What's the situation with monitors lately?

It seems this forum gets much better responces to tech questions than most tech forums, so I just wanted to ask around for a summary or what might be best for me with the current monitors on offer.

Most likely around the 24" mark. Probably 1080 res, seems adequate for a 24"

Don't really care much for usb hubs, speakers etc etc - I just want a monitor !

Preferably LED, if possible, for the power and small space saving is quite preferable.

The important things for me are deep blacks, good colours and uniformity (I used high quality CRTs until recently), decent sharpness and less importantly brightness, responce rates and lag input.

I'll mostly be doing photo editing, with the occasional game on, so not sure full blown S-IPS is quite what I need (not that worried about 100% colour accuracy). So I'm guessing PVA panels are most likely the direction I should look, but are there any LED PVA panels ? Or are there any e-IPS monitors with good enough blacks ?

Price-wise I'm willing to spend a fair bit, though maybe not much more than 600 quid tops, most likely less.

Also wide-gamut is probably best avoided, though I wouldn't say no if it ticked all the right boxes.

All your help is much appreciated !

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I find 1920x1080 is woeful for anything productive. All 16:9 resolutions are in my opinion. You don't gain anything - you're not gaining width over 1920x1200, you're just losing height. If all you do photography wise is edit landscape shots, then it's less of a problem, but I personally find even 1920x1200 restrictive for portraits, so trying to edit in 1920x1080 would be awful for me.

The HP LP2475w is a year or so old now, but it's still a very, very highly regarded monitor. The HP ZR24w is a bit cheaper and has less inputs, but it seems to be getting favourable opinions.

The Dell U2410 is decent too, but if I was buying now, I'd be getting the LP2475w I think.

For the record, I use a Dell 2408 at home and a 2407 at work. Both excellent, though PVA rather than IPS. To be honest, so long as it's PVA or IPS I don't think you'd be disappointed.

For the record, I find the USB ports on monitors invaluable - they're normally powered ports too, so more reliable than the front ports on cases when using USB-powered hard drives and things.

Yeah, the 2475 is looking pretty damn good with decent blacks and good colours once calibrated, while still being impressively responsive for a IPS panel. Not surprisingly it's quite dear, and hard to find sellers here in OZ, but I might just keep a look out for it.

Failing that I might get another Sony GDM-FW900 24" CRT monster, that thing had unbelievable quality :D

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~I have the Dell 2408 Ultrasharp (same as Gav I believe).

Awesomely crisp monitor, faultless design and build quality is second to none. Makes my brothers 24 inch Samsung pebble @#$%& look like it came from a Kinder Egg.

I bought mine refurbed @ £275 about 2 years ago with a 3 year warranty still.

Nearly bought a second for £175 a few months ago, but changed my mind.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

My monitor is being situated on my desk.

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REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS

If you're still looking, someone just posted a bit of an extreme deal on Hexus.

Dell 27" U2711.

IPS, 2560x1440 (16:9), HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-D, USB and VGA.

Yes, it's 16:9, and I hate 16:9, but it does have more vertical pixels than the 24" 1920x1200 screens, so I'd find it OK to live with.

£570 including VAT & shipping if you use the code RHTB8J1BR0JC4$

I think you'd struggle to get a better deal than that for a big screen... it is a lot of money though.