MVA vs IPS

[sk1939]

I'm looking at a new 24" monitor for various reasons. I'm having a hard time choosing as my options vary widely:

HP ZR24W (IPS LCD): $250 (Used)
HP ZR2440W (IPS LED): $320 (New)
Samsung S24A650D (MVA): $280 (New)
Dell UltraSharp U2412M: $320 (New)
Dell UltraSharp U2410: $320 (Used)

Main uses are text, photography work, and web development. Must have Displayport (which these all do). Less is more in this case, but which one would you pick? Note: I know the ZR24W has some scaling issues, but it will be used as a monitor only.

 

[jeffredo]

I can't comment on any other the others as I have had no experience with them, but I can say that I like my new Dell U2412M very much. I prefer the 16:10 aspect ratio with a 1920x1200 resolution. Webpages are better proportioned as are documents in Openoffice. Text remains clean and crisp even when the font is quite small. The color and contrast are very good (I calibrated it with a Spyder4 Elite). The backlight is also very uniform - best of any monitor I've ever own with no noticeable bleed through. The stand is very adjustable (but no more so than the others you have listed). I got it for about $300 in August. After a month and a half I'm extremely satisfied and would absolutely buy it again.

It is an e-IPS panel with 6 bit + FRC color, but once calibrated it showed 99% sRGB coverage and that's pretty good. I have only two minor gripes with it. One is that it doesn't have 1:1 pixel mapping so if I should ever want to view 1080p content without stretching I would have to set it in my video card (with really isn't hard). While it has a 4:3 aspect ratio option in the menu its not dynamic. I have to reset it to "wide 16:10" to keep widescreen content from having black bars on the right and left sides. Again, very minor omissions that I rarely use.

 

[jaguarskx]

VA panel monitors tends to have better contrast ratios than IPS panel monitors. A high quality VA panel can have a static contrast ratio (more important than dynamic contrast ratio) of about 5000:1. But those are expensive high-end monitors. VA panels can typically do about 3000:1 whereas IPS panels can do 1000:1. The static contrast allows for better differentiation between color tones and reduces the chances of "black crush" where color tones that are very, very close to each other simply gets displayed as a single color tone, rather than 3 or 4 or how many actual color tones that are supposed to be displayed.

There's a lot of pros and con for VA and IPS monitors. The above example is a pro for VA and a con for IPS. But there are a lot of other factors. VA panels are more prone to gamma shifts while IPS panels are more prone to have white glow when they are viewed off angle. Both of which distorts colors, but in different ways.

All the monitors you have selected are considered low end or average consumer oriented monitors. For photography I would probably opt for the Dell U2410 simply because it has a H-IPS panel and is superior than the less expensive e-IPS Dell U2412M. The only issue is that it is used.

The Dell U2412M seems like a very good e-IPS monitor and I may buy to replace an Asus VK246H monitors that's used for general purposes.

 

[sk1939]

I ended up buying the ZR24W because it is still under warranty (6 mo old) and it was the cheapest option. I wanted to avoid the WG display because I don't have any means of color calibration at the moment, and it would get in the way of most of what I am doing.

 

[sk1939]

Best answer selected by sk1939.