$300 to $350 to spend on a monitor

[DeViLzzz]

I am looking to buy a monitor from Future Shop or Best Buy. I have gotten a bit of store credit and want to buy something that will be really good for gaming. It can be a 3D monitor if the picture will look good enough for 2D but I see that Asus monitor that many like has a non IPS panel as I guess 3D isn't possible on IPS yet and people say the 2D isn't so great. Now I do have a 3D tv so I can get my fix of 3D gaming on that if need be so it isn't a must to have a 3D monitor but I just don't like what I got from a recent Samsung purchase on a so called bargain LED monitor with 1920x1080 p with 2 ms response. I want something guaranteed to be good. I will pay $300 to $350 before tax. Any ideas ? Oh and is it true we can use FS gc at Best Buy cuz they are owned by the same people ?

[amas]

The Asus panels are pretty good. Well built.

At that price point though, if you're only limited to BB or FS, you could go up to a 27" w/ or w/o 3D I believe.

[ericlee30]

That is a very tough, Samsung a year ago had a really good 27inch S27A350H LED Monitor for 349.99 and wow is it a amazing monitor I had it then I gave it to my wife for Christmas because I bought 2 of 27 inch S27B550V monitors that bestbuy sales for 399.99 each. having both the S27A350H and the S27B550V I can tell you the only differences between the two is that the S27A350H has the TOC ( touch of color) to it and no VESA mount. Other then that the are the exact same Monitor spec wise and honestly my wife and I can not tell the deference between the 2 modals. If you do not need the VESA mount then I would see if bestbuy can still order you the S27A350H. It truly is the best picture I have seen with 1080p

[w_km]

IMHO you should just up your pricepoint to $500 and buy a decent 1440p monitor. Look for a Dell U2713HM, Asus PB278Q, Samsung S27A850D, ViewSonic VP2770, or even some cheaper Korean version (Nixeus Vue WQHD, Crossover, Shimian, Catleap, etc.).

[w_km]

That is a very tough, Samsung a year ago had a really good 27inch S27A350H LED Monitor for 349.99 and wow is it a amazing monitor I had it then I gave it to my wife for Christmas because I bought 2 of 27 inch S27B550V monitors that bestbuy sales for 399.99 each. having both the S27A350H and the S27B550V I can tell you the only differences between the two is that the S27A350H has the TOC ( touch of color) to it and no VESA mount. Other then that the are the exact same Monitor spec wise and honestly my wife and I can not tell the deference between the 2 modals. If you do not need the VESA mount then I would see if bestbuy can still order you the S27A350H. It truly is the best picture I have seen with 1080p

If you really want a 27" screen but are unwilling to pay for a 1440p resolution (I'd recommend nothing else), you could go for the LG E2742V at bestbuy, it was on sale for $211 at my local store, if they have it in stock. No it's not great in terms of response time/won't play 3D but you won't care...its cheaper. Although it's a TN panel, it's about as good ad 1080p gets on a 27" screen. Bestbuy doesn't have the greatest deals on gaming (low input lag, 120Hz) monitors so I'd suggest getting something cheap (

[criso8]

I would personally take a gamble on those Korean 27in IPS panels from ebay and save my best buy credits b/c you're going to need something else eventually.

[GoodBytes]

You are making it very difficult. FutureShop and BestBuy has 99% ultra budget monitors.

IPS panels are not fast enough to go above 120Hz.. at least not yet. The problem that IPS panel faces in that regard is that it's market is high-end monitors for consumer that wants beautiful colors, and wide view angles, and not 120Hz. And that is recently, before 2007-08, it was marketted at professional who wants pin point color accuracy.. so forget gaming or fast action movies. As since 2008-09 is no longer the case, this is where you saw really impressively fast IPS panels. And the cool thing about them, is that not only they are freaking fast compared to before, but they retain their colors, and reduced price by a lot.

IPS panels has new sub-series models, called eIPS. These are cut down IPS panels if you will. They still provide you with great colors, and wide view angles, but they are only 6-bit panels, like TN panels (I would easilly say that the best of the line TN panel is about the same as the lowest end eIPS panel in terms of colors). And also, as the market for those eIPS panels is for consumers on a tight budget, you don't have the costly features like multiple inputs, color processors, expensice RG-LED, or RGB-LED, or high grade CFL's for true white, but opts in having white LEDs, like what TN panel uses to reduce cost. Moreover the build quality is much lower than the expensive models, matching TN panels.

In conclusion:

-> No mather what IPS panel you buy, they are super fast. And competes nicely with he oh so claimed 1 and 2ms reponse time monitor. Sadly, not yet fast enougth for 120Hz... but maybe soon

-> IPS panels has come a very long way since its early days, and is an excellent choice for general computer usage, gaming, and entertainment purposes. The great majority of TV in the recent years are all IPS panels, and they are sucky ones at best. So if you enjoy your TV now, you'll get better with a computer monitor using an IPS panel. At worst the same visuals, but will be faster and lower input lag. Note: TV that claims more than 60Hz, aren't. The panel is still 60Hz, but the frequency of the back light flashes faster, which makes it look like more frames than actually has. Linus did explain this at some point, as well.

-> The more you pay your IPS panel the more you will see a nice visual increase in colors. A 1000$ 1440p monitor will be worth every penny. You will get a seizure by the awesomeness of colors (slight exaggeration). TN panel.. not so much.

