Inexpensive monitor for graphic work needed

NotVeryTechie

Hi there

My monitor at work died and I need to make a decision fairly quickly on a new one. The one I borrowed at the moment is so bad my eyes feel like they have washed in acid. Anyway, I work in marketing, so mostly boring stuff like Word and Excel, but also an amount of design work, including Photoshop and InDesign.

My company are not going to splash out on a massive fancy monitor. But I do need something with good clarity and fairly good colour matching. I have looked at the Samsung S24D590PL @ £170 and the BenQ GW2760HS @ £175. Any thoughts on these or other options?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

PenguinJim

The BenQ is a AMVA panel, so you can cross that off the list straight away.

The Dell U2412M is a lovely monitor, IPS, 1920x1200. The stand will let the screen rotate to Portrait mode, which is sometimes handy. Available directly through Amazon for £196.68 delivered at the moment.

enkoda

Or how about this Dell Studio S2340L 23" IPS Panel for £165?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-063-DE

PenguinJim

As my grandmother always used to say, "16:9 is a waste of time; 16:10, time and again."

NotVeryTechie

Wise Grandmother! Thank you for the suggestions. I am going to research those a bit. Is it good for design work?

Nilrem

The Dell Pro range tend to be very good for image quality (not sure on the current prices), and colour reproduction, but I can't give any specific examples as it's been a while since I last bought one.

PenguinJim

The U2412M is great for design work. It's more aimed at professionals than at general-purpose uses (no speakers, no HDMI, but it has DVI, a Stand of Rotation, and lots of USBs). A key benefit of 1920x1200 for design work is the ability to have a 1080P image or video reproduced at 1:1 on the screen, while also having the space for your design toolbars.

It's all IPSey and colour-reproducey and stuff, too (stop me if I start getting too technical).

I may be a bit out of touch, though - I did investigate for buying a new screen for a friend around April, so something may have come along in the past three-four months which is 1920x1200, 24", IPS (or a new equivalent), and is a more cost-effective solution. As the U2412M is two years old, an even better professional screen for the price is certainly overdue! Anyone?

If you need to go cheap, I'd suggest it would need to be a big saving to make it worth passing on the U2412M. There's the LG 24MB35PY, which is a 23.8" 1920x1080 16:9 IPS screen. The stand has rotate/tilt/height adjustments, DVI DisplayPort, some USB ports, and is £137.88 delivered at the moment. It has speakers, which the Dell doesn't; I know monitor speakers are generally rubbish, but sometimes it's just useful to have them there. If you can't stretch to the U2412M, a £60 saving isn't too bad for this screen, IMO.

NotVeryTechie

Wow, thank you. The suggestions are great. I am going to try for the U2412M and see if the boss will go for that.

Oblivion

NotVeryTechie wrote: »

Wow, thank you. The suggestions are great. I am going to try for the U2412M and see if the boss will go for that.

Another very satisfied user of the Dell U2412M here. Straight out of the box it looked a little soft, but play with the menu settings and you can achieve amazing sharpness and clarity. I also bought the Dell speaker bar which clips very neatly to the bottom of the screen and gives very acceptable audio.

NotVeryTechie

It looks like I may be able to get this monitor. Happy Friday for me!

Thanks for all the help.