What to check when purchasing a New Monitor?

[Ogamy]

I am thinking of purchasing a new monitor, I am unsure how to judge quality, I assume any monitor would do fine for general browsing of the internet and daily things such as e-mail... however how do you tell if the monitor is good for gaming as such.

Screen size 24" widescreen
Aspect Ratio 16:9
Resolution 1920x1080
Brightness(Typical) 300 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio(Typical) DC 50,000:1
Response Time 2ms
Viewing Angle(Horizontal/Vertical) 170°/160° (CR>10)
Color Supported 16.7M

Analogue (VGA)
DVI

I've taken a list from Novatech, on one of their monitors. It is their own brand and was curious if this was at all a decent monitor.
If not, how would you judge and make a decent purchase.

 

[hang-the-9]

Here you go, sorted by best rating.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007617%20600030619&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Order=RATING&PageSize=20

You can ignore the 4-500 dollar monitors, those are mainly for pro level work not gaming. Unless you want to spend that much for really the best quality image. Find a price range, read some reviews, pick one.

 

[MauveCloud]

The specifications won't tell you how good it is for gaming. For that, you need to find at least one professional review that makes a more real-world measurement of the response time (rather than average or best-case gray-to-gray response time) and measures the input lag.

 

[jaguarskx]

Specs don't tell all. Most gamers prefer 2ms or 5ms response time monitors. "DC" or Dynamic Contrast should be ignored. Static Contrast is more important and typically ranges between 800:1 to 1200:1.

Professional reviews can help like Prad.de, but you will not find every single monitor reviewed. They have more recent reviews of monitors in German than in English.

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/reviews.html

Another site is:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews.htm


Other than that you will need to rely on user reviews of monitors.

 

[ssddx]

even when it comes to "professional reviews" of response times... as long as the number is under 16ms you will be able to handle the standard 60hz signal heading to the monitor. the 2-5ms ratings found on alot of "TN" panels doesn't justify the lack in quality compared to "IPS" and other panel types. Make sure you check the type of panel so you know what to expect.

as suggested one thing to do would be to look around at a few different monitors that meet your size/resolution/feature requirements and look for written reviews (or customer feedback) on the monitors. pay close attention to any details listed about "ghosting" or "backlight bleed" as these are the most likely issues monitors will have.

if i was about to buy a monitor the first stop would be to a place that actually has monitors on display. this could be a computer show, your local staples/officemax, bestbuy/hhgregg or other electronics shop. reviews are no substitute for seeing a product yourself (but do help). often models on display will have a demo running or you are able to connect to the internet to test out the monitor yourself. i know there are a few websites out there which test all the basics out on a monitor but I don't know them offhand (i googled before).

 

[varis]

I am thinking of purchasing a new monitor, I am unsure how to judge quality, I assume any monitor would do fine for general browsing of the internet and daily things such as e-mail...

Well - comparing a cheap Benq with TN panel from some 2 years back against a Dell U2311H with modern e-IPS panel, the Benq has some colour bleed that's obvious in black text on a white background, making it fuzzy, while on the Dell it's very sharp. I very much do prefer the Dell for tasks such as web browsing

The Dell has 8ms response time, which doesn't seem to be a big issue for gaming. On some games the colours seem richer and more natural than on the Benq... but this depends on various settings.