19" HDTV vs 23" Monitor? TN or IPS? Please help!

xDarkxIdealsx

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Jul 10, 2013
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I have about $150 left to buy a 1080p display after paying for my new gaming PC, i've been using my Haier LEC19B1320 19" 720p HDTV, and I was thinking of getting an ASUS VS238H-P 23" monitor. The problem is that even though Amazon listed it as an IPS panel monitor, people have told me that it's a TN panel, and they all say that TN monitors are just horrible with color and graphic quality.

I honestly thought that my 19" Haier HDTV looked pretty good for it's size and price, the only reason I'm upgrading is to get a bigger screen (23 or 24 inch) and to upgrade to 1080p resolution. So my questions are -

1. Are TN monitors really THAT bad?

2. Is my Haier HDTV a TN panel also? It is listed as 160/160 Viewing angle so I don't think it's a VA but I could be wrong.

3. Would an Asus 23" TN panel look at least as good as my Haier HDTV or maybe better?

The asus VS238h-p TN is only $129 after rebate, but the IPS panel ASUS vs239h-p and the AOC 23" IPS are $159 and I'm not sure if they have a headphone jack (I HAVE to use headphones) But if my Haier is a TN also, then I know that the TN monitor will look at least the same color quality, but with bigger screen and resolution.

This is the TN monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236175

And these are the cheapest IPS monitors i can find

AOC
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7694609&sku=A204-2313

ASUS
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-VS239H-P-23-Inch-Full-HD-Monitor/dp/B008DWITHI/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1373480215&sr=1-1&keywords=vh239h

ViewSonic
http://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-VX2370SMH-LED-23-Inch-Monitor-Frameless/dp/B008RM235I/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1373482782&sr=1-2-fkmr2&keywords=aoc+ips+hdmi
 
The answer is a little complicated. TN models are not all that bad. And low-end IPS monitors are not all that good, either.

Until recently, IPS was a technology limited to applications for people who needed color accuracy for print. The "real" IPS monitors start at about $800. I say "real" because true IPS can display more than 95% of the Adobe RGB colorspace, which has billions of colors. A lot of companies have created their own IPS technologies and called them by similar monikers, but they aren't going to properly represent what most folks refer to when they talk about an "IPS panel." You should be able to look at the product description and find "1.06 billion colors" not "16.7 million" colors. If you cannot find that, it is probably just marketing.

I could be wrong, but for < $300 I would not expect there to be any meaningful differences between "IPS" monitors and TN monitors.

My only other advice is to get a monitor without a gloss finish, unless you only play in the darkest of rooms (glossy screens are a pain in any sort of mixed light environment).
 


Ok, thanks. but which of these monitors would you reccomend to a pc gamer? And I don't mean super competitive Battlefield 3/Halo tournament type stuff, I mainly play games like Dark Souls, Metro 2033, Skyrim, Far Cry 3, and a few older games modded to look better graphically like Morrowind, Final Fantasy VII etc..

 
Probably the Asus TN. Another caveat of IPS monitors is that they are very, very bright. Like, it will hurt your eyes if you don't have several other lights on in the room. And, while you can turn the brightness down, you lose the color accuracy, which is the strength of IPS, if you do so. Last, IPS has a higher input lag than TN, and IPS has ghosting, which is poorly suited for gaming applications.
 


Hmm, i was told that as long as you're not doing competitive multiplayer FPS games that tht TN panel's 2ms wasn't necessary and 5ms input lag like the IPS has was ok, and wouldn't cause ghosting.

But anyway, do you think that the ASUS TN would look better than my Haier 19" TV for gaming? I'm not sure if the Haier is a TN or VA because they don't list the panel type anywher i've looked, but since it's viewing angles are 160 / 160 i know it's not IPS
 


Yes. The upgrade is justifiable purely based on resolution. 1920x1080 > 1440x720. Putting the comparison in terms of megapixels ought to be helpful to you: the Asus is 2.07MP vs. the Haier's 1.04MP

 


Sorry, i guess i worded that question wrong, I know that 1080 has over twice the pixels, but what I meant was if everything else was equal would an ASUS monitor look better than a Haier HDTV of the same size and resolution? For example, if I were comparing a 23" Haier 1080p TV and a 23" ASUS 1080p TN Monitor, which would look overall better in color/graphics. I'm wondering about the difference in Picture quality between HDTV and Monitors , and whether Haier TV's are anywhere near as good as most low budget monitors like the one's I listed (ASUS, AOC, Viewsonic, LG, Acer in the $130-$160 range.)

The only reason I stayed with those three choices was because they were the only reasonably priced IPS, but if i'm looking at TN then I can get any brand of monitor within the $160 or under range.
 
