looking for 1920x1200, is U2410 it?

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vafan13

Weaksauce
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I am finally looking to buy an LCD monitor. I'm looking for 1920x1200 in the u2410s price range and under. I do a lot of gaming, I do play FPS games but I haven't competitively done so in a long time and don't have any plans to do so in the near future (and if I did, I'd probably just pull a CRT out of the basement or buy a cheap TN).

Given this is the case, is the U2410 my best bet or are there some other good contenders I should be looking at? Is there something so amazing about some of the newer monitors that I should break down and get a 1920x1080?
 
You should look into the HP ZR24w as well. I just ordered one from an HP store on eBay.
 
I go back and fourth as I tend to play in streaks but generally I play Eve (mmo), RPGs, RTS and hon/dota. I do still play some FPS games (COD/CS ish, not so much Quake ish) but I just do single player and pubs, no competitive play. however if a given monitor is going to significantly affect playing an FPS I'm probably not going to want it.

I had considered the ZR24w but reviews seemed to say the blacks weren't great and as EVE tends to be quite dark (and I play it a lot) I figured that might drive me crazy, though I don't know how bad it really is.
 
The U2410s blacks are even worse then the HP. None of the x1200 displays can even meet the current average black level of the 1080p displays, or lack the response time (HP).
 
NCX said:
The U2410s blacks are even worse then the HP. None of the x1200 displays can even meet the current average black level of the 1080p displays, or lack the response time (HP).
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I got the impression from the flatpanelshd review that the HP's black levels were the worse of the two, perhaps I misunderstood.
 
vafan13 said:
I got the impression from the flatpanelshd review that the HP's black levels were the worse of the two, perhaps I misunderstood.
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http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/content/hp_zr24w.htm#comparison

Plotting the black depth and contrast ratio again provides either pretty poor or pretty pleasing results. If you stick with the default 80% contrast control and are unable to calibrate the screen properly to take advantage of the 100% contrast setting, black depth can only reach 0.28 and gives a poor contrast ratio of 425:1. Comparing to the other screens leaves a considerable difference and this is certainly a weak point of the ZR24W.

If you can calibrate and take advantage of the 100% contrast option, black depth was 0.18 which is the same as the S-PVA based Dell 2408WFP and a little better than the competing Dell U2410 (0.22). It is ever so slightly behind it's predecessor, the LP2475W (0.17) and the NEC EA231WMi which performed the best in this regard in these sized screens (0.15). Contrast ratio is directly linked to black depth, but at 667:1, the ZR24W was again a fair bit ahead of the Dell U2410 (541:1) and pretty comparable to many of the other models we have tested here.
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black_comparison_3.jpg


It depends if you can use a hardware calibrator or not according to TFTCentral.
 
thank you. If I were to (sigh) break down and go for a 16:9 in the 23" and up category, are there particular standouts I should look at?
 
vafan13 said:
thank you. If I were to (sigh) break down and go for a 16:9 in the 23" and up category, are there particular standouts I should look at?
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If you're intent with an IPS monitor, the 23" Dell U2311H is pretty good. If you want a *VA monitor, the Eizo FS2331 is meant to be good, but I doubt many are willing to pay that much for it.

There are a lot of U2410 and ZR24w owners who are happy with their purchase (providing they're defect free) so whilst they may not be the absolute perfect monitors, you might still be content with either of them.
 
bearbear said:
If you're intent with an IPS monitor, the 23" Dell U2311H is pretty good. If you want a *VA monitor, the Eizo FS2331 is meant to be good, but I doubt many are willing to pay that much for it.

There are a lot of U2410 and ZR24w owners who are happy with their purchase (providing they're defect free) so whilst they may not be the absolute perfect monitors, you might still be content with either of them.
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Yeah I had looked at the U2311H when it came out and it looked great except I hate the idea of going down to 16:9 as based on having to use one at work I find while it might be fine for TVs it's inferior to 16:10 for computers. Sadly though it seems to be where everything is headed. :(

I looked up the price on the Eizo (though I only found it in pounds and I'm stateside, is it even sold stateside?) and for a 23" 1080p it is...expensive. probably couldn't get myself to pay that much for a monitor that size unless the first line of every review was "this monitor was so good I had to smoke a cigarette afterward"
 
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chong67 said:
Get 2405, 2407 or 2408. They are all x1200 and great and cheap!
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+1 for that! I got a used 2407WFP off of CL for only $150 and it's amazing! I like it much more than I thought I would as I always assumed CRTs were better than LCDs. My previous monitor was a 22" NEC CRT (2141SB) and it is/was great with PQ but the Dell just has so much more pop...I love it
 
The Eizo Foris FS2311 is actually 125$ cheaper than the U2410 here, if one is willing to pay 500$+ for the POS U2410 they should be more then happy to pay less for a panel with good image quality.:D

There is also the Eizo SX2262W which is a 1200p display, however it's 800$ (CAN) vs 700$ U2410 vs 575$ for the Foris and 350$ for the U2311H. The Foris should be avaliable if in the US if we have it in Canada.

