Advice for 2 new monitors: 1 for gaming, 1 for work.

As the tittle says I need some pro advice/help for buying 2 new monitors, one for work and one for gaming.

The monitors will be on the same table but used on a different computer.

For the work PC:

I need one 23/24" monitor to use with my Macbook air for when I come home from work. On this monitor I will do a lot of surfing,editing,text,photoshop,making a lot of simple sites (google sites) but also some advanced ones. I know Dell and HP have good models, but I am afraid of the hard AG coating on these models. I read Samsung has a nice 24" also but suffers from bleeding?

Since I will be reading/typing a lot of text, is there any difference between 16:10 and 16:9 and then I mean in the size of the txt. Will the 1080p have larger text ? My eyes aren't that good anymore Especially small texts.

So for me also "smooth reading text on the monitor" comes before the "best image quality" since the photoshop work I will be doing is almost never high quality related.

For the gaming PC:

This monitor I will use on a gaming rig, I would like a 23/24" again and I think I rather have "matte" screen. I have been looking at the benq xl2420t and it seemed the best monitor so far for FPS gaming? I don't know if theres any better ones, you can recommend me again for this. Since its matte do I have to be worried about the AG Coating? So far I read it is not as strong as on a IPS dell or HP. I mostly play FPS games, planning on playing CS:GO etc.. and for gaming I really think matte will be best?

Btw, I don't have a budget spare me some please

Matte monitors have those problems:

1. Whites/light backgrounds look dirty
2. Light saturated colors look like they are glowing.
3. Wherever you have a block of single color(white/light colors), you have a chance to have your eyes focus on it, and loose vision focus of the actual pixels. Obviously you have to keep readjusting to it.
4. Heavy AG coating also causes full colors to look like they have a lot of noise on them. This might only become annoying in very few situations.

You will only notice the glowing whites/saturated colors when you are gaming.

One other point. The difference in text size between 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 is small. AG coating harms the text 10 times more then the size difference.

Ok thank you for your input. But it seems to me the AG coating on an Dell/HP IPS is far worse and annoying then any other old matte screen I have had. But then these screens have such a bad image quality I don't want to use them either for my work monitor...

For example I saw the benq gaming monitor in a store and while it is a TN and matte display it didnt have such AG coating.

Now the question is what monitor to buy for my work So far it seems my only choice is the Samsung S24A850DW? This one seems not to have the heavy AG coating.

I don't get why all IPS monitors have the hard AG coating and the normal TN's do not.

JeroenD said:

This monitor I will use on a gaming rig, I would like a 23/24" again and I think I rather have "matte" screen. I have been looking at the benq xl2420t and it seemed the best monitor so far for FPS gaming?

Click to expand...

the benq is absolutely horrible in terms of image quality and in terms of gaming as well
its nothing but paid reviews and hype

for gaming only i can recommend the older 120hz lg
image quality is kinda bad (but better than benq) and the panel is super-fast

the newer 120hz iiyama/samsung also seem to be alright but i didn't have them yet

overall for gaming and work i can only recommend the 120hz catleap

JeroenD said:

Ok thank you for your input. But it seems to me the AG coating on an Dell/HP IPS is far worse and annoying then any other old matte screen I have had. But then these screens have such a bad image quality I don't want to use them either for my work monitor...

For example I saw the benq gaming monitor in a store and while it is a TN and matte display it didnt have such AG coating.

Now the question is what monitor to buy for my work So far it seems my only choice is the Samsung S24A850DW? This one seems not to have the heavy AG coating.

I don't get why all IPS monitors have the hard AG coating and the normal TN's do not.

Click to expand...

the benq has really aggressive ag too
you probably couldn't see it in the store because the brightness/contrast was all turned up

Hmmm, so if price would be no option besides the catleap what 120hz gaming monitor would you suggest? Also the BenQ is the only matte one right? What about Asus?

no the 23/24" hanns.g, planar, lg are matte too (and possibly others)
the 23/24" asus is glare

27" asus and iiyama are matte as well


if it can't be 27" i'd get a hanns.g or a used lg
the hanns.g is pretty cheap and has ok reviews so far

otherwise the iiyama seems to be the most promising

So for matte 120HZ I have : Hanns.G, Planar, LG? And the BenQ you dislike because bad color and not fast enough? Anyone else has some inputs?

And for Glossy 120HZ: I have the Samsung's only so far.

I only want a 24" for my gaming setup.

Still need help on the 24" IPS aswell, I guess I will have to live with the AG coating there unless I buy the Samsung s24A850 wich could have alot of glow?

I would only purchase S24A850 if I saw one in front of me, due to heavy backlight bleeding.

However, I was also debating if to go with heavy AG or lighter AG. Both are bad. Heavy AG is worse for the colors, and light AG is heavy for my eyes. TN panel low contrast (don't tell me about dynamic contrast) combined with any type of AG coating is extremely bad for my eyes. I would definitely go with a glossy screen. Take into consideration the new semi-glossy ips from Asus which is 23 inch. Or pick the real screens, Apple Cinema Display or S27B970.
Honestly? Instead of 2 of those, I would go with a single one, Apple Cinema Display or S27B970. Those 2 are the best tradeoffs of both worlds. They are both glossy, and they are so close to tn panels in gaming, that I would not pick a tn anymore.

JeroenD said:

Samsung s24A850 wich could have alot of glow?

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Just to make sure, is backlight bleeding the defect, not glow.
IPS glow is one thing, Backlight Bleeding is another.
IPS glow disapears/reapeares on the edges of the screen depending on the angle you look at the monitor. Or if you look diagonally, you can see the entire screen as a total glow.
Backlight bleeding is a soft of defect which allows light to fill one side of the screen, and this does not disappear based on your angle. However, IPS glow combined with BLB makes it really bad.

