BobcatDan
12-27-08, 12:15 AM
I won't call this a review, since I don't think I'm able to give a quality review, but I'll give you my thoughts.
First, my last monitor was an Acer AL2216W, which I am replacing because it just doesn't look good compared to my new Dell XPS 1530 screen. The whites on the Acer just aren't white, and the blacks aren't great either. And with the lack of decent menu options to correct for this, I decided to replace it with something a little bigger and with better features.
I settled on the BenQ because of its reviews and features. Every other monitor in it's price range either reviewed to have worse picture or fewer options. I really like that it has 1:1 pixel mapping, to go with it's HDMI port if I choose to plug in my PS3 to it. Not the most necessary option but useful (especially when I choose to upgrade again, giving me more versatility to use it elsewhere).
It seems to have great color balance out of the box, very white whites (not off hue like the 2216), and very good blacks for an LCD. There is some tweaking to be done, I'll probably try my DVE disk (home theater calibration) since I have a copy.
My second biggest complaint about the 2216 was the viewing angles. Side to side with the 2216 was decent, but would loose some hue (going to an orange color). That didn't bother me as much as when standing, a lot of the colors would silver-out or invert, making pictures or movies hard to see standing next to the computer. The 2400 has much better side to side viewing angles, going to the orange tone but to a much lesser extent and at larger angles). The vertical viewing angle is outstanding in comparison, for the most part colors retain their hue though the image does seem to dim slightly (again, not nearly as significantly). The 2400 is better than my dell laptop in this respect.
In other aspects the monitors are very similar. Neither shows any noticeable ghosting, both are easily bright enough for dark images in a bright room (my OLD OLD dell 15" LCD was too dim for dark games in a well lit room).
There is very little backlight bleed from the 2400, some across the top and bottom of the screen, but unless you're specifically looking for it in a pitch black room on a completely black screen you won't ever notice it. The 2216 had some backlight bleed that you could notice during dark games (like in crysis when you'd go into a cut scene with the black borders on the top and bottom). But I have seen monitors with much worse backlight bleed than either of these two.
In strait on (sitting in front of it) quality of image, it's better than my 2216, and at least tied with my 1530's display. For the size and the price, I am very pleased. The fewest downsides and greatest upsides of any monitor for the price, IMHO of course. I had it shipped from newegg (risky I know) so far no dead or stuck pixels, though on this screen they're going to be pretty hard to find...
I'll post more when I get a chance to play with it some, pics to come when I get a chance to calibrate it some.
Dan
First, my last monitor was an Acer AL2216W, which I am replacing because it just doesn't look good compared to my new Dell XPS 1530 screen. The whites on the Acer just aren't white, and the blacks aren't great either. And with the lack of decent menu options to correct for this, I decided to replace it with something a little bigger and with better features.
I settled on the BenQ because of its reviews and features. Every other monitor in it's price range either reviewed to have worse picture or fewer options. I really like that it has 1:1 pixel mapping, to go with it's HDMI port if I choose to plug in my PS3 to it. Not the most necessary option but useful (especially when I choose to upgrade again, giving me more versatility to use it elsewhere).
It seems to have great color balance out of the box, very white whites (not off hue like the 2216), and very good blacks for an LCD. There is some tweaking to be done, I'll probably try my DVE disk (home theater calibration) since I have a copy.
My second biggest complaint about the 2216 was the viewing angles. Side to side with the 2216 was decent, but would loose some hue (going to an orange color). That didn't bother me as much as when standing, a lot of the colors would silver-out or invert, making pictures or movies hard to see standing next to the computer. The 2400 has much better side to side viewing angles, going to the orange tone but to a much lesser extent and at larger angles). The vertical viewing angle is outstanding in comparison, for the most part colors retain their hue though the image does seem to dim slightly (again, not nearly as significantly). The 2400 is better than my dell laptop in this respect.
In other aspects the monitors are very similar. Neither shows any noticeable ghosting, both are easily bright enough for dark images in a bright room (my OLD OLD dell 15" LCD was too dim for dark games in a well lit room).
There is very little backlight bleed from the 2400, some across the top and bottom of the screen, but unless you're specifically looking for it in a pitch black room on a completely black screen you won't ever notice it. The 2216 had some backlight bleed that you could notice during dark games (like in crysis when you'd go into a cut scene with the black borders on the top and bottom). But I have seen monitors with much worse backlight bleed than either of these two.
In strait on (sitting in front of it) quality of image, it's better than my 2216, and at least tied with my 1530's display. For the size and the price, I am very pleased. The fewest downsides and greatest upsides of any monitor for the price, IMHO of course. I had it shipped from newegg (risky I know) so far no dead or stuck pixels, though on this screen they're going to be pretty hard to find...
I'll post more when I get a chance to play with it some, pics to come when I get a chance to calibrate it some.
Dan