computer monitor advice

Rock Paper Scissors

hi guys,

Im in the market for a new computer monitor

I notice some monitors i have in mind have 2ms response time and some have 5ms, is there much of a difference in picture quality?

I also notice that the contrast ratio for pc monitors greatly differs. Some have 50,000:1 and some have 5,000,000:1 What does this mean and is there much of a difference.

here are the 4 monitors i have in mind:

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/2701048/art/lg/w2361v-pf-23-tft-widescre.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5294201/art/samsung/syncmaster-b2230h-22-wide.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/7295330/art/samsung/syncmaster-bx2231-21-5-wi.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4942027/art/lg/e2250v-pn-22-widescreen-t.html

the last 2 have 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio whereas the first two have 50,000 and 70,000 respectively, thats quite a difference but im not really sure what it means.

would gratly appreciate any input you guys could give or if you know somewhere cheaper to buy monitors, please let me know

cheers

ally

danjo-xx

I bought a new tv/pc monitor and after doing some research about the contrast ratio, i understand it to mean that for dark or night scenes the higher the ratio you have the better to see whats going on.

I reckon for ordinary joe soaps anything around 10,000:1 is quite good unless perhaps your getting a big tv and into HD and all that.

Rock Paper Scissors

anybody else have an opinion?

cheers

ressem

Short answer is don't worry about it. Choose one with a LED backlight as they use less power. That aside these numbers are frequently nonsense for budget TN panels.

Contrast can be rigged to artificially high levels by turning up the brightness to uncomfortable levels or a glossy coating on the screen. 1000:1 is fine as most of us will set brightness to half of the max or less if we've to read from it for hours. Laptop screens are usually only 50:1 or so.

The pixel response times can refer to the amount of time to switch from pixel on to pixel off or many other things. It's meant to give an impression of whether you'll see a very short-lived tiny ghost following fast moving objects in games/films because pixels don't change colour immediately, instead taking a fiftieth of a second to change to the background colour. It was an issue for gamers with the first thin panels. Pretty insignificant nowadays, but advertising people still exaggerate it downward. In reality it'll probably be 3 times the advertised number and you'll not have an issue.

If you were into graphic design then you might need a better quality panel like an IPS based one, and use colour calibrator, but you'd be paying 3-4 times as much.

coylemj

Pixmania customer service is terrible, buy somewhere else.

Rock Paper Scissors

thanks for the replies guys, looks like the LED monitor that I linked to above has dropped further to €129

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4942027/art/lg/e2250v-pn-22-widescreen-t.html

I think thats pretty good for an LED monitor.

Wonder how much delivery is from pixmania or can i collect it?