[LF Advice] Monitor for my Alienware A14

[Deleted]

Dear all,

about two years ago I bought myself an Alienware A14 and I am very happy with the laptop but I do need to get myself a larger screen. For the first time in five years I will not have to move half way around the world every few weeks so I can finally buy a decent screen.

Now I have a few questions - I have never bought a monitor before all my desktop PCs in the past came with a monitor already. A few years ago people always told me if I wanted to play Ego Shooters a specific framerate is important so the screen doesn't blur - is this still up to date? I really only play WoW & FFIV and maybe HOTS, I do plan to play Overwatch though.

I am currently having this Display on my Notebook.

Display : 14.0 inch (355.6 mm) WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display

I am extremely happy with the color and picture quality. I am now concerned that if I buy a sub standard monitor I won't get the same color/ picture quality on a larger screen. I do not really need a massive screen - I guess 23" would be enough.

My last problem is that I would need to be able to buy it on amazon.co.uk as I can claim it back on expenses via work - I would be super grateful if there are people in this forum that could help me finding a good monitor on www.amazon.co.uk.

I found one so far that had good reviews and it seemed quite nice:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-S2340L-...mputer+Screens

I am open to spending more money of course if I have to.

Thank you very much for every post that will help me finding the right monitor.

kind regards
Saaraae

[Artorius]

High refresh rate panels are useful for playing shooters, yes. They're mostly TN panels and TN panels tend to be worse than IPS or VA panels when it comes to color reproduction.

For what you play, it's very subjective, 60hz should be enough but 120/144hz are obviously smoother.

For 24" I believe the U2412M or the PA248Q are good purchases.
I'm not familiar with prices there, someone else might be more useful with recommendations.

Since you're used to a FHD 14" Display which results in a higher PPI than the same resolution at a bigger display, the U2515H might also be an option, but keep in mind that this one has QHD resolution and that might be too much to handle at newer games (the ones you mentioned are probably all safe, not sure about FFIV though).

[Deleted]

High refresh rate panels are useful for playing shooters, yes. They're mostly TN panels and TN panels tend to be worse than IPS or VA panels when it comes to color reproduction.

For what you play, it's very subjective, 60hz should be enough but 120/144hz are obviously smoother.

For 24" I believe the U2412M or the PA248Q are good purchases.
I'm not familiar with prices there, someone else might be more useful with recommendations.

Since you're used to a FHD 14" Display which results in a higher PPI than the same resolution at a bigger display, the U2515H might also be an option, but keep in mind that this one has QHD resolution and that might be too much to handle at newer games (the ones you mentioned are probably all safe, not sure about FFIV though).

So if I understand it correctly I am looking for a monitor with at least 12/ 144 hz? Is 'hz' the ultimate indicator for the quality of the picture?

What does PPI stand for?

What does QHD resolution mean and is it in your context a good or a bad thing.

Sorry I am really new to this and am not sure what to buy hence the questions.

thanks a lot
Saaraae


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What annoys me on the below link is the low hz - 60hz and still £245.00 :x what else makes this monitor so good that is is so expensive

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-U2515H-...onitors+U2515H

I understand you would recommend this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-UltraSh...onitors+U2412M

or this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/PA248Q-24-1-...monitor+PA248Q

[Artorius]

Nah, 120hz and 144Hz are refresh rate indicators, Hz stands for hertz which is cycles per second.

A 120Hz monitor will display 120 pictures per second, a 144Hz one will show you 144.

Most panels, I'd say 90% of the current LCD panels or more, work at 60Hz. Having more than that makes the image movement feel smoother, because you'll have more intermediate images between them, you'll have more frames.

Thing is, normally, faster monitors with higher refresh rates and smaller response times (they're mostly TN panels) are generally worse image quality wise than IPS/VA ones.

Your current screen is most likely to be 60Hz, and you plan to play games that don't really benefit much from going higher than 60FPS (this is subjective), all three monitors I mentioned are 60Hz. I'd say to get the better image quality possible in your case, don't bother with 120hz or 144hz ones.

Quality of the picture depend on a lot of factors, you have color accuracy, color temperature, contrast and resolution. Refresh rate isn't a direct factor of image quality.
It's more like, as if the monitor can or cannot reproduce the input color as close as possible and if it can reproduce completely different colors and brightness levels side by side. If it color shifts at some angle, or if the glaring is too bad.

Resolution also isn't something exactly related to image reproduction quality, it's the quantity of pixels you have at the screen. Higher resolution means more pixels, more pixels means more details, sharper/crisper image.

PPI stands for pixels per inch, since resolution is an absolute number that doesn't take into account the size of the screen. A 720p phone panel has much higher PPI than a 1080p monitor, the pixels are much smaller at the phone.

I mentioned decent monitors quality wise, one of them 16:10 1920x1200 display (the U2412M) and one of them being a 2560x1440 display (U2515H).

The second one has a higher than standard resolution, that's why it's expensive. Keep in mind that playing anything not lightweight at 1440p is going to demand a lot from your computer and I'm not sure if your laptop than handle it, if the mission is gaming only, stay away from it and just go with a FHD one.

