Replacement for U2312hm. Looking for something with good black levels and no glow

[HiCZoK]

Hey everyone !

My Dell U2312hm which I got back in 2012 thanks to (as always) great advices here is getting long in the tooth. I really like the display but it lacks hdmi and have rather bad blacks and bad uniformity/ips glow. Not ideal for movies and gaming in dark room.

I am a bit on a tight budget to get another screen. Still looking for buyer of u2312hm (Poland btw) but I am already scouting the area. So without overdue:


I want 16:9 screen. Not sure if I it should be curved but dont think I want this feature(or have a budget for one). Probably 1080p because of performance. I need vga, dvi and hdmi inputs.
Aspect ratio 4:3 option is super important. It helps a lot in older games.

What is most important for me is black levels. I want as close to life black levels. No ips glow and uniformity. Some of my fav games like Dark Souls or The Darkness are very Dark. Watching movies or shows like Knick or Game of Thrones also would benefeit from good black levels.

As for the size, not sure how my limited budget will allow but 23 to 27 inches I guess is ok. Don't need or want pivot. Can be glossy - don't matter.

So far I've found that I probably need some type of VA monitor. Maybe AMVA or AMVA+. And only Benq and iiyama are making those on rather cheap side.

Any opinions or help ?
thanks

 

[HiCZoK]

Oh .. I just found this topic
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1803228&highlight=

And looking through it now, so very sorry for not noticing it earler.
The question still stands. All I got from the topic for now is that only acceptable sizes are 24 and 27 since other have worse panel coatings. A lot of recommendations for Benq but it doesnt have dvi... will hdmi to dvi work just as well ?

edit: Also - no idea if Benq or iiyama monitors have 4:3 aspect ratio option in osd like Dell monitors do. Any help on this too ?

 

[Quix]

If you want 4:3 aspect ratio and the monitor doesn't support it you can set scaling to occur on your GPU (it's in the control panel, Nvidia, AMD, Intel) and just set it to scale with aspect ratio, which is an option in the display/monitor section.

 

[HiCZoK]

I know but these dont always work (amd sucks at this)
and games like for example old Max Payne games which I am replaying now, with dell I can simply run them 1920x1080(also called "Fat Max") and turn on 4:3 aspect ratio in monitor osd. And it looks good except ... its a dark game and ips consumes it.

Without AR option, I would Have to choose any 4:3 res supported by the game as close to 1080p and select scaling option as You say.