Seeking a high resultion monitor for gaming+programming

Yep, title says it all. Budget is $1k. It seems the best thing in this range is a 27" screen that's 2560x1440, but all I can find is the Dell U2711 and the Apple Cinema. I went to my local Apple store and tried the Cinema, and while it was a great monitor I am concerned that it will be hard to see in my room, which has several windows in it that are almost always open.

I have an HP ZR24w at my office, and like the screen a lot, but want something slightly bigger at the house. My current monitor has lasted something like almost 5 years, and so I'm willing to spend enough to make this new one last as long. It seems 27" is the new price/size happy median, but I might consider a nice 24". Please do note that high resolution is my most important consideration, as more pixels = more lines of code on the screen and more room for my WoW UI.

Of note is that I sit rather close to my screen, as my vision is kind of poor, so I'm hesitant to jump to the megahuge 30" screens.

Oops, forgot to ask if someone knows where I can get a good deal on these? Both Dell and Apple don't seem to want to budge in the discounting department.

I can't speak for the Dell (although it uses the same IPS panel from LG) but I was able to demo the 27" Apple and sitting close to it resulted in pretty severe "IPS glow" in the corners, even when my head was dead center and the monitor was tilted to be perpendicular to my vision. The glow was noticeable even on non-black colors and was very distracting. I have used a 20.1" IPS (without an A-TW polarizer) for nearly 5 years and have NEVER experienced anything close to glow that bad. I'm unsure if it was because of the size, panel, backlight sitaution or what but it was much worse than I expected. Even from 8' away I had to move my head around to find a spot where there was no glow present.

Also, I have good eyes and I found the pixels per inch of the Apple to be a little high. For the most part I sat about an arm's length away - stretching out i could touch the monitor with my fingertips but not my palm - and I struggled to read text at times. Your ZR24w is ~94ppi and the Apple/Dell are ~109ppi, so keep in mind that they will be harder to read from the same distance.

In terms of glare, the glassy screen on the Apple seemed to reflect even more than the OptiClear (glossy coating) on my current display to the point of being distracting.

Also keep in mind the Apple has only a mini displayport input so you might need a new video card or a converter thingy, which could push you over your budget. Additionally, it has no OSD so all of your adjustments, including backlight brightness, need to be made through your computer.

As far as a deal goes, I couldn't find anything substantial on the ACD when I was considering buying one - B&H has it for $950 with free shipping and that was the cheapest I found. Dell occasionally has deals and coupon codes for their monitors but you may end up waiting a while for one that works. Regardless of which monitor you end up buying, look for a place with a good return/exchange policy in case you aren't happy or your monitor has issues. My friend's ACD that he let me try out had pretty substantial backlight bleeding all along the left side and into the bottom corner as well as a few dead/stuck pixels. Unfortunately for him the place he bought it at would not replace it (didn't meet the required amount of dead pixels) and they wanted to charge him a 15% restocking fee to return it.

If at all possible, try it at home before you buy it. Good luck!

Last week Dell had the U3011 for 1124.99. I know its a little over you budget, but well worth the price. If you want to stick to your budget, keep searching for Dell coupons. You can get 15% to 20% off most of the time fairly easy, over the course of a couple of weeks.

I cannot recomment the U2711 due to it's AG coating, it bothers me a lot during my programming work.

I owned a ACD 27" and I loved it, the only downside was that it started to make some strange sounds after a while and had a lot of white glow (although it's more of a blue glow on the ACD, the U2711 has white corners). I personally just decided to wait for PLS or something better than IPS. But whatever you do, don't get a U2711 for coding. The white background with the AG coating really kills your concentration. The ACD is currently the best buy for programming, it's ok for gaming (it will however suck at very dark games, but everything but PVA sucks at black colors so that's just something you have to live with at the moment)

As kaldaim said, pixel density is larger in 27" than in 24" or 30" monitors. If you stretched your budget by a little bit and you like the ZR24W, you could consider buying a 30" or 3x24" (coincidentally more or less my current dillema at the moment). IMO for your room strong AG would be better than no AG at all and the 24w's seem like a good option if you don't care about lots of inputs.