Ah, okay I see what you're saying.

Before I answer, I have to say, I LOVE Morrowind--somehow I missed reading that in your earlier post. I've been looking for a good graphics mod for it. Do you recommend any particular one? I tried the overhaul 2.0 or something like that this past fall and it was *beautiful* but I ran out of time to play it and haven't tried it since.

Moving on, I took a look at the Haier, and I can't find anything really specific about their HDTV or TV models, except that they're LED lit and have the resolution and brightness you would expect. My initial feeling is that for an HDTV and a monitor of the same resolution and size, there would not be a difference in picture quality. However, you would be paying more for the HDTV since it has to include features like a tuner, remote control, etc (but perhaps you want it to perform two roles).

I also looked in detail at all of the monitors you listed, and the AOC is definitely a TN-like monitor; they even list 16 million colors on the TigerDirect website. Perhaps their 'form' of IPS (which appears to be AH-IPS, which is made exclusively by LG) only improves the viewing angle, or perhaps something else that I'm not smart enough to understand.

With the ASUS IPS, I suspect it is basically TN also, since true IPS monitors are always eager to point out the 1.07 billion color statistic in their product details. Likewise for the ViewSonic.

All of that said, if the IPS and TN models are the same price, go for the IPS, since they probably did find a way to make an IPS tech that doesn't deliver what the high end models deliver, but does have some sort of advantage--the viewing angle is the most likely advantage, since that's what I see as the most talked about point in the product descriptions.

And with all of that in mind, I now think that the AOC may be the best buy because it looks relatively "frameless," which would make it a GREAT candidate for a tri-monitor setup* (the less frame you have between the monitors, the more seamless the experience is). AND it detaches from its stand, which means you could probably flip each monitor vertically so you have a 3160x1920 resolution, which I find preferable to 5760x1080.

Edit: *should you find yourself wanting upgrade, a tri-monitor setup is awesome.
 
The Morrowind graphics and sound overhaul is great, I use the 3.0 overhaul that just came out recently, it makes the game look even better than oblivion in some cases (except character body animations, and oblivions faces will always be worse than morrowinds lol)

Basically it adds high resolution textures to enhance the detail of everything in the game, like faces, weapons, armor, trees, water, etc.. It includes bug fixes, the better bodies mod which fixes the creepy anorexic rib cage look of the characters and makes women shapely and men a little more fit looking (although be sure to check the version you're using, there is a "nude" version and the "underwear" one, depending on if nudity bothers you) Then it lets you choose from several different tree designs for each region of the game, you can change the price of items etc.. it basically lets you customize everything about the game's graphics and gameplay :)

Anyway, what I've read is that technically 6 bit TN panels, even though they "claim" to have 16.7 million colors, only display 262,000 colors, and that e-ips are still 6 bit but with better viewing angles, and with supposedly better color calibration/lighting. And I've heard that most of the other cheaper IPS types like AH have 16.7 million because they are 8 bit, and the super IPS $500+ monitors are the one's with the 10 bit or higher and billions of colors.

The AOC looks real cool, especially the picture of it with no border and the image stretching all the way across the screen with "no border", but when you turn it on there's a thin black "cinema/matchbox" style bar around the screen instead of a border/bezel. So it's not really "borderless" like it claims.

I just wish there was some way to tell whether the IPS one's are 6 bit fak-e ips (262,000) or 8 bit IPS(true 16.7 million).

~obviously they're not 10 bit 1 billion color IPS)

The only thing that worries me about IPS is whether backlight bleed will ruin gaming and the slight possibility of ghosting. The price was an issue until I noticed a 10% newegg promo discount just sitting there in my email inbox -__- so I can afford up to $180 total with shipping now :)
 
You're right, that is a very tricky thing to verify, and I wish I could be of help. I did see a review of a ViewSonic model that was more expensive (and had more resolution and a much nicer stand which could account for the cost difference) that was advertised as AH-IPS, and in the review it described how that panel displays 98% of sRGB, which would be the true 16.7 million colors that you seek.

The ViewSonic model you listed in your OP is also advertised as AH-IPS, so it would seem the width of the gamut would be the same across both models.

As for gaming on IPS (though perhaps a much different IPS technology, I don't know)
I play on a Dell U2711 (true IPS, displays 97% of Adobe RGB), and I don't have any real problems with ghosting. It is noticeable, but far from unplayable, provided you can enable adequate motion blur. And though I like to blame any 1v1 losses on the input lag, that doesn't mean it's a real hindrance to my gaming ability.
 


