Need to choose a new monitor, not familiar with modern

[NewbieOneKenobi]

I bought two TN monitors when I finally gave up on CRT (2008 or so). Currently using my old HP w2007v, which has lasted longer than its 22'' replacement, but I do need full HD res (if not more) for a very practical good reason related more to work than gaming. And I need matte, after all, I think.

The problem: I know basic theory, but I really don't know the practical difference between modern TN, VA, AMVA(+), IPS etc., but I've had no practical contact with them, and I've read that these days TN matrices have almost as good colours as any budget IPS (though still worse viewing angles), while IPS's don't have reaction-speed problems any more, and VAs supposedly come out blurry despite their reaction speed on paper. So I'm a bit gun-shy when it comes to making this choice.

What I need to use it for: Work. Hard work with text, lots of text, and did I mention text? all the freaking time, and that's often a lot of time (30-hour days and stuff like that) 

What I love to use a monitor for: Gaming, naturally  ) RPG and RTS, sometimes car racers. So reaction speed, blurriness etc. probably matters, but not as much as for FPS.

Ideally, I'd want real, distinctive colours. Don't want a bland, greyish palette. But between work and fun, I'm probably going to spend up to 15 hours a day gazing into the thing, so it should also be easy on the eyes. Flicker-free, I guess?

Unfortunately, budget range.

Current candidates:

iiyama X2483HSU-B2 (AMVA+) (worried about possible blurriness or boring colours, bad blacks etc.)
iiyama G-MASTER Black Hawk GE2488HS (TN) (if image good, I wouldn't like to skip it simply for being TN)

ACER 22' K222HQLBbid Led IPS 4ms (not flicker-free?)
AOC M2470SWDA2 23.6'' IPS FHD 4MS

[iLLucionist]

I bought two TN monitors when I finally gave up on CRT (2008 or so). Currently using my old HP w2007v, which has lasted longer than its 22'' replacement, but I do need full HD res (if not more) for a very practical good reason related more to work than gaming. And I need matte, after all, I think.

The problem: I know basic theory, but I really don't know the practical difference between modern TN, VA, AMVA(+), IPS etc., but I've had no practical contact with them, and I've read that these days TN matrices have almost as good colours as any budget IPS (though still worse viewing angles), while IPS's don't have reaction-speed problems any more, and VAs supposedly come out blurry despite their reaction speed on paper. So I'm a bit gun-shy when it comes to making this choice.

What I need to use it for: Work. Hard work with text, lots of text, and did I mention text? all the freaking time, and that's often a lot of time (30-hour days and stuff like that) 

What I love to use a monitor for: Gaming, naturally  ) RPG and RTS, sometimes car racers. So reaction speed, blurriness etc. probably matters, but not as much as for FPS.

Ideally, I'd want real, distinctive colours. Don't want a bland, greyish palette. But between work and fun, I'm probably going to spend up to 15 hours a day gazing into the thing, so it should also be easy on the eyes. Flicker-free, I guess?

Unfortunately, budget range.

Current candidates:

iiyama X2483HSU-B2 (AMVA+) (worried about possible blurriness or boring colours, bad blacks etc.)
iiyama G-MASTER Black Hawk GE2488HS (TN) (if image good, I wouldn't like to skip it simply for being TN)

ACER 22' K222HQLBbid Led IPS 4ms (not flicker-free?)
AOC M2470SWDA2 23.6'' IPS FHD 4MS

Text is mostly black on white right? I would at least suggest a non-PWM (look at reviews a tftcentral.co.uk for what that is) monitor with a relatively uniform backlight, both in term of brightness and color consistency (now yellow tint).

I would be less interested in color gamut. I would either go with GB-led or W-led IPS or IPVA. But IPVA suffers from gray shift (black and dark gray looks differently when you turn your head or go to the side).

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Thanks. The X iiyama seems to be good for uniform backlight.

I've found ViewSonic VX2263SMHL, which seems to be a 2ms IPS and is rather affordable.

Leaning toward the AMVA iiyama, with its 4ms being a nice boon, but still undecided as to matrix type, mainly because it's difficult for me to choose between the brighter and more vivid IPS vs wider range and more subdued but also more natural (AM)VA that has better blacks and better contrast, vs some of the better TNs. Defo sticking with non-PWM/flicker-free, though. According to my info, cheaper IPS could end up being unevenly lit and harder to work on. No such problems with AMVA, apparently. Might as well go with it. Kind of looking at curved Samsung there.

