I was just down at Fry's and noticed this deal. I currently have an old 4:3 Dell 19" with a dead pixel that I got for free. Ideally I'd want to go bigger, like 25", but the price more than doubles just for those extra 2 inches.

Somebody help me justify spending my money

Do it.

**** Fry's. They wasted my time for 1.5 hours while they ran around looking for phantom products that their stock computer claimed they had. In the end they "can't find it" and don't give rain checks on rebates. Guess it's the 19 inch dead pixel for now.

If you care at all about image quality, do NOT get one of the cheap TN film panel displays. For an IPS or PVA panel 23" display, it'll run you 300-350, and be worth it.

My 21 inch has a scratch in it, I'm too poor to buy a new one.
I say go for it unless you use if for high end movies or games.

:carl:?

Cheap LCDs are pretty much always TN film panels, which tend to have crappy color reproduction and crappy viewing angles compared to the more expensive IPS or PVA LCD monitors. Basically, you get what you pay for with LCDs.

Here's a good example. Two 20" Dell monitors I have, one's a 4 year old 2005FPW that I paid $450 for when I got it. Still would cost you around $300 or so these days if they actually sold them still. It's an IPS panel. The other one's a 2009W I got about 6 months or so ago, paid less than $200 for it. It's an TN film monitor.

IPS on the left, TN on the right

http://i520.photobucket.com/albums/w322/algerad/IMG_0113.jpg
http://i520.photobucket.com/albums/w322/algerad/IMG_0114.jpg
http://i520.photobucket.com/albums/w322/algerad/IMG_0116.jpg

Of course, TN may not have great picture, but it does have the best response times, and the price really is a big factor. Not everyone is interested in spending $350+ for something they can get for less than $200 at the same size and resolution.

How can I tell which is which when buying? I look at monitors online and I don't necessarily see either option spec'd out.

Lots of Googling. Plus, if it looks cheap, it's probably TN.

Usually the difference is less than ~2ms, which is negligible compared to other factors. I mean you have about 16.67ms of input lag built in just due to the fact that the thing refreshes at 60Hz.

After bing cash back you can get this for ~300$ which should have an IPS or at least a VA panel and is 32".

Input lag doesn't cause the screen to blur. The difference is actually closer to ~5ms, and that's for pricier IPS panels.

Input lag has nothing to do with it "refreshing at 60 Hz". Which it doesn't really do, since it's a persistent image.

I have a 16 ms IPS panel and it appears better than 8 or 12 ms TN panels I've seen. Probably because the specs for TN film panels are exaggerated or taken from best cases.

You can tell if something's TN film because it won't have a good viewing angle. IPS panels are almost always listed as 178 degrees, with PVA types being 176 or 178.

Yeah, I've never had any real ghosting/blurring issues from the IPS monitors I have or have used. Slow response was an issue on early IPS monitors that has pretty much been taken care of for a while now.

Rule of thumb: if the monitor you are looking at has 170/160 degrees of viewing angle, then its a TN.

I checked out Fry's again, and they didn't have a single IPS panel on display. I saw a c-PVA or something like that, and it looked no different than all the TN panels they had set up.

Care to link me to a $350 23" IPS monitor? I can't seem to find one online under ~$550.

- i've found a few 24" in the mid $400 range...more like it i guess....

Who wouldn't trust this face?

Also, I'm of the opinion that it's easy to get used to any ghosting that occurs at 16 ms or below. When I first switched to these LCDs from my CRTs, I noticed the ghosting. Within a few days, even a few hours of gaming, it didn't bother me at all. There's a point (I'd say around 16 ms) where the ghosting is minimal enough that your brain can strongly make the distinction between the ghosted image and the actual image, so you perceive it less.