1. completely disregard manufacturer's response times - each manufacturer uses its own standards for measuring response times and it depends on what it actually measured ... thus it can not be used for comparison of the every day use or between different models/manufacturers
   
   
2. get an IPS panel, TN can't even reproduce all the colors and PVA panes are just too slow
   
   
3. there are 16:10 (1920x1200) and 16:9 (1920x1080) resolutions - if possible I would recommend a 16:10 panel because if you do anything else other than gaming and watching movies the higher vertical area will be very useful

Based on that I can recommend the following IPS Panels:

(from cheapest to the most expensive)

23", 16:9
Dell U2311H

24", 16:10
HP ZR24w
Asus PA246Q (upgraded and factory calibrated panel from the U2410)
Dell U2410

Out of those 4, my choice would be the Asus PA246Q, or Dell U2311H.

Higher resolutions are always better to have, but since LCD monitors are generally bad at displaying lower than native resolutions you end up having an entire upgrade path forced on you whenever a couple of new games you want to play that can push your hardware come out: to run this resolution i need a better GPU, to run the GPU i need a new power supply, etc etc.

Definitely don't limit yourself in terms of resolution but take this into account. It was a heavy factor for me when i switched to LCD a couple of years ago, i knew i wouldn't be upgrading for at least 3 years so running 1680x1050 was an advantage in that regard (it's a 22" anyway so dot pitch is not affected that much, for bigger monitors it makes sense to go for 1900x1200 or something like that).

As for panel selection, the e-IPS panels used in the cheaper Dell IPS monitors were being made by LG, so there's a high probability it's the exact same monitor with a different brand and bezels/controls.

Right now the only drawbacks of ISP panels are the way they show black (takes a bit of time getting used to) and the lower refresh rates (i think they only just begun doing 120Mhz models and if they are even available they will probably be expensive). I don't mind because any kind of panel has its set of drawbacks. In the case of IPS the viewing angles and colour fidelity are so much better that i can live with a bit of a brighter black.

As for refresh rates, the LCDs don't flicker like CRTs do, so unless you plan on going for stereoscopy/3D or something like that there's no other reason at all to go for a 120Hz TN panel that has inferior colour quality, colour banding (due to the panel crystal alignment and viewing angle limitations, on many TN monitors the top and bottom of the monitor are usually on the margin, the top part gets washed out and the bottom part gets darker when viewed from a normal, straight-on position) and viewing angles.

And since many TN panels claim 170 degrees of viewing angle, we come to the final point: don't trust the quoted specs that much because the way they are defined is a bit too lenient.

For a viewing angle to be considered visible, specs define that 10% of the total brightness/contrast should be visible. In other words, a monitor claiming 170 degrees might only have a usable of 140, moving your viewpoint the rest 30 degrees results in losing 90% of your contrast/brightness (don't remember which one it was) but specs allow it to be quoted as visible.

Response times are tricky as well. LCD crystals function like little shutters, the backlight illuminates the back of the panel and depending on the crystal's rotation the amount of backlight making it to the front of the screen is adjusted. The amount of time between transitions of the crystals is roughly what response time measures.

The thing is, it takes less time for an LCD crystal to transit from "fully shut" (no light passing through, black pixel) to "fully open" than it takes for it to transition between two partially "open" positions.

When you see a 2ms response time in the specs it's usually for the "faster" black to white transition. However, our monitors don't run on full dark/full vivid mode all the time, in fact most of the time they display colours and shades that vary among in-between values. It's easy then to realize that what really matters is the "slower" gray to gray (or g2g for short) response time. For that, anything lower than 8ms is good, anything lower than 5ms is very good.

Finally, there is also a way to correct the tone of the black on an IPS monitor but it needs an extra polarizer. These monitors tend to be professional models and thus more expensive. I'm not really sure but it might also increase input lag a bit (the amount of time between when something happens in the game and when the monitor is able to display it), making them geared more towards professional applications and less towards gaming.

Long story short, things are complicated but the rough list of requirements i would suggest are:

1) IPS panel unless you want to do 3D.

2) Resolution that matches your GPU/power supply upgrade capabilities.

3) Low input lag

4) Fast g2g response times

Hope it helps.


P.S. As for the loss of available field of view in the game, this depends on how the game implements wide screen resolution. Older titles without proper widescreen support "chop up" some of the vertical range to adjust to the monitor while titles with real widescren support will increase the horizontal range. In one of the recent patches true widescreen support was added to CoD, so i guess you won't have any problems.

Theres only one great flat screen to go for, and thats mine:grin:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sams...t-1080p/839420

Samsung XL2370 1080p full HD:cool:

Thanks again guys,

I've never owned anything LG, we've got 1 or 2 at work. From what I understand almost all IPS panels on the market are LG manufactured?

The reason I'm interested in the LG is that they are IPS and LED backlit, the contrast ratio is crazily high and the response time, also due to LED's, is low for an IPS ( 5ms Gray to Gray).

http://www.lg.com/au/it-products/mon...IPS226V-PN.jsp

Plus nice pixel/dot pitch. Hmmmmmmm what to do? The only thing the Dell appears to have over it in specs on paper, is that it's Dell. However, Dell in my circles doesn't have the best name either when it comes to consumer grade products.
I'm really happy with Dell when it comes to enterprise servers though.

Yeah specs on paper are just that. I might pop over to Harvey Norman across the road at lunch time to give me an idea what things look like in reality.

That Asus link T}{OR posted looks great too but it's 3 times more expensive. I'd rather get it wrong at $200 than at $600

Then go with either Dell U2311H or HP ZR24w, both monitors are excellent.

You won't find (albeit very very hard) 16:10 TN panel nowadays, and the next best thing with 16:10 is that HP ZR24w. So, if the budget doesn't allow it - go with U2311H, you most certainly won't regret it. It blows any TN out of the picture, anywhere - every time. ;)

No need to go with LED back lit monitors as well.