitely a good place to invest.
This. I have the Dell U2410, and it's the best purchase I have ever made. (I came from a 120hz panel as well)
This. I have the Dell U2410, and it's the best purchase I have ever made. (I came from a 120hz panel as well)
Thanks, that's good to know. I'm probably going to keep this monitor since my plan was to either get 23.6" 120Hz or IPS monitor for my gaming PC in living room anyway.
I just hope that the monitor won't be too big for my gaming desk in living room which has less diameter than 68.5cm.
But gaming and movies were less affected by the size of U2312HM, in fact it looked better. It was just the general web browsing that felt too big for me. I'm going to get myself a 21.5" monitor for my bedroom PC instead since that's the "sweet spot" for my desk.
I saw this YouTube video of pro's using 23.6" monitor and I couldn't believe how close some people were sitting to the monitor!
Also, with your U2410, Do you have any visible tints around the edges in black background? Is it worth returning the monitor for very minimal tints around the edges?
How does one figure out which monitors are IPS? Is there a list somewhere? Finding a monitor and then seeing if it is IPS is a bit time consuming compared to the possibility of looking at a list of IPS panels.
Okay, so I've been using my brother's 21.5" monitor and I think it's the perfect size for my desk. I have to admit that 23.6" was better for movies and games though, but you can't have everything. I realized that the biggest monitor I can go with for my desk is 22".
EPT