Yeah, the viewsonic one is really starting to sound good, it comes with built in speaker, headphone jack, AH-IPS, HDMI, everything I need basically for $169 minus the 10% which comes to about $160 with shipping. I'm pretty sure that all AH-IPS are at least 8 bit 17.6 mil color, at least i hope it isn't 6 bit. I'm not sure about the 1440p Dell u2711 you have, but I know that the 1440p Dell u2713h which is just a more recent model of the u2711 is an AH-IPS but it's 10 bit 1.07 billion colors.

I saw a video that compared the $159 LG IPS234v AH-IPS to a TN monitor and the difference was quite apparent in a couple pictures, specifically a scene with a helicoptor filming over a small housing park out by some farms, and the shadows on the houses were nice and black on the LG ah-ips but were bright BLUE on the TN. lol.

This is the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYDpIQ4jkJY

Overall though, the LG ah ips in the video has a 14ms gtg response time, while the viewsonic was listed on amazon and newegg as 7ms gtg although it boasts a very suspicious 4ms gtg response on the official viewsonic website -__- Dafuq marketing?

So, it seems that viewsonic has pulled in the lead. Do you have any experience with viewsonic? Or is there ANYONE else on here? I've never heard of viewsonic untill recently so I don't know whether they are reputable or not.
 
There's a lot been said here that's correct but quite a lot that isn't. Firstly, you're focusing far too much here on colour depth. You're correct that 8 bits/component is desirable for smoother gradients and reduced/no use of FRC, BUT that's not the most noticeable benefit of IPS. The crucial difference is colour shift. With a TN panel, colour will never be displayed the same from top to bottom of the screen.

As your eyes are level with the bottom of the display you'll see colour at the bottom becomes far stronger and more vibrant. But look at fine details in on dark/black backgrounds and they'll disappear as your eye level is closer. The top of the screen from this angle will look faded and washed out, but those fine details are highly visible. Move your eyes up towards the top and you'll see those details fade into black as the top colour becomes stronger/deeper, while the bottom of the screen will become too dark.

Obviously in practice your eye level will be central (or 1/4 down, 2/3 down etc). That means that colour above eye level will always be weaker and colour below will be darker and suffer a loss of detail in dark areas. You can test it yourself - get a photo or game wallpaper on your desktop (something with a variety of colours) and move your head up and down - see how the colours and detail shift. Be warned - you will look silly doing this.

With IPS, do the same as you will see zero colour shift. Colour will be flawless, strong, vibrant across the entire screen and all fine detail will be flawlessly preserved. Like I say, 8 bits/component colour depth is absolutely desirable, but it's not the main point.

The stuff about IPS being too light is not entirely correct either. Your IPS monitor will be too bright initially (at 100%) but that's the same with TN film panels and PLS panels, PVA, AMVA... it's universal. There's nothing inherently too bright about IPS 🙂

If exceptional deep blacks are important to you, you won't get them from IPS, but you won't from TN either. Or MVA/AMVA. For that you'd need a PVA panel. I'm not recommending that (though I use one myself and it's awesome) because they're rarely sold and they make other compromises. But it's important to highlight that every TFT panel is a compromise. There is no perfect panel type that leads in every area.

So the fastest TN panels will have superior pixel response, but that certainly doesn't mean they all do. The fastest IPS panels are faster than most TN panels - just the fastest TN are even faster still. And when I talk about speed, I'm not talking about the manufacturer-quoted specs - they're absolute crap. Please disregard those are use a professional monitor review site like www.tftcentral.co.uk to compare high-speed photography results.

For a combination of both quality and speed, your best all-rounder is an IPS or PLS panel with excellent RTC overdrive (which applies increased voltage to high-contrast pixel switching in order to improve response). Almost all monitor manufacturers have some kind of RTC implementation, but some are far more effective than others. Among reasonably-priced displays, ASUS's Trace Free is the absolute best of these. I'd recommend these models:

ML229H
ML239H
PA238Q
PB238Q
VG23AH
MX239H
PA248Q
MX279H
PB278Q

Trace Free gives more granular control over the overdrive impulse, and that's really important for effectively eliminating trails. Problem is, too much voltage applied means you get 'overshoot' - an inverting of the trails. You're simply swapping one type of trail for another. Many manufacturer's RTC implementations are guilty of this. Options are limited to on/off or off/medium/high and none are exactly right (think of it as like a focal point on a camera). Trace Free gives options of 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. 40 gives best results on most ASUS models. Alternatively, Iiyama's implementation also gives a lot of control (-2, -1, 0, +1 and +2 settings). For Iiyama:

ProLite X2377HDS
ProLite XB2380HS
ProLite X2485WS
ProLite XB2485WSU

Oh and 720p is 1280x720 - not 1440x720 (which would be crazy super widescreen 🙂)

Let me know if you have any other questions.