- Ghosting
More and more I'm starting to notice a little bit of ghosting. Primarily it's on the desktop, when I move windows around, I'll see a small black trail as I move the window. In games I only notice it very rarely, and it's not bad enough to distract me at all.
I don't think any LCD eliminates ghosting completely, its just more/less noticeable on some panels vs. others. Maybe some of the smaller 2ms or 22" TNs have less ghosting but afaik all of the 24" have it to some degree. Ghosting on this panel is better than the Dell where I would get pretty heavy red tracers from forum headers (Anandtech's grey for instance) and an overall lagging/tearing/ghosting effect in games. I probably take for granted how much better this panel is than the Dell in games, but I'm much happier now than I was a week ago with the Dell, that's for sure.
- Banding
I was a little disappointed at how much the monitor bands. A good example can be found here (scroll down to the gradient test). I definitely notice banding on that horizontal gradient. I also see it a little bit on the Xbox 360 dashboard. I've not noticed any in games.
Actually I don't get any noticeable gradient/banding in that grey to black test although I do get some noise. I have noticed some banding though, mostly in non-native FMVs and a few times in DVD movies with PowerDVD. The scene in Troy in the beginning when the clouds roll in, there's heavy banding in the clouds. This was before I calibrated my colors though, which has helped a lot. Overall banding doesn't bother me as much as some other LCD weak points so I can live with it.- Viewing Angle
I think someone mentioned this earlier in the thread, but my viewing angle doesn't seem to be centered quite right. If I sit in front of the monitor and stare straight at it, I notice that the left side is lighter than the right. If I move my head a few inches to the left, everything looks great.
Ya I mentioned the viewing angles and panel uniformity on the Dell are better, as well as the colors out of the box. Its not even really the viewing angles since they are the 178/178 or w/e they advertise, its just not the same viewing angle across the entire panel. Not sure if I've adjusted to it or if the panel has evened out a bit with some backlight burn-in, but it doesn't bother me as much now as when I first fired it up.
If you're not happy with it its worth the risk of trying to get a December panel. I still see a lot of the symptoms you're seeing and I have a DEC model, but they may very well be present in varying degrees and your next panel could actually be worst. But with a DEC you'll at least have the peace of mind its the latest known build, after that its just a matter of getting a panel without dead pixels and a bad backlight.I'm torn on whether or not to return it. It sounds like if I could pick up a December model that I'd have a good chance of alleviating a lot of these issues. Alone, none of the aforementioned problems would have been deal-breakers, but together they've started to bug me more and more. I think I'm gonna pack it up and try to hand-pick a December model this weekend from the local BB.
Skagen- I haven't seen any "D" models or later in this thread or at the physical B&Ms, I just figure if you're going to ask someone to pick for you might as well put it out there just in case. It makes sense its the next progression for January production runs but it could very well turn out B and C are actually revisions and the C designation lasts a few months of production.
Tzitziki- I still get some banding, although the banding I saw in Troy was before I adjusted color settings. Still saw a bit with lighting effects (like a candle in a dark room) in Dark Messiah but the settings Ferris23 and Drant posted eliminated the crushed blacks. I'll take a bit of banding here and there over crushed blacks any day. Scrolll up a bit as I reposted them on this page or the previous one.
Needo- Ya that's the best thing you can do really, especially now that most of the B&Ms have these set-up with real PCs vs. that generic video feed they run on the wall of display monitors. Keep in mind too that the display you saw was probably a NOV panel so the chances of getting something even more impressive with a DEC model is pretty good.
Hardwareguru- If the panel you have now has problems, you shouldn't hesitate to exchange it. No point in settling on a monitor with major problems when you purchased the warranty. Get a good one, then deal with it dying when the time comes. Who knows if/when Gateway comes out with a 27" and honestly, 1920x1200 doesn't look as good on a 27" as it does on a 24".