need (fast) advice on buying an external monitor

[Marin85]

Hi,

Ok, here we go. Me and some friends of mine have a budget of about 250 € (say 300$) to buy an external display as a birthday present for another friend of ours (hence it has to be new). The only problem is that we got pretty fast lost in the variety of offered external displays. Here are our preferred specs:

(1) 22'' or 24'' matte screen with 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 resolution;
(2) LED backlight (it lives longer than CCFL);
(3) Some decent (=ThinkPaddish) design, for instance like Dell 2408WFP, nothing crazzy, and if possible with no glossy finish of the frame;
(4) Good viewing angles, meaning suitable for watching movies from different viewing angles;
(5) Good contrast;
(6) HDMI or DVI;
(7) TV Tuner would be nice;
(8) Vertically adjustable is not a Must, but would be nice too.
(9) Preferred brands (:sigh:, don´t ask) are Samsung, LG, Philips (maybe EIZO as far as affordable).

Ideally, a display with S-PVA or S-IPS panel would be really nice, but given the tight budget we have, I am not sure if we could get all of the aforementioned specs in one, not to mention such a quality panel. Besides, there are certainly good TN panels out there that would pretty much suffice for the intended purposes (MS Office, web browsing, watching movies and similar). Also, the guy we are buying this for is an architect and he naturally likes to play with Photoshop and similar from time to time at home. So, while we are not looking for a professional monitor, some accuracy of color reproduction would be also nice.
I realize that 'good' in the above context is a debatable notion and that we may have to sacrifice some or another feature since you can´t get everything for that little money, but at least we feel obliged to try Hence I am open to any suggestions!

Thanks in advance,

Marin

[BillMorrow]

i personally like the 25.5 inch 1920x1200 h/p ultrabright displays..
they DO have a CCFL backlight and glossy everything but aside from these negatives they are great displays..
especially the "new" ones i recently got from an ebay seller..
for $285 USD..

not sure if this seller will ship to germany..

i replaced a pair of the 24 inch of the same variety..
which i will now probably use as external displays on thinkpads scattered around the house..

[ansible212]

Take a look at the reviews at TFT Central:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

I decided to buy an HP LP2475w after reading the reviews there, and you should certainly add HP to your list (although the 2475w is fairly expensive, albeit no more expensive than comparable Dells).

The newer HP ZR24W got a glowing review at TFT Central and is significantly less expensive than the 2475w etc:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hp_zr24w.htm

I also remember reading somewhere that CCFL backlighting is better than LED for colour accuracy, so depending on the intended usage you may want to reconsider. (BTW, HP's three year warranty covers the backlight, so would be worth checking whether other brands do as well. They also have a zero dead pixel policy on the higher end monitors too.)

[pianowizard]

You may want to look into LCD HDTVs. I bought this 27.5" Hannspree HDTV from Tiger Direct in Dec 2009 and paid only around $280US shipped for it:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... P-_-03ship

It doesn't meet all of your requirements, but it's a bargain considering its size and additional TV functionality. The viewing angles are acceptable -- I think most HDTVs (except the really small ones) have at least decent viewing angles, since they are intended to be viewed by a group of people. Notice that even though this Hannspree is advertised as 1080p, its maximum resolution is actually 1920x1200, although if you drive it through VGA rather than HDMI, the max res is only 1680x1050. But that shouldn't be a problem for you because it seems like your friend will be using HDMI.

[Marin85]

Guys, thank you for all the nice suggestions! The consumer side prevailed and we ended up buying SAMSUNG SyncMaster P2470HD for 260€. I don´t know what crap that is, but it seems to have some nice specs (though the panel might well be quite terrible): 24'', 1920x1080, 300 cd/m², 5ms, 170°/160° (could be better), 50 000:1 (dynamic), 15pin D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI, Scart. If he doesn´t like it, he will be able to return it and get whatever he wants for the money

Cheers,

Marin

[yak]

Hi Marin.

I recently bought a HP ZR24w here in Germany. As a student I was entitled to a discount in HP store for students and teachers and I paid €289. It's a e-IPS monitor with 16:10 WUXGA (1920x1200) resolution. It has VGA, DVI and DisplayPort inputs as well as a 4-port USB hub. It's very solid, has professional look and a great stand with height, tilt, pivot and swivel adjustments. The image quality is very good although blacks aren't as nice as on my AFFS X200. Still, it was a steal at that price.

[Marin85]

Yak, thanks for the great hint! I guess I should have known better, but now the matter is finished (and I am certain he is going to like the screen, and most likely, to be honest, he would not be able to make the difference between ordinary panel and S-IPS or S-PVA, so it would have been kind of wasted ). But I will keep your hint in mind for myself, as I am (still) entitled to such discounts here in Germany (still not comparison to US standards ), and since I may be getting one at some point.

Cheers,

Marin

[yak]

True, I'm always envy of the lower prices and big discounts our US friends get. Its to the point there that buying without any discounts is considered overpaying .

[AMATX]

I like the Samsung 24"" 1920x1200 monitors. Several model numbers. Fairly cheap on ebay, even cheaper for used and/or minor defects.

Depends also upon what your usage for them is. For me, they have very nice, hi res display, does the trick.