[iLLucionist]

Thanks. The X iiyama seems to be good for uniform backlight.

I've found ViewSonic VX2263SMHL, which seems to be a 2ms IPS and is rather affordable.

Leaning toward the AMVA iiyama, with its 4ms being a nice boon, but still undecided as to matrix type, mainly because it's difficult for me to choose between the brighter and more vivid IPS vs wider range and more subdued but also more natural (AM)VA that has better blacks and better contrast, vs some of the better TNs. Defo sticking with non-PWM/flicker-free, though. According to my info, cheaper IPS could end up being unevenly lit and harder to work on. No such problems with AMVA, apparently. Might as well go with it. Kind of looking at curved Samsung there.

I have been checking out the Benq BL3200PT and Samsung 32D850D, both featuring AMVA panels. But I eventually bought the Dell U2713HM for a variety of reasons. The panels in those AMVA screens had enormous consistency and QC issues Especially banding and panels falling out. Check out this forum post:

https://hardforum.com/threads/benq-bl3200pt-32-1440p.1803982/

That drove me away from AMVA and made me stick with IPS. I would still be interested in trying out AMVA though, but what I took from my search back then is that all AMVA panels are made by AU Optronics (Owned by Benq or Benq is owned by AU Optronics) and their quality control is not that good.

[NewbieOneKenobi]

I've just ended up buying the AMVA iiyama, simply because I dreaded the thought of doing all this urgent work I have for Monday on that lovely little HP. I mean, I love it, but switching from matte back to glossy/glare was giving me headaches, and VGA being the only connector available (means no ClearType) plus only 1680*1050 res was a bit of a problem. Obviously, half of the problem if not more existed only in my misguided brain, but this knowledge somehow didn't make the problem go away. So I had to just go and buy a monitor today from some shop that had what I wanted (I managed just an hour before the shop closed) instead of waiting till Monday for even an urgent delivery.

Ended up gaping at both the iiyama and an Asus 23'' AH-IPS for half an hour, unable to decide.

Initially, I was willing to grant that the IPS had the better colours, more lively, more vivid. However, there was something to it that made me question whether more vivid was also more real. It seemed oversaturated and all — or is it that I've spent the last eight years gazing into TN abyss? It's perfectly possible TN exposure has made my taste unreliable. Besides, I kinda fell for the iiyama's coolish clean white, as opposed to the yellowish white offered by the IPS. Whichever one was more real, I don't know. The truth was probably somewhere in the middle anyway, and the splitter wasn't helping.

I eventually asked the clerk to load Wikipedia (they had no Word or anything like that), and decided the iiyama with AMVA won the day (despite being about 15% more expensive and only 1'' bigger); text was more readable. Given as most of my day, almost every day, is spent reading and writing text, the choice was obvious, though with misgivings.

The funny thing is that I'm sitting less than a yard away from the biggest screen I've ever had, with brightness at 100%, looking at the wall of white GeekHack is… and feeling no tiredness, no headache, no nothing. I catch myself thinking I should be feeling something of the kind, but it ain't happening. I'm not so sure the IPS would let me off the hook so easily.

But I feel my next monitor is going to be an IPS unit, unless something new comes up or something game-changing happens to VA or TN. Out-of-the-box settings with brightness turned down a little (it's ridiculous for a monitor to only look good at 100%) resulted in a horrible mess being made of a really nice photo, like I couldn't believe, like some ugly joke of a filter applied on it. Ugh. Something died in me for VA at that moment. I'm going to enjoy this monitor greatly, but the next one isn't going to be a VA. Except maybe PVA if I decide to spend more money on something professional for text work.

For the record, these iiyamas seem to be awfully popular in Poland now. Very high reviews, a lot of buyers, tons of positive feedback, sort of no. 1 customer choice, looking at major e-tailers.

EDIT: I seem to be having a strange problem with calibration right now: either large or small pictures seem blurry (smudges of bad colours or bad saturation or reduced colour palette or whatever; just not what a picture should look like). Something's wrong either with saturation or with contrast. Something is horribly wrong with the calibration. And photos look ugly. Advanced Contrast helps photos but makes all sorts of weird thing happen (e.g. colours on GeekHack change dynamically as you scroll up or down).