I do think that 2x 24" is near perfect for programming and office stuff, plus a 3rd one for gaming. If you don't want to go for multiple monitors, still I'd go with a 30".

BrePu said:

I cannot recomment the U2711 due to it's AG coating, it bothers me a lot during my programming work.

I owned a ACD 27" and I loved it, the only downside was that it started to make some strange sounds after a while and had a lot of white glow (although it's more of a blue glow on the ACD, the U2711 has white corners). I personally just decided to wait for PLS or something better than IPS. But whatever you do, don't get a U2711 for coding. The white background with the AG coating really kills your concentration. The ACD is currently the best buy for programming, it's ok for gaming (it will however suck at very dark games, but everything but PVA sucks at black colors so that's just something you have to live with at the moment)

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What is this AG coating you speak of? I code on a ZR24w just fine so if the Dell is also matte I should be fine.

You cannot compare the AG coating of a zr24w to the AG coating of a Dell U2711. The zr24w might have the best AG coating of all IPS screens out there at the moment. The U2711 however looks like the best example of how to screw IPS completely. You could try the HP 30" but I don't know how strong the AG coating on that one is. But I guess everything is better than the Dell U2711 - some say it's caused by the high pixel density. All I can say is that it's really really strong and worse than on a zr24w.

InorganicMatter,

If you don't mind waiting until Spring (???), your best bet is to wait for the 27" PLS 2560x1440 Samsung SA850. If it performs as good in real life as it does on paper, it looks to be THE high resolution display to beat in terms of both functionality AND price.

BrePu said:

You cannot compare the AG coating of a zr24w to the AG coating of a Dell U2711. The zr24w might have the best AG coating of all IPS screens out there at the moment. The U2711 however looks like the best example of how to screw IPS completely. You could try the HP 30" but I don't know how strong the AG coating on that one is. But I guess everything is better than the Dell U2711 - some say it's caused by the high pixel density. All I can say is that it's really really strong and worse than on a zr24w.

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How is it all the Reviews of the U2711 makes me drool. I hear no mention of the aggressive AG coating. I guess its like allergies. Some people are allergic to U2410s and U2711s.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc.../monitors/dell-ultrasharp-u2711-698187/review

the dell prices don't budge much, however slickdeals usually has coupons that can discount it some. I'm still waiting for bigger coupons, though. They had the 27" at $830 last week and the 30" at $1100.

lancelot48 said:

How is it all the Reviews of the U2711 makes me drool. I hear no mention of the aggressive AG coating. I guess its like allergies. Some people are allergic to U2410s and U2711s.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc.../monitors/dell-ultrasharp-u2711-698187/review

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That's exactly the thing I cannot understand. Why isn't a single review out there mentioning the AG coating? If I might quote myself from another current topic:

BrePu said:

I was one of those guys who believed that they could live with the AG coating. It didn't even bother me that much for several months until I bought my MacBook - the comparison of both displays side by side makes you realize how strong the AG coating actually is. As long as you don't see anything else it might be fine with you.

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It seems ok as long as you don't see anything in comparison. A hardware reviewer should however see a lot of displays day in and day out. That's why I cannot understand how they can ignore it. It's feeling like the evil plan of LG to drive humankind crazy and take over the world.

BrePu said:

Why isn't a single review out there mentioning the AG coating?

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I've been puzzled by this as well. I spent months searching for that perfect display, and I immediately ordered the DELL U3011 after Eric Franklin at c|net gave it a GLOWING review. Even for people who don't mind strong antiglare, this issue wasn't even referenced.

Moral of the story? Don't put your faith in reviewers like I did, the only way to accurately gauge quality is to see a display in person (if possible). Luckily, I found DELL to have excellent customer service and they are great with returns.