16:10 is the aspect ratio, I'd highly suggest into this for computer monitors but they're getting rarer as time passes, good point is that you get more vertical space which is great for almost everything you do at a computer (irrelevant for games though). Also very subjective but the U2412M is great regardless.

FHD and QHD are both resolution abbreviations.

My knowledge about models is very scarce and I don't have any experience with your market in specific, I normally restrain myself from recommend something since I don't really know what prices should look like.

The U2412M and the Asus one for example are expensive as @#@% here, Asus one seems to be way too expensive at the UK too. Forget about it.
The U2515H however, is sold directly from Dell here at almost the same price they sell it at the US, which is a great value. And it's apparently even cheaper at your UK amazon.

We need your help here, Remilia.

[Remilia]

We need your help here, Remilia.

Fine...

U2412M is very old and outdated and has been replaced by U2415. Decent monitor in it's own right but it is 4 years old and the newer one is well, better. PA248Q is old, expensive and very lackluster. PA238Q wasn't bad but that 24 is... meh.

TN panel's image quality is only worse because of the color viewing angle shifts. Reality wise every panel type can produce the same content provided they're all calibrated the same.
Refresh rate is no longer a TN panel only thing, which is why it's not something I list as a pro anymore.
AUO has an AMVA panel coming out 2560x1080 at 144Hz.
Sharp already has a MVA panel out.
AUO AHVA 2560x1440 at 144Hz is out.
LG is investing in a 1920x1080 120Hz(?).
Sharp IGZO on the NEC PA322UHD has a 120Hz at 1920x1080.

TN Panel
Pros:
Higher pixel response speed, not to be confused with input lag.
Cons:
Viewing angle and color distortions due to it. Bigger the monitor the more affect. Noticeable color shifts begin about 25-30 degrees offset. Vertical is affected the most.

VA Panels
Pros:
Highest static contrast ratio. Mostly rated 3000:1 and 5000:1 can be seen in both specs and real world practices.
New AMVA's viewing angle is very comparable to an IPS-type which helps with overall visual stability.
Cons:
'Slowest' pixel response of all. Granted we're talking about 1-2ms difference here.
Off center contrast shift. Darker materials when looked straight on, usually on the gray shades may appear black.

IPS(type) panel. Similar types include Sharp IGZO, AUO AHVA, and Samsung PLS.
Pros:
Widest viewing angle.
Cons:
IPS glow. Not to be confused with backlight bleed. IPS Glow is a glow that comes off from off center viewing on dark content. Bigger screen the more prominent effect. Similar to TNs but you'd be seeing it more on the corner of the screen in dark content. Some models have low or no IPS glow (U2414H/EV2450 have low glow, EV2736W has no glow). Can be reduced / removed by an A-TW polarizer.
Pixel response in between VA and TN. Again talking about like 1ms at this point.

Now to the actual thing that gets confused.

Things that are independent from panel type. Of course ignoring build quality.
Color accuracy.
Color gamut / color reproduction.
Resolution.

Easiest one. Resolution, whatever the pixel dimension is, quite honestly just that. At a point in time TNs were supposedly limited to 1920x1080, probably more like they were lazy as there are 3840x2160 panels out here that are TN.

Color accuracy.
This entirely comes to factory set up and calibration. Doesn't matter if it's a TN, VA variant or IPS variant. You can calibrate monitors with a device to either the onboard graphic's card 3D look up table (LUT) or the monitor's 3D LUT if it has it.

Color gamut / coverage.
Entirely depending on backlight. Older wide gamut panels used a wide gamut CCFL back light. CCFLs are very flexible in their settings and do not produce a blue spike in the color distribution spectrum. Cons is that they are an energy hog and may produce too much heat.
LED backlights are a bit different. There are W-LEDs, GB LEDs (or referred GB-r), RB LEDs, and full RGB LEDs.
White LED is a standard sRGB color coverage gamut, most common one. In NTSC it's about 72%.
GB and RB LEDs is a wide gamut covering approximately 99-100% Adobe RGB. About 102-104% NTSC.
RGB LEDs is one of each LED per pixel, so each pixel has it's own R G B LED. Similar to a Plasma and OLED in which they all have their own light source. Color coverage is about 114% NTSC.

These however are not indicative of color accuracy. The opposite is true in GB/RB/RGB LEDs in sRGB format as it'd cause oversaturation which leads to worse color accuracy. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing for people that like it but it is something to be aware of. Ideal is 100% color coverage in your viewing contents, and absolutely no over coverage.

Something to mention. Color depth
This isn't entirely 100% panel independent.
VA and IPS types have true 10bits available, albeit rare and expensive.
TNs while it can support 10bit via 8bit + FRC they are not available in true 10bits atm.
FRC dithering isn't the same as a true #bit but the implementation is decent and most people won't notice.
A lot of recent panels are coming out with 10bit support via 8bit + FRC.