For some reason, AutoAdjust is disabled in the on-screen menu.

[iLLucionist]

EDIT: I seem to be having a strange problem with calibration right now: either large or small pictures seem blurry (smudges of bad colours or bad saturation or reduced colour palette or whatever; just not what a picture should look like). Something's wrong either with saturation or with contrast. Something is horribly wrong with the calibration. And photos look ugly. Advanced Contrast helps photos but makes all sorts of weird thing happen (e.g. colours on GeekHack change dynamically as you scroll up or down).

For some reason, AutoAdjust is disabled in the on-screen menu.

That really sounds weird. Perhaps you should try to return it and try another one?

They blurriness" you are referring to is sometimes referred to as "graininess" or "pixel fog" with AMVA panels. But it should be bearable at all costs. Unless you trim down the brightness to let's say 10-15% or so. But I guess you have it around at least 40-50%?

The calibration out of the box.. sounds really weird that it can be that far off. Then again the U2715h has so much uniformity issues you wonder whether the backlight is broken when you take it out of the box, so extreme issues sometimes are inherent to particular models.

[NewbieOneKenobi]

EDIT: I seem to be having a strange problem with calibration right now: either large or small pictures seem blurry (smudges of bad colours or bad saturation or reduced colour palette or whatever; just not what a picture should look like). Something's wrong either with saturation or with contrast. Something is horribly wrong with the calibration. And photos look ugly. Advanced Contrast helps photos but makes all sorts of weird thing happen (e.g. colours on GeekHack change dynamically as you scroll up or down).

For some reason, AutoAdjust is disabled in the on-screen menu.

That really sounds weird. Perhaps you should try to return it and try another one?

They blurriness" you are referring to is sometimes referred to as "graininess" or "pixel fog" with AMVA panels. But it should be bearable at all costs. Unless you trim down the brightness to let's say 10-15% or so. But I guess you have it around at least 40-50%?

The calibration out of the box.. sounds really weird that it can be that far off. Then again the U2715h has so much uniformity issues you wonder whether the backlight is broken when you take it out of the box, so extreme issues sometimes are inherent to particular models.

Yes, I think pixel fog is that. A little bit of graininess here or there, at other times more like… not grainy enough. I may need to ask them to take a look at it.

On the other hand, I think I may have underestimated the poorness of some of those pictures I'd been looking at. Apparently, pictures I know to have been taken professionally, by real photographers and with real equipment look anywhere from great to perfect, and the whole rest are from phones and cheap cameras, including the first one that caught my attention, which was from a newspaper, so I didn't expect it to be the poor phone selfie it actually was, which I only found out on a different monitor. I can't imagine any sort of settings being capable of making only poor pictures look even poorer while leaving pro pictures totally immune to its crap, so perhaps this has something to do with AMVA being a better matrix than TN and me being a braindead TN victim?

This said, I know the picture I saw totally wrecked just once was a pro pic (a huge pro portrait pic). I think some issues happen when you turn advanced contrast on and off again. At some point my graphics driver crashed  (it always does every once in a while) and its regaining control somehow resulted in things looking more or less how they should.

Apparently, their AutoAdjust and Geometry settings are only available on Analogue. I changed the cable to VGA and they were there. AutoAdjust didn't do much, though.

[iLLucionist]

Yes, I think pixel fog is that. A little bit of graininess here or there, at other times more like… not grainy enough. I may need to ask them to take a look at it.

On the other hand, I think I may have underestimated the poorness of some of those pictures I'd been looking at. Apparently, pictures I know to have been taken professionally, by real photographers and with real equipment look anywhere from great to perfect, and the whole rest are from phones and cheap cameras, including the first one that caught my attention, which was from a newspaper, so I didn't expect it to be the poor phone selfie it actually was, which I only found out on a different monitor. I can't imagine any sort of settings being capable of making only poor pictures look even poorer while leaving pro pictures totally immune to its crap, so perhaps this has something to do with AMVA being a better matrix than TN and me being a braindead TN victim?

