I would like to buy a larger computer monitor between 23″ and 25″, any thing I should be looking to get or any good bargains about, I only want to spend about £150 max.

I have no idea about computer monitors so any help appreciated 😀

Dell 23″ LED 1920x1080p Full HD Monitor @ Dell – £143.20 Delivered

Ditto the dells as above. Use a variety from 24’s through to 30’s for photographic work, and never had an issue with them. Also recommend the Samsung syncmaster series.

Things to consider are based on intended use …

Colour accuracy out of the box – if your doing semi-critical colour work and do not calibrate yourself.

Response times – less “flicker” when watching moving images

Viewing angle – If you sit off centre, or have people around the screen mainly, but again for colour critical work you don’t want to be bobbing around in order to see the detail, or missing stuff when you slouch.

Colour space – SRGB fairly typical, anything over mid 90’s % for RGB is considered good, above RGB is useable in just about any situation.

Resolution – 1600’ish x whatever as a minimum above mid 20″ screens will ensure tight text and details.

Contrast / Brightness – at the lower end of the scale its fairly moot as manufactures tend to “plump” up their figures anyway. Contrast range more important if doing critical colour work or you watch a lot of Batman or similar “dark” films.

Connectors – HDMI fairly standard these days but good to have DVI-D and VGA as alternatives (which ever your PC / Laptop supports)

Peripherals – USB’s / Speakers = less clutter on the desk

Buying half decent monitors on the cheap used to be a bit of a muddle, mostly cos they didn’t all have everything you’d want until you spent more money. Often you’d have to sacrifice resolution to get the connections you wanted, or the frequency, or the dynamic contrast etc etc etc…

These days, it’s a bit simpler. Pretty much any 23″ or bigger is going to be 1920×1080 resolution or larger (you don’t want any smaller than this trust me), most of them have a myriad of connections (HDMI, VGA, DVI, RGB etc.) to suit various inputs, plenty of them have inbuilt speakers (if this interests you)…

That Dell linked to above doesn’t look a bad deal at all… Been running a Samsung 2333HD myself for a couple of years and love it, would suggest checking Samsung’s newer offerings out too.

If you’re going larger than 1600 x XXXXX resolution would pay to check the Graphics card can handle this.

Vast majority of them will … but some of the older (esp when reliant on VGA) wont.

Monitor will still work at lower resolutions, but you lose the benefits of the higher DPI.

Ok I’ve got a few questions whilst we’re here.

1) Is 23″ too big to be sat in front of on a small desk? Seems big.
2) It’d be ok for editing photos on? Is it worth getting something that can be calibrated?

1) Depends on aspect ratio 16:9 its wide and low so doesn’t seem as big as it sounds. The traditional 4:3 or similar obviously stand a lot higher. Its very much a personal thing, I work on a 30″ monitor with a 12″ Wacom tablet and love it where as others simply hate it by comparison. 23″ – 24″ is a good compromise though and majority of people are comfortable with it.

EDIT : also depends how far away you are from it … a 50 inch plasma screen in a cinema isn’t big … same screen in a bathroom certainly is so factor in screen / stand depth if space is tight.

2) Any screen can be calibrated with the correct equipment, and dependant on the colour profile created fairly / very accurate. Colour space is more important here. We have a whole variety of monitors from 5 year old Viewsonics to Apples and a large range of Dells. All are calibrated with a Spyder 3 Pro. Some tend to need calibration more often, and drift as they warm up etc but unless you are doing hyper critical work all are sufficient.

If you are looking for something to edit on then an extra £100 to the budget is going to be well spent, ie the Dell Ultrasharp range, or the Samsung Syncmasters.

Well it’ll be on the wall with only a short desk between us, maybe 2’6. I use 1920×1080 on this laptop which is 18.4″ and it’s pretty good – only a bit closer than the monitor at home would be I suppose.

Ta for the advice 🙂

2) Any screen can be calibrated with the correct equipment, and dependant on the colour profile created fairly / very accurate.

it’s only going to be very accurate if you are using a decent graphics monitor (eizo CG, quarto, NEC spectraview etc) with a large gamut (min 95% adobeRGB) most of these monitors bypass the graphics card for greater accuracy and full control of luminance, gamma, contrast ratio and an even brightness across the panel. something cheaper screens are very poor at.

different panels are good for different things…

if you want a super responsive or cheaper screen you are probably looking at a TN panel.. most of TN panels (if not all?) are 6 bit per RGB colour.. and therefore doesn’t give you the same colour representation.. they are unable to display the 16.7 million color shades (24-bit truecolor)

IPS panels are 8 bit and have superior colours and viewing angles… but wont be as responsive (this is often exaggerated – it probably will be responsive enough for a lot of people) and will cost more

this is one of the cheapest IPS you can get:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/23%22+Dell+UltraSharp+U2311H+Widescreen+IPS+Monitor+?productId=40729&source=googleps

there are also PVA / MVA and some other panels… google eet

+1 for the Dell U2311H listed above.

I’ve had mine around a month and I’m more than happy with it. Really good build quality, viewing angles and colour are grand and I use it for video editing as well as a bit of FPS gaming with no obvious lag. I paid $400 NZD so 200 quid sounds bang on.

1) Is 23″ too big to be sat in front of on a small desk? Seems big.

I would answer, but might be biased, as sat in front of an 27″ monitor………its….hypnotic…..

Thanks, just found some time to buy a monitor so came back to check out this thread.