-> eIPS panels made IPS panel more affordable and made an entry on the consumer market with tight budget, providing an excellent alternative to budget monitor offerings.

Oh and response time is meaningless specs. The way it is measures is using gray-to-gray. This means that the manufacture picks 2 gray colors of their choice, not excluding the same gray color, and give you the best results. There is no standard in measuring this.

Here is an example, the following is from TFTCentral, this is a monitor in depth review site. They review only monitors, and they go very in depth.

Here are there measurements of 2 monitors which I picked of their response time to show you how meaningless the mentioned response time is.

The first one is the Dell U2410, a 450$ H-IPS panel by LG. It is 1200p monitor (1920x1200) @ 60Hz, and has a color processor, Look Up Table, claimed to have 6m response time. It uses a true 8-bit panel as well.

The second monitor is a ViewSonic TN panel, 60Hz, 6-bit panel, and lower resolution at 1920x1080 (1080p), so it should be much faster than the U2410. Let's have a look:

As you can see despite having everything on it's side.. specs wise, the response time is a hint slower than the much more fancy Dell U2410.

Here are my suggestions:

If you MUST get it at FutureShop or BestBuy:

-> LG IPS234V-PN - 23inch 1920x1080 - eIPS panel

-> LG IPS231P-BN - 23inch 1920x1080

If you are open to go anywhere else:

-> Dell U2412M. 1920x1200, 16:10 monitor, eIPS panel, fully adjustable stand (http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...=baynoteSearch)

-> If you can stretch your budget and get much nicer colors, with pre-color calibrated Adoeb RGB and sRGB color profile, and even higher build quality than the U2412M which is also higher than the LG suggested models, the Dell U2410. (http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...=baynoteSearch)

If you are getting the Dell monitor, be sure to CALL Dell Small Business (you don't need to be a business.. it's for family business:) ), you can negotiate a price over the phone.

What really makes Dell the most intresting offer, beside being better monitors, is the warranty and warranty service:

-> 0 bright pixel policy (so if any pixel is stuck or on white, it's a replacement)

-> 6 dead pixel of more with no region or distance non sense. This is very competitive to other consumer grade monitors

-> Shipping is paid BOTH sides. And you get to keep your monitor while they are sending you the replacement one. Once you received the replacement model, simply swamp the monitors, and in the box of the monitor, you'll see a pre-paid shipping label, simply stick it over the old one, and call the appropriate mail carrier to come and pick it up. This way you always have a monitor, and you don't pay shipping.

Personally, I have the Dell U2410 on my desk. Worth every penny.

IT MUST BE NOTED

-> If you are a hard core FPS player, and playing these types of game competitivly and not just for fun, IPS panels might not fit your needs. They have a slightly high input lag than gaming TN panel. Some competitive FPS players don't like them. For any other genre of games, including if your play FPS games just for fun, and casually here and there, you'll enjoy this monitor. If you are happy with your TV, you'll get much greater performance with the computer monitor which have lower input lag.

[DeViLzzz]

I appreciate all the help I have been getting. In regards to me buying a monitor elsewhere well I am trying to only buy what I can afford so I can pay it off in less than a month so there is no interest on what I buy as I will be using part FS/BB credit and part credit card. If I happen to flip the FS/BB credit I have accumulated for cash and not lose much well that would be wonderful but not likely to happen. I will go over all of what was recently posted here and think things over. Keep sharing info.cuz I will definitely take it into consideration what is shared and will be looking up more info. on what you all have recommended. Again thanks for so much help.

[DeViLzzz]

The more I look up about monitors and see them in action I just want to go back to using a tv like I did before for pc gaming. I had no issues with it when playing games on my Toshiba 32" LCD 720p tv. I looked at the Asus PB278Q and saw Heaven running on it and while the colors looked amazing the thing was choking at times on the benchmark despite the pc hooked up to it having a GTX 680 and one of the best cpus available today. We ran the benchmark at 1920x1080p and without V Sync the thing was tearing too much for my liking. The specs of the pc and the monitor should not have made things so difficult. I understand that Heaven is a tough benchmarking program but I thought things would go better than they did. It is frustrating when you see a $700+ monitor have issues you don't expect and it seems every monitor I read about has flaws whereas I can say the tv I used before had nothing flawed visually. Seriously how much slower can an LCD tv be vs LCD monitors ?

Anyway I am frustrated. Of all tech things to me monitor shopping has been the worst of all. I hate it.

[DeViLzzz]

After much deliberation I went with a 550 series tv from Samsung that does 1080p and has some things to making gaming better on it. It has a gaming mode and some other feature that will help my pc gaming on it. I paid $376 I think after price matching what FS had and I bought the tv at The Brick. Hopefully it will work out and based on what I saw from the blacks and whites on the display model in the store colors should not be an issue for me. However I have to see how this tv is with lots of motion on screen. I think it can't be any worse than what I have seen from monitors lately including a very good one supposedly I saw at Staples that cost $700+.

Update: picture looks great for gaming and no visual issues in terms of ghosting or anything like that but I will say that the when viewing HD videos it looks weird at times depending on the video on YouTube and I had issues where there was hesitation and hiccups when things moved sideways on screen but yet when I viewed movie trailers from various studios I had no problems ... inconsistent performance I can't explain ... the tv is just not as nice as my Toshiba 32" 720p tv I had and it is not as nice as the Samsung 51" 1080p 3D tv I have and not surprising as it was way cheaper

The model of the tv .... 40LNE550