This said, I know the picture I saw totally wrecked just once was a pro pic (a huge pro portrait pic). I think some issues happen when you turn advanced contrast on and off again. At some point my graphics driver crashed  (it always does every once in a while) and its regaining control somehow resulted in things looking more or less how they should.

Apparently, their AutoAdjust and Geometry settings are only available on Analogue. I changed the cable to VGA and they were there. AutoAdjust didn't do much, though.

Perhaps your monitor is so good and crisp you can actually see now how crappy your phone camera is?

So again.. what specific monitor did you buy again? Which iiyama model?

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Perhaps your monitor is so good and crisp you can actually see now how crappy your phone camera is?

Apparently! And not only mine but half the other folks' as well. It's something completely new to me to realize how many crappy pics are out there on the Internet, including business and press websites. But looking at something like a professional shot of a Bengal kitten (or, heck, a dilapidated out-of-service tramway on a grassy sidetrack) blows my mind to the next galaxy and back. An acquaintance shared a photo from a greenhouse full of orchids and that blew my mind too. It's like… well, it's hard to describe. Probably better than the CRTs I was able to afford back when I still used them until spring 2008.

I suppose part of the weirdness is VA's specific contrast and the graininess you mentioned, combined with the size of a pixel in 1080p on a 24'' screen. From what I've been able to gather, a lot of people complain about 27'' 1080p being pixellated, so I guess 24'' perhaps doesn't cross the line but still pushes it a little.

Finally, I forgot my glasses are a bit weak, like 0.5 dioptre, perhaps 0.75 on each eye. Yeah, I really did.

So again.. what specific monitor did you buy again? Which iiyama model?

X2483HSU-B2.

But I was also able to spend some time with their Black Hawk (G-master GE2788HS‎), the 1 ms TN. I almost fell in love, you know. It had the typical colour-shifting issues of a TN, so on 24'' it was basically hopeless — desktop had no wallpaper but only a solid green background, so… But otherwise the colours were lovely and made me think of old CRT monitors of all things. The thing was needle-sharp. You'd really think the Windows surface was glass. I hadn't known the feeling for a decade. It seems my intuition was good that modern TNs in a bit more expensive range are not necessarily going to look worse than affordable IPS or the usual VA. However, I suspect it may have been the 1 ms while moving the mouse cursor around — that's what may have made it look like CRT to my silly little brain.

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Perhaps your monitor is so good and crisp you can actually see now how crappy your phone camera is?

Apparently! And not only mine but half the other folks' as well. It's something completely new to me to realize how many crappy pics are out there on the Internet, including business and press websites. But looking at something like a professional shot of a Bengal kitten (or, heck, a dilapidated out-of-service tramway on a grassy sidetrack) blows my mind to the next galaxy and back. An acquaintance shared a photo from a greenhouse full of orchids and that blew my mind too. It's like… well, it's hard to describe. Probably better than the CRTs I was able to afford back when I still used them until spring 2008.

I suppose part of the weirdness is VA's specific contrast and the graininess you mentioned, combined with the size of a pixel in 1080p on a 24'' screen. From what I've been able to gather, a lot of people complain about 27'' 1080p being pixellated, so I guess 24'' perhaps doesn't cross the line but still pushes it a little.

Finally, I forgot my glasses are a bit weak, like 0.5 dioptre, perhaps 0.75 on each eye. Yeah, I really did.

So again.. what specific monitor did you buy again? Which iiyama model?

X2483HSU-B2. And currently loving it, I think, though it takes some getting used to, and I'd rather it had smoother pixels (not the blurry kind you can achieve by moving the slider on OSD from sharp to soft by one notch, more like the old hi-res CRT kind).

But I was also able to spend some time with their Black Hawk (G-master GE2788HS‎), the 1 ms TN. I almost fell in love, you know. It had the typical colour-shifting issues of a TN, so on 24'' it was basically hopeless — desktop had no wallpaper but only a solid green background, so… But otherwise the colours were lovely and made me think of old CRT monitors of all things. The thing was needle-sharp. You'd really think the Windows surface was glass. I hadn't known the feeling for a decade. It seems my intuition was good that modern TNs in a bit more expensive range are not necessarily going to look worse than affordable IPS or the usual VA. However, I suspect it may have been the 1 ms while moving the mouse cursor around — that's what may have made it look like CRT to my silly little brain.