Thread: Buying a new monitor

I'm looking to upgrade my rather old 14" TFT monitors to something a bit more snazzy so I was wondering what people thought of the Dell UltraSharp™ U2311H 23?

Basically I'm looking for picture quality, 1080HD, 21-23" & a sensible price. No 3D just because it adds so much to the ticket and I'm using ATI anyway

I can't say I know too much about Dell Monitors but I got attracted by the IPS technology at a sensible price - most the other monitors I've been looking at are either VA to TN.

Display:

Diagonal Viewable Size:
23" (58.42 cm)
Aspect Ratio
Widescreen (16:9)
Panel Type, Surface:
IPS (In-Plane Switching), anti glare with hard coat 3H
Optimal Resolution:
1920 x 1080 at 60 Hz
Contrast Ratio:
1000 to 1 (typical), 10,000:1 (dynamic)
Brightness:
300 cd/m2 (typical)
Response Time:
8ms (gray to gray)
Viewing Angle
(178° vertical / 178° horizontal)
Colour Gamut:
82%2 (100% sRGB coverage)
Colour Depth:
16.7 million colours
Pixel Pitch:
0.265 mm
Display Type
Flat Panel Display


Connectivity

1 Digital Visual Interface connectors (DVI-D) with HDCP
DisplayPort (DP)
Video Graphics Array (VGA)
1 USB 2.0 upstream port
4 USB 2.0 downstream ports
DC power connector for Dell Soundbar

Built-In Devices


USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Hub (with 1 USB upstream port and 4 USB downstream ports)

Colour, Size and Weight


Dimensions with stand (H x W x D) :
14.02" x 21.57" x 7.25" (compressed) ~ 17.96" (extended)
35.62 x 54.99 x 18.41 cm (compressed ) ~ 45.61 cm (extended)
Dimensions without stand (H x W x D) :
12.80'' x 21.57'' x 2.56''mm (325.07 x 547.97 x 65.00mm)
Preset Display Area (H x V) :
20.05'' x 11.28'' (509.2 x 286.4 mm)
Weight (with Stand and cables)
6.45kg (14.22lbs)
Weight (with packaging)
8.23kg (18.14Ibs)

If you're playing a lot of fast-paced games, 8 ms will be insufficient I reckon. I'm on a perfectly good BenQ G2412HD, which delivers an impressive feel for dark scenes, 40.000:1 in Dynamic Contrast, 24" as well as being Full HD with a great price!

Maniche

Last fall I bought myself a HP L2151ws, showroom model so instead of 190 Euros it was like 135 Euros. Downside is obviously that is has been on for a very long time but I have yet to discover anything.

21.5 inch, HD, 1920x1080, damn nice resolution! It's not that expensive and a nice size.

I have looked at cheaper monitors but I decided it was worth the extra money to get the best technology on the market at the moment as a monitor is the sort of thing that can last almost forever while the rest of a PC is continually upgraded.

Picture quality is my #1 requirement but from my reading it would appear that basically there is a choice between IPS with the full colour palette and TN with only 256k colours but much higher refresh rates.

There seems to be a lot of debate about refresh rates and gaming - some say 12ms is fine others say 3ms is what you need. For someone who players mainly BF, TF2 and Crysis do you reckon 8ms is enough?

I've seen many reviews where 12 ms was better than one on 5 ms; it's very individually I reckon, but as a rule - the lower the better!

To me, 60 Hz refresh-rate is more than enough; if you tick Vertical Sync it will lock your FPS to your screens refresh-rate, where 60 FPS is perfect for gaming as the human eye can't detect any difference between 120 FPS vs. 60 FPS; everything looks fluent!

Maniche

The 1920x1080 looks beautiful. There is really big difference between square one ;p

I must admit I like 16:9 monitors but at the same time I'm wondering whether a 4:3 would be better so I can use Eyefinity again in the future - 3 of those would be over 1.6 metres wide!

Well I decided to go ahead and buy the Dell U2311H and WOW it's beautiful. I'll try to remember to post a proper review of the monitor after I've been using it for a bit but so far it's great.

The 16:9 will take some getting used to in FPS games but so far the quality is astonishing. Lovely strong uniform backlighting

Me want screen.

NOAW!

Maniche

My only complaint so far is I've had to move my chair back so I don't have to keep turning my head to see the edges of the screen