While the S27B970 looks really nice and the Apple display also, I don't like 2 things about them. One is that the apple display has a built in fan. A friend of mine has it and when its night you can hear it kinda hard since the monitor is right infront of you. The samsung monitor is not avail I think yet, I wonder if it has a fan built in also, since they did use one in some of there 120HZ monitors.

Also I would really like to get a 24" model, 27" seems to me that it looks so big for working and photoshop, also reading on it?

Also I don't want 1 monitor but 2, one to hook up my gaming rig and one for my working setup with macbook air 2012.

Ahhhhhh so hard ;(

Ok so for the IPS monitor I already made up my mind.

Now if anyone could give me some advice on the 120HZ monitor, while I want to play games on 120HZ especially the new CS GO etc and some other ones. I also want at least decent colors on the monitor, I hear alot of people saying the benq is bad in that aspect is that true or? From all the IPS monitors, either glossy or matte wich one has the best color/fast 120hz ratio? I was thinking about the samsung SA700D.

dowant120hz said:

the benq has really aggressive ag too

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No it doesn't, it uses medium AG like EVERY other matte TN panel, except for matte LG TN's which use aggressive AG

I can't believe you are recommending the LG over the BenQ despite the fact that every review indicates that the LG has the worst colours and contrast out of pretty much every 120hz display and it uses aggressive AG.

JeroenD said:

.

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How about a nice compromise, such as the Asus VG23AH which uses semi-glossy coating, is an IPS panel and supports 72-76hz with custom timings so you get a near 120hz like feeling in terms of smoothness? Check out my thread about the Asus VG23Ah here.

The Samsung S23A700D and Asus VG236H are the best 23-24" 120hz displays. Both do things the other doesn't. The BenQ has worse colours and more ghosting compared to both, but it is the most adjustable and has the best 3D. I've owned all 3.

http://wecravegamestoo.com/forums/e...706-benq-xl2420t-120hz-3d-monitor-review.html
http://wecravegamestoo.com/forums/e...samsung-s23a700d-120hz-3d-monitor-review.html
http://wecravegamestoo.com/forums/g...9014-asus-vg236h-120hz-3d-monitor-review.html

Thanks alot for your input NCX! I think I will buy the Samsung S23A700D. I actually wonder if the colours would be good enough on it for my web design. I could buy 2 of these and rule out the IPS monitor.

Well I decided im going to buy atleast the Samsung S23A700D for my gaming setup... I watched the monitor in a store and I was actually surprised by the good colors it had. I could even do my photoshop work on it, so I might actually buy 2 of them.

For my apple setup, I don't haven't decided on the IPS monitor. Still open for suggestions here, I kinda want a 24" maybi a 27" but thats a little big for my likes.

I doubt you will like any of the 24" IPS panels coming from a crystal clear 700D because they all use an excessively grainy matte coating. Your only options for a non-grainy IPS are the Asus VG23AH or Samsung S24A850DW PLS (PLS=Samsung's version of IPS), but it costs 450$+ and seems guaranteed to have some back-light bleeding (not a major issue if you will be in a bright room and turn the brightness down to a realistic level). If you want a 27" 1440p display the Samsung S27A850D is your only non-grainy IPS/PLS option, or you can buy one of the glossy Korean models from ebay which start @ 300$.

A 24" 16:10 display is barely smaller a 27" 16:9

cerbul said:

Matte monitors have those problems:

1. Whites/light backgrounds look dirty
2. Light saturated colors look like they are glowing.
3. Wherever you have a block of single color(white/light colors), you have a chance to have your eyes focus on it, and loose vision focus of the actual pixels. Obviously you have to keep readjusting to it.
4. Heavy AG coating also causes full colors to look like they have a lot of noise on them. This might only become annoying in very few situations.

You will only notice the glowing whites/saturated colors when you are gaming.

One other point. The difference in text size between 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 is small. AG coating harms the text 10 times more then the size difference.

Click to expand...

I've used an HP w2207h for three years (glossy screen). I recently purchased an ASUS PA248Q (returned) and a Dell U2412M (keeping so far). Both are LG IPS panels with the fairly strong AG coating. Its not that noticeable on either. I sit about 2 1/2 feet from the screen and was expecting the worst after reading so many posts such as yours here. In practice unless you're extremely picky and constantly looking for it there's really not much cause for concern. Text is crisp and clean on both - just run the Clear Type text tool on Win 7. Games also look excellent with either - I notice no ghosting/trailing in RPGs and MMOs. The ASUS had pronounced backlight bleeding but the Dell has absolutely none. Darkest, most uniform monitor I've ever had.

They're excellent monitors for both work and gaming and the O.P. might discover he only needs one monitor instead of two. Sensitivity to IPS glow and AG coating used by LG varies with the individual. Best thing to do is buy from a retailer who has a liberal return policy in case they're an issue. Again, coming from a glossy screen TN they really didn't bother me (and by all accounts they should have).

Thanks for the input. While I do have made up my mind for the gaming monitor. I will buy the Samsung 700D, I was really surprised in the store of the colors for a TN monitor.
I wouldn't even mind doing some photoshop work on that monitor.

But next to my PC system, I have a Macbook Pro hooked up to an old crappy monitor and I wanna keep the apple setup hence I wanna buy an better screen for using photoshop and other apps.

This is why I need 2 monitors.

Looks like I only have to make up my mind now for the Apple setup. And no I don't wanna buy the Thunderbolt Display for various reasons and its not a money issue