Buying a new Monitor

[TDR]

Hello everyone,

I shall shortly be upgrading my home setup (when the new Mac Pros eventually come out) and need to buy a new monitor.

I'm looking at a 27" model. I'm a designer, and whilst all my paid work is on the company Mac in the office, I'd Iike a decent quality screen for home use.

I intend to watch films and play games as well as using various Creative Suite applications, and although highly precise colour accuracy is not a serious requirement, it does need to be of a good standard as I'll be doing my own retouching and photo manipulation.

The most common models appear to be LCD screens around the £350/400 mark, but I'm not convinced that these will be of a high enough quality. The fact that there is such a huge leap in price from, for instance the LG M2794DP 27" Widescreen LCD Freeview Monitor to the Dell UltraSharp U2711 27" Widescreen LCD Monitor makes me wonder what the real difference is and whether or not I'd notice a difference in quality. Then there's a huge step again to the LaCie monitors.

Would the more expensive ones just be overkill, is the extra money worth it and if I got one of the cheaper 'consumer' models like the LG would I be left disappointed in the picture quality?

I guess I could wait for a 27" Cinema display, but to be honest I like the connectivity of the LG and other screens - I'm assuming the new Cinema displays will just have USB connections, although i don't know anything about what kind of adapters are available for USB ports.

Thanks for any help and advice you can share on the subject

TDR

 

[spinnerlys]

If you need colour accuracy and low colour shifting due to the viewing angle, use a monitor with an IPS (In Plane Switching) panel, as all the other cheaper models come with TN panels.

The iMac 27" uses IPS panels, but has that stupid glass in front. The 27" Dell monitor is also often recommended. You can use MRoogle to search the forums to find many of "looking for monitor" threads.

 

[GoCubsGo]

If you want to watch TV on your LCD then that can be done using any display providing you have a video card that is also a TV card or you have additional hardware that allows you to watch TV. If you want to plug your cable into your display then you want a TV.

If you're a designer then color accuracy should be important to you. The leap in pricing has everything to do with the type of screen being used in that particular display.

A TN panel are what you typically seen your lower end displays. They'll almost always be cheaper. An IPS panel is pretty much where you want to go if you're looking for quality. An IPS panel gives you the best overall color accuracy (as a designer I'd assume you'd calibrate it any way), as well as the best viewing angles. They're not the cheapest and you can find a TN 27" for hundreds less than an iPS 27" panel. Dell has both TN and IPS panels and I highly suggest Dell. When looking at a display I would say "check Apple" then "check Dell". Today I can't suggest an Apple display (non-glossy) as they're very outdated (still good but the price is too high nowadays) so now I suggest a Dell. If you're just looking for a display and you couldn't care less about any of the TN vs IPS bs then there is a wonderful display made by BenQ at Newegg, but it was a 24".