712N - vertical viewing angle problem

[flyinj]

I recently bought a 712N from BestBuy. I plugged it in and had 3 bright red bad pixels in the middle of the screen. I also noticed that if I moved my head slightly down when looking at the monitor, the top inch of the screen would become much darker.

I initially wanted to just get my money back, but unfortunately when I finally got back to BestBuy to return it I was 1 day over the 14 day return policy. So, I exchanged it for another. This new one has, fortunately, no dead pixels.

However, it still has the darkening problem. I've seen quite a few LCDs at work, most of them older models, and you really have to look at them from extreme angles to get the "darkening" or "fading" of the image.

On my 712N, however, it's absurd how little leeway is given in this respect. Looking at the monitor from a 45 degree angle left or right still looks pretty good. But, if my head is not above the monitor slightly looking down on it, I get the darkening at the top of the screen.

I find it funny that the screen allows you to tilt it back. If I tilt it back, even slightly, the top inch is darkened no matter where my head is (aside from standing up and looking at it).

Is there some way to adjust the vertical viewing angle? The specs say it has a 140 degree vertical viewing angle. I'm assuming that means I'd be able to look at it from some pretty absurd angles... the way it stands now I have to keep my head perfectly still in the correct height to not get the discoloring. This hardly seems like a 140 degree viewing angle. It's so bad that I want to bring it into BestBuy and have the manager take a look at it and explain how it could possibly be considered a 140 degree angle.

 

[Bastek]

I got the same problem with my Viewsonic 912B. The trick is to have your eyes in line with the top bezel. It's still very annoying tho.These new lcds suck.

 

[Roger]

The viewing angles are measured by the case of contrast ratio drop to 10:1 at the center of the screen (or sometimes even at 5:1 to make monitors look better on paper). So, as usual with LCDs, those 140 degrees or 160 degrees specs are worthless. All TN panels have the same problem with vertical viewing angles and there is really nothing you can do about it. I had Samsung 710T which I sold mainly because of that and got the 193P instead. No viewing angle problems with this one. On the 710T, even when I looked at the screen from the center I could still see the top of the screen is darker than the bottom.

 

[flyinj]

Oh man... this is not good at all... not at all...

It looks simply terrible. I really hope I can somehow convince BestBuy to let me return it.

I did extensive research on this model before I bought it, and I read nothing but absolutely glowing reviews of it. Never once was this problem mentioned. And this is a HUGE problem... I mean, 1-2 inches of the screen being that much darker than the rest? How could anyone not notice it?

 

[flyinj]

Let me just add that I'm not that nit-picky about my monitors. But this problem is very bad... as an example:

When playing World of Warcraft, if I don't keep my head in the exact "sweet spot" for the monitor, my health bar becomes almost unreadable as it's red on a black background. The whole bar turns dark black and I have to move my head up to read it.

 

[flyinj]

What would you guys suggest I get in the pricerange of this monitor ($400). The reason I went with the 712N was that it had the 12ms response time and amazing visual quality (hah!).

Also, is it true that if you run in a non-native resolution, your response time goes up? If so, by how much?

 

[Roger]

Let me just add that I'm not that nit-picky about my monitors. But this problem is very bad... as an example:

When playing World of Warcraft, if I don't keep my head in the exact "sweet spot" for the monitor, my health bar becomes almost unreadable as it's red on a black background. The whole bar turns dark black and I have to move my head up to read it.

I can't understand that either. When I was buying my 710T I asked on many forums about it's viewing angles and all the responses I got were: "Well duh, you're not going to view the screen from anywhere but from the center! 140 degrees is more than enough!" Either people really don't notice that the top of the screen is much darker than the bottom or they just don't care. To me, it was a major annoyance and since then I avoid TN panels like the plague. If poor viewing angles bother you, I suggest you to do the same. If you're a gamer then you have a problem. There is no 12ms monitors with good viewing angles.

 

[flyinj]

So, every 12ms response monitor will have this terrible vertical viewing problem?

It's back to CRT with me.

EDIT:

Earlier this morning I was trying to do some texture work on this monitor. I realized that not only was the top of the monitor too dark, but the bottom was as well. I'd even go so far to say that there was this constant gradient of lightening and darkening over the entire surface of the monitor.

It went dark at the top, got lighter towards the middle, then ramped back to dark at the bottom. Slightly moving my head up and down would move the middle (lightest) part of the gradient up and down as well.

I don't really understand who this monitor is targeted at. You can barely play games on it, as long as you don't mind having the top and bottom of the screen look terrible. You certainly can't do any kind of texture or graphic work on it, as you can never see the full texture on the screen with the correct color levels given the extremely shoddy design of the vertical viewing angle.

I guess it would be OK for casually browsing the web or looking at email, but you could get an LCD for $200 cheaper if that's all you want to use it for.