Best 24” / 30” monitor for balance between colour, quality and response?

[Sesshi]

The costs between what seems like the reasonable high-end and the low-end seems relatively trivial as far as I’m concerned, so in order to replace the ACD’s I sold along with various Macs and also the Dell monitors I may need to move elsewhere, I’ve decided to spring for some monitors that some of you print guys use at your place of work to look down your noses at the plebeian Dellers (despite in all probability being Dell owners for your home systems ) and berate on a regular basis on the inferiority thereof. Obviously in my case it’s for more than print use, and I would require that it can perform well with games and suchlike as well – i.e. real-life normal use, as well as offer superior accuracy and image quality.

The monitors *must* work on both Win and Mac (unlike the 23" ACD for example), especially if there is any associated software or hardware involved. Costwise it would depend on the improvement offered - I'd be looking for very noticeable improvements for somewhere around double the cost of the Dells/ACD's for example, and truly jaw-dropping quality at anything significantly over that.

Given those requirements, what would you recommend in the 24” area and 30” area?

 

[Sesshi]

After all that arguing over which is a better monitor, no-one has any suggestions?

 

[cubbie5150]

Eizo S2411W-U

 

[Sesshi]

I looked into the Eizos. What's your experience in terms of improvement / reliability / etc? Why - in practical terms - would you say they are better for all-round use?

 

[RichP]

Eizo are serious monitors, but what are you using it for?

If you need really good color quality, then the eizo, or perhaps the new LED backlight screens from Samsung and NEC (which are OVER 100% color gamut) are good options to look into. All of the are going to cost much more than consumer and prosumer setups.

Personally, I have an Apple 30" and love it. Its color is very good for consumer/prosumer, works fine with windows, and having all this pixel real estate is a luxury I can no longer live without.

 

[Sesshi]

Use is general purpose. Everyday home use including gaming, graphics work, video work, etc.

I own several of both the Dell and Apple 23/4" / 30" monitors. I got rid of some of the Apples with the sale of some Macs recently, and more are going to be moved elsewhere as I have too few Macs to connect the Apple monitors to and I find there are compatibility issues with the ACD's and Windows PC's. I also didn't order enough monitors for some of my work-related systems, so some Dell monitors will also be heading out of the door - or at least, that's my excuse to use the company budget for some brand new replacement monitors.

As I said, I was looking at the cost of the professional monitors and from a purchasing point of view the cost differences are fairly trivial, so I might as well have the best going. Not going stupid with it you understand, but I've decided 2-3x the cost of the ACD's is not a problem if an really noticeable improvement for everyday use is demonstrable.

The Macbook Pros and whatever other Mac I might buy in the near future will probably be connected to one or more of any such monitor I might buy, but it will be as important - if not more so - that they work correctly with Windows machines, especially really finicky GPU's like the 8800GTX.

Display adapter wise, the below are the machines I might use with any purchased monitor, if this makes any changes to the recommendation:
Macs are Macbook Pros (X1600 obviously)
PC's use (desktop) 8800GTX both singly and in SLI, Quadro FX4500, Quadro FX5500 (laptop) 7950GTX, 7400 Go DVI-I output on docking station, Quadro NVS110M DVI-I output on docking station.

 

[atari1356]

For color critical work I'd get the 26" NEC 2690.

It uses an S-IPS panel, which none of the 24" monitors use (except for the new NEC 2490 I think).

Of course, if you value screen real estate over color reproduction - then the 30" Dell 3007 might be better for you.

More info on the NEC 2690:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/648-1/nec-multisync-lcd2690wuxi-the-first-26-inch.html

Tests of some of the new 30" monitors:
http://www.behardware.com/news/8747/test-of-the-new-30-inch-monitors-dell-and-samsung.html

Another site with good info:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

A heavily trafficked forum with a section for displays:
http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78

That should keep you busy.

 

[RichP]

Those NECs look pretty nice, especially that 26".

Considering money isnt an issue...
http://www.necdisplay.com/Products/Product/?product=d61cea64-a46e-4095-85b6-ed62136d058e

Then again, beside its color abilities, the other specs arent it are not that spectacular.

 

[PCMacUser]

I quite like my Dell 2407WFP 24" monitor. Great colours and brightness, with gaming level response times. This model is over a year old now, but still reviews well after all this time (Anandtech recently re-reviewed it).

And it's very well priced.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Dell 3007WFP-HC sounds like it fits the bill but I'm sure you already knew that.