Other wise the U2311H is the only good IPS option (mind the Quality Control), it's far superior to the U2410 and ZR24W which both are a few years behind in terms of image quality and response time (HP).
 
vafan13 said:
I got the impression from the flatpanelshd review that the HP's black levels were the worse of the two, perhaps I misunderstood.
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I don't know if it's the monitors that are so different one from another or it's the measurement methods, but the values of black levels of the U2410 and the ZR24w are totally different from site to site (TFT central, FlatpanelsHD, Prad.de etc). I have never seen the two monitors side by side but I'm getting a ZR24w because we got two of those at work and they are really nice so just out of curiosity I paid for the Prad review and sure enough the contrast/black level results are different there too.

Are you coming from a CRT and what kind of LCDs have you used so far? There's been a lot of debate on this topic but personally, I don't believe there is anything so amazing in the 1080p 23" category that would make me want to give up on 1920x1200, at least not if IPS is the panel type that suits you the most like in my case. The Dell U2311H would probably be the best choice in that category but while I'm sure it will have deeper blacks than the 24" 16:10 variants, is that enough to justify the significant downgrade in resolution and size? If we were talking about an IPS with modern PVA-like blacks, then yeah. As it is, not really in my opinion. One big downside of the U2410 is the price though. At least here where I live, it costs almost double the price of an U2311H. It's safe to say it's not a great value for money. 16:10 is so much more natural for a computer monitor though which is why I'm getting the ZR24w and it's significantly cheaper than the Dell.

If blacks are really important then you could go down the *VA route which would mean 1080p, gamma shift and other VA characteristic issues that may or may not bother you.
 
The black level measurements only seem different because each site is using a different brightness for calibration. TFT calibrates to 120cdm/2, PRAD to 140cdm/2, Digital Versus is 200cdm/2 while FlatPanels follows no standard and usually gets poor results due to obviously limited calibration effort.

TFT central is awesome because they provide a contrast stability chart, which is usually in line with the other sites measurements. Obviously there is some variance due to equipment and settings but usually the sites are mostly in line with each other.

1" of screen size and the extra 120 pixels only appeals to those who have limited LCD experience or are American when productivity isn't the main priority. If one could see the U2410 set up next to a U2311H they would see a major difference in image quality.
 
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NCX said:
The black level measurements only seem different because each site is using a different brightness for calibration. TFT calibrates to 120cdm/2, PRAD to 140cdm/2, Digital Versus is 200cdm/2 while FlatPanels follows no standard and usually gets poor results due to obviously limited calibration effort.
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No, I don't mean the absolute black level measurements. Have you seen the Prad review of the ZR24w? Unless I am misinterpreting their calibration report, they achieved better black levels and at higher brightness too, be it at factory or calibrated settings. When I tried to apply the TFT central calibration profile on a ZR24w, even though I knew it was never going to give me a totally accurate picture, it looked like a real mess. I read on a Czech site that they tried the same and ended up with similar results as me but they also achieved better contrast than TFT central did with their calibration even without the contrast setting at 100 method. Either there is some significant difference in each monitor or there is too much variance in testing equipment accuracy.


NCX said:
1" of screen size and the extra 120 pixels only appeals to those who have limited LCD experience or are American when productivity isn't the main priority.
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What does this even mean? :confused: You're just being silly now.
 
chong67 said:
Get 2405, 2407 or 2408. They are all x1200 and great and cheap!
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LOL!

If anyone ever tells you that a dell 2405 was a great monitor, never listen to anything they have to say because they are blind. ;)

I owned a Dell 2405 (for about a week), it was the worse LCD I ever had the displeasure of using.

It had the worse ghosting of any LCD I have seen. It practically left trails of every motion behind.

It also had horrible input lag. I don't play FPS games. Lag was so bad that it was painful to move the mouse on the screen, it was like it was dragging through mud.

Dell U2410 and HP ZR24W are your current best bests for bang/buck. Though I don't know if I would recommend the HP unless you were going to calibrate, it sounds like HP really messed up the default gamma curve.
 
Walker said:
I
Are you coming from a CRT and what kind of LCDs have you used so far?
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I'm coming from an FW900 which I bought a few years back when I was in the market for an LCD but not satisfied with what I found. Certainly not compared to a local pickup $120 near mint condition FW900, anyways. I've used but never owned LCDs.

NCX said:
The Eizo Foris FS2311 is actually 125$ cheaper than the U2410 here, if one is willing to pay 500$+ for the POS U2410 they should be more then happy to pay less for a panel with good image quality.:D
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what places actually carry FS2311? CDW has a lot of models but not that one.

EDIT: nevermind, found some places, although it looks like none of them actually carry them im stock they're all ordered from Eizo as needed.
 
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bearbear said:
You won't find many (or any?) current and affordable monitors that'll be as good as that FW900.
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I know. :( Sadly I think my FW900 may be dying (I just posted in the FW900 thread asking about the problem I'm having, not sure why I didn't earlier) and that is what prompted me to start looking at LCDs.
 
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