NEC PA301W

[SMuz]

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa301w-bk

I'm interested in getting this monitor for my new build. Does anyone have any experience using this monitor for gaming and/or video playback? If so, how well does it perform, and would you buy it again? Thanks!

[IdeaStormer]

Not for gaming but its da bomb for color accuracy, I don't own it but have used it at work. I will try to get more info from the user.

[GoodBytes]

For general and gaming purpose monitor (not hardcore FPS playing), I would suggest the Dell U3011 (uses LG panel - comes with 2 pre-color calibrated AdoebRGB and sRGB color profiles. Of course, not the best calibration due to the monitor limitations, as it's not a true professional monitor.. just a high-end consumer grade monitor) monitor.

This NEC monitor, is obviously better than the Dell one, there is no doubt about it (although not mentioned, they usually comes with uniform back light illumination.. have to check to be sure), it won't be gaming. Games like StraCraft 2, or any non-FPS games really, will be fine. But anything fine paste, and you are playing more than casual fun, forget it. The response time of the monitor isn't fast enough due to the focus on color accuracy over speed, plus you have the fancy color processor which adds input lag (more so than the color processor in the Dell one... also Dell has a "Game" mode which disables it, while the NEC one doesn't).

So yea, depending on what games you play, expect a possible trade off.

[SMuz]

Thanks for the replies! Both the Dell and NEC have 7ms listed on the response time. Do they not include things such as the color processing? What does the 7ms actually mean then?

[GoodBytes]

Response time is the speed of how fast a pixel changes from one color to another. The measurement (g-t-g) is what is used, which means gray-t0-gray, where the manufacture gets to pick 2 gray colors of their choosing, and not limited to the same gray color, and measure the speed it takes for the monitor to for it to change the color. The best value from their test is given.

As you can see this is worthless information.

Here is an example of the Dell U2410 monitor, a 6ms response time monitor, 1920x1200 @ 60Hz, H-IPS panel by LG, VS Viewsonic vx2739wm, with a lower resolution of 1920x1080. The Viewsonic monitor proclaims to have a mighty 1ms response time.

TFTCentral put the monitor to the test, here are their results:

As you can see, the Dell U2410 is supposed to be 6 times slower than the Viewsonic, yet in real life, the Dell monitor is slightly faster. Clearly Viewsonic used the same gray color.

Response time is useless. The only interesting response time is white-to-black, or black-to-white, as there is a standard on it on how to measure it, and also white is pure white, and black is pure black. No mid colors. But those aren't provided as it "confuses the consumer", and the values always look poor. For example, if a monitor has a 27ms black-to-white response time, this look really bad, but in reality this is VERY good. Most monitor are slower than that for such color change.

Anyway, response time IS NOT to be confused with input lag. Input Lag is the speed between the moment that the monitor receives the signal at the tip of the monitor plug to the monitor displaying the color. In other words, how much time the monitor requires to process the infomration received and display it. This is extremely difficult to measure. You can't can't look at 2 different websites measurement and compare 2 monitor, as the equipement used it different, and some might start the measurement from the signal that comes out of the graphic card, and there for, the simple fact of having a different DVI cable (or HDMI or DisplayPort) results in different input lag times, and even the length of the cable changes that input lag time. Longer your cable, longer the input lag. Technically all this should not be a problem, as it's super fast, but we are talking about milliseconds here, so it is important.

The mater of the fact is, the more layers of processing you have, the higher input lag you have. TN panels always have the lowest input lags, as these are budget aimed monitors, so you have the monitor, a basic processing circuit to adjust the image based on your monitor settings, and provide you with a on screen menu to change options, and then the panel.

Compare that with a high end monitor that has this, but PLUS it has a color processor which scans every pixel and processes the colors using algorithms to adjust properly the colors based on your settings, plus uses a Look Up Table system to fetch color information as it processes, results to a higher input lag. In other words, more layers you have, the more input lag you have.

Now, both Dell monitor and NEC monitor have color processors and Look UP Table (programmable Look Up Table in the case of the NEC monitor, a much needed feature for professionals, beside the rest). So how do I know that the NEC one will be slower? It is known that professional grade monitors uses algorithms that are more time consuming to process to provide you with always accurate color based on your settings of your color calibrator, and monitor settings. The Dell monitor focus is on consumer who seek simply a really good monitor with really good color reproduction, not for pin point color accuracy work. So the monitor focus is on using simpler algorithms and less fancy color processors so that it can process information faster, and while offer amazing colors processing, it is not good enough for professionals that seek pin point color accuracy.

[SMuz]

Thanks for taking the time to explain! I'm going to restart my monitor searching now that I know what to look for. Thanks!