agreed, however two of the four displays i have tried (dell and HP) have been IPS displays. And all 4 have been glossy (not a matte fan)
Somehow I missed this post. The coating is usually where people complain about a grainy look. I never really favored the way LG does their coatings. It's just that they're basically what is available. Anyway, in that case check the profile on the washed out issue. It may be selecting the colorlcd one, which is slightly weird in its behavior.
Washed out, grainy,not even close color balance. So far I have tried models from HP,Dell,Samsung and LG and they all have been unacceptable.
So before my local best buy starts avoiding me, can anyone suggest a decent display?
I'd like to stay in the $300 or less range and it needs to be HDMI, otherwise I'm back in iMac category in total cost.
PS: All 4 of the monitors i have tried have exhibited the intermittent black screen issue
Is it assigning the default Colorlcd profile in colorsync or is it custom loading a generic one labeled with the display model name? The colorlcd profile may be in poor alignment with the actual properties of the display you've plugged in. In terms of being grainy, you're talking about matte coatings. Apple used them for years. They do work. The lamination process Apple is using on the retina macbook pros and supposedly the new imacs is the first credible alternative. Some of the non LG panel coatings used by Eizo and NEC in the past were a bit better, but these are nothing new. I'm surprised you've never seen it.
It's hard to know exactly what you're perceiving here. Most of your complaints are probably due to the display finish. Matte coatings do affect transmission and and attempt to scatter reflected light rays. You're being a bit dramatic though
. In color critical workflows where you want the best display possible, people do deal with the annoying matte coatings rather than the extreme reflectivity of the Apple displays. They aren't the first ones to ditch anti-glare, but it comes down to preference.
Interesting, the Dell i tried was a s2440L which is the 24 inch model. Physically it was by far the nicest looking with a glass (plastic) covering over the entire front of the monitor and touch screen controls.
Sadly, it was also the farthest off in terms of color. Now matter what i did on the monitor or with color sync (and yes I used advanced including trying different white points) it was too blue unless I used the warmest setting and then everything was too yellow .
And to top it off, the benq came but had obviously been dropped. The box sounded like a baby rattle. They are sending another and I also ordered a Viewsonic that someone else in the thread suggested. Both should arrive Wednesday.
That is actually weird. First of all you shouldn't be using these outside of native white point values whenever possible unless you have one with some kind of LUT based calibration (as opposed to the typical bradford matrix based profile generation). Apple's displays aside from the retina macbook pro tend to be slightly on the cold side relative to sRGB.
You should be able to use a default setting. For the most part I'd avoid the Adobe RGB displays unless you're looking at fully calibrating/profiling them. OSX doesn't always deal well with them at their stock settings. Make sure colorsync didn't assign a weird profile to it. It will typically auto load something display specific. I haven't liked anything by Viewsonic in a long time. Some of their older CRTs were passable, but they've always been somewhat of a second rate brand.
There is one thing I need to mention here.
Do not use the colorsync calibration tools. Those things shouldn't even be there. They aren't adequate for overall control. They just confuse people who don't know what they're doing without providing a real solution for anything. Either use presets or buy a colorimeter to reprofile if it's just slightly off. That stupid colorsync tool should have been removed years ago. In terms of profiles, you have the portion that describes the device, and the part that modifies instructions to attempt to match the desired output behavior. The colorsync tool is not adequate for either of these things. It attempts to remap gamma in the most idiotic way possible. Just do not touch it.
