I'm looking for a good LCD monitor at the moment too. It depends how much money you have to spend I think, Ive been doing a lot of research over the past few days and it looks like it boils down to the panel technology the LCD screen uses. Seems like there are some pretty good screens out there but recently the manufacturers are going for the mass market cheap panels.
Most of the 22" widescreens available all have the same panel and all use the "TN" (Twisted Nematic) technology which is really not we are looking for. These TN panels have very bad viewing angles compared to the superior "IPS" and "S-IPS" panels (in-plane switching / super in-plane switching), they also only use 6-bit colour gamuts rather than 8-bit so lose a lot when it comes to accurate colour reproduction.
There is another few types of panel, most noteably PVA and S-PVA, these are cheaper and slightly (very slightly) more common than IPS in new monitors and they are cheaper than IPS. They use 8-bit gamut and have good viewing angles.
You're using a LaCie now, and LaCie do use S-IPS panels, and are really rather amazing monitors but very (very) expensive compared to your average ViewSonic or Acer. (750-1500 GBP)
The model I'm going for is going to be a S-PVA one, Samsung SM-215TW, about 240 GBP. Ive been looking for days now and i think it's the only one I can afford thats going to be good enough for graphic/illustration work that I can afford ![]()
Some good models (from reading, not hands on experience) are:
Dell 2007WFP
- around 250 GBP. Seems to be a favorite of some groups of people but some reviews say that there are a few revisions floating around though and not all are S-IPS, some being S-PVA. Also some people have commented/written about ghosting and colour banding. (don't quote me on this, ive looked at so many monitors over the past few days its starting to all merge into one)
NEC 20WMGX2
- around 330 GBP. S-IPS I'd get this one if i could afford it ![]()
There are other models but most are discontinued.
Heres a few links from some posts/sites that helped me to make head n tail of it all.
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1039222 (Good thread with short pro-con descriptions)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT\_LCD#Types
Of course if money is no object, just head over to http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/range.htm?id=10016
Those are H-IPS, even better than Super IPS ![]()
Hope you find what youre looking for, It took me a lot of time and cursing price-compare websites to actually get some solid info on this subject. I hate buying/using sub-excellent gear for something as important as this ![]()