Slightly relevant in color accuracy. When you see 32bit color depth it means 8bit Red, Blue, Green, and Alpha. Alpha transparency is disregarded in accuracy for the most part. 8bit color channel works to 16.7million colors. 10bit works out to 1.07 billion colors.
Higher color depth is better for color accuracy and better gradients as it has a wider range of color to select from even in 8bit applications.
For full 10bit usage however, you need a video card to support it.
All recent (well, sort of recent) AMDs cards support 10bit color output.
NVidia's Geforce supports 8bit. Quadro supports 10bit.
Programs also needs to support 10bit if you want to take advantage of the full 10bit.

Hardware LUT basically improves on it but does cause some amount of signal processing lag. You can find these anywhere from 12bit to 16bit LUTs and is better in calibration compared to GPU LUT.


And as to the hardware recommendation.
Ones I tend to recommend for the 1920x1080 are either
U2414H or EV2450.
1920x1200
U2415 or EV2455.
2560x1440 I'd recommend
GW2765HT or U2515H.

Not sure if you care about high Hz but I can recommend some if you'd like.

- - - Updated - - -

Didn't really answer these that well or at all did I...

So if I understand it correctly I am looking for a monitor with at least 12/ 144 hz? Is 'hz' the ultimate indicator for the quality of the picture?

No, as stated by Artorius it's the refresh rate, how many cycles per second something does, in this case how many frames displayed per second.

What does PPI stand for?

Pixel density. In general higher is better but beware of scaling sometimes in Windows 7/8 as it can scale a bit against you and things become very tiny.

What does QHD resolution mean and is it in your context a good or a bad thing.

QHD means Quad HD.
HD means 1280x720 which 4x of it is 2560x1440.
FHD = 1920x1080.
FHD+ = 1920x1200.
QHD+ = 2560x1600.
blahblahblah. It's really annoying, I just list the numbers cause it gets really dumb.

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What annoys me on the below link is the low hz - 60hz and still £245.00 :x what else makes this monitor so good that is is so expensive

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-U2515H-...onitors+U2515H

I understand you would recommend this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-UltraSh...onitors+U2412M

or this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/PA248Q-24-1-...monitor+PA248Q

Many many things, the U2412M and PA248Q are very very old. It's decreasing in stock and in turn price has been increasing.

U2515H is a 2560x1440, one of the cheaper ones but still pretty good. We're not talking professional grade quality but it is a pretty decent value for what it is.

How much it's worth it is sort of up to you, but the main things that get stripped in cheaper monitors are build quality, stand adjustment, video connectivity, and extra fluff.
More expensive it gets you're looking for extra features like USB hubs, motion sensor, Picture in Picture / Picture by Picture (usually higher resolutions), ambient light sensor and the list goes on.
Professional you're looking at wide gamut, onboard hardware 3D LUT and higher color depth.

[Deleted]

Okay thank you both very much so far. It took me some time to work out all the technical terms but I think I am there now. I did some further research and I think I am going to go with one of Remilias recommendations.

And as to the hardware recommendation.
Ones I tend to recommend for the 1920x1080 are either
U2414H or EV2450.
1920x1200
U2415 or EV2455.
2560x1440 I'd recommend
GW2765HT or U2515H.

I am looking at getting either the U2415H or the U2515H I am just checking if there is any other difference other than the size of the monitor. By the way just for the fun of it - we all know Dell is overpriced but I didn't expect them to be £131 over amazon.co.uk!

£383 (after I asked the Sales advisor he offered it at £333):
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...=baynoteSearch

£258.00
http://www.amazon.co.uk/DELL-U2515H-...ds=dell+u2515H

[Artorius]

The 2515H is 2560x1440, which is a higher resolution than the standard 1920x1080 (2415 has a 1920x1200 resolution, 16:10 aspect ration "version" of 1080p).

1440p might be too much for your computer to handle, and it's also more expansive. I'd say to stick to the 2415.

[Deleted]

The 2515H is 2560x1440, which is a higher resolution than the standard 1920x1080 (2415 has a 1920x1200 resolution, 16:10 aspect ration "version" of 1080p).

1440p might be too much for your computer to handle, and it's also more expansive. I'd say to stick to the 2415.

That was actually something I wanted to ask - how does a bigger screen affect the workload on my Computer. I can comfortable raid World of Warcraft with 40 fps in mythic on Ultra Settings - 20 players. I haven't yet tested the Frame rate for FFIXV so not sure there.

My Computer is quite okay I think - I got 8GB Ram, i7 2.40Ghz and Nvidia GTX675M with 2GB. The laptop is one year old though I could always buy the 2515 and chose a smaller resolution can't I? I am saying this because I will probably buy a new laptop/ computer next year and that one would be able to handle a higher resolution I assume. The last question I have - on my Resolution Settings I currently got 1920 x 1080 I can't set it higher - I assume it is limited to what my laptop screen can offer me? In that case if a normal monitor can do 1900 x 1200 it will be more than sufficient.

Btw if anyone of you two is playing on an EU Tarren Mill or Stormscale let me know :x I send you some gold in case you actually play wow

[Remilia]

Yeah 2560x1440 is a lot more taxing if you play on it. If you're using it as a screen for other stuff it wouldn't matter too much but yes it is harder to drive.