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Display for design student

M

Mightee

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 25, 2004
90
8
Hi. I'm sort of starting off as a graphic design student. I've got a 24" aluminum iMac from December 2007 that I love, but since I never seem to be at home I've been doing most of my work on my old PowerBook G4, which just isn't cutting it anymore. I've decided to get rid of everything and buy myself a new 15" MacBook Pro.

However, I'm going to need an external display for when I'm at home, and I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions on a display comparable to my iMac's that I could get on a budget. I would prefer at least 22". I don't mind doing some calibration, as long as the Spyder is as easy as claimed.

Anyone? Thanks!
 
stay away from monitors with 160 degree viewing angles since they are TN panels which are crap for anything that needs to be accurate. PVA (170 degrees) and ideally IPS (178) are what you want.
 
stainlessliquid said:
stay away from monitors with 160 degree viewing angles since they are TN panels which are crap for anything that needs to be accurate. PVA (170 degrees) and ideally IPS (178) are what you want.
Click to expand...

I'm curious - seems that 160 / 170 / 178 degrees are relatively small increments. Is it the viewing angle that really makes the difference?
 
Slovak said:
I'm curious - seems that 160 / 170 / 178 degrees are relatively small increments. Is it the viewing angle that really makes the difference?
Click to expand...

No, but the fact that TN panels can only display thousands of colors while IPS/PVA can display millions does. There is the also the factor that IPS panels have the best color reproduction and accuracy. You know when you're off angle and looking at a display and the colors are all funky? You don't want that when you're working with design.
 
You should go for a 9" back and white display like I started on with the original Macs ... at least the choice of only two colours meant it was hard to get the wrong one. ;)
 
Gloss?

How about something glossy? Does Dell even sell a glossy display?

I would love to just do it all on my old Mac Plus.
 
stainlessliquid said:
stay away from monitors with 160 degree viewing angles since they are TN panels which are crap for anything that needs to be accurate. PVA (170 degrees) and ideally IPS (178) are what you want.
Click to expand...

PVA and IPS are actually both 178, my Dell 2709W is 178 and its a S-PVA. TN on newer monitors are usually 170 horizontal, 160 vertical.

As far as glossy goes, I probably wouldn't suggest it on a high end monitor. There's a reason why all the PVA and IPS monitors are matte. ;)
 
Slovak said:
I'm curious - seems that 160 / 170 / 178 degrees are relatively small increments. Is it the viewing angle that really makes the difference?
Click to expand...

The vertical viewing angles on TN displays are so poor that they will create a gradient effect when looking at flat colors, especially neutral colors. Its based on where your head is, raising and lowering your head just a few inches can change the value of the top and bottom of the screen by quite a bit. This can really mess up graphic design and photo editing when youre already working with gradients and cant tell how visible your gradient really is since its competing with the polarization that TN displays create.

Ive worked on a 20" iMac before only to bring the file home to an IPS display to find that the gradient I thought I added simply was not there since I added it so lightly to counter the darkness the TN was creating at the top of the screen.
 
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