27 Inch monitor recommendations

After filling my shopping cart with all the goodies to build my new PC last week I was surprised to find the total cost was much lower then I had anticipated. That of course meant I could buy more stuff. More stuff being a nice 27 inch monitor. Since the monitor was meant to be purchased later I took the recommendation of the guy at the store and bought an LG 27MP35. On paper it's a great monitor and I was pretty happy with it especially since it has an IPS panel. Then I turned it on...

The blacks on this monitor are nothing short of terrible. Calling them anything but grey is lying. The OSD is clunky and extremely difficult to use. The software has settings not available in the OSD but the software causes the display to turn overscan off and on when exiting a 3D app or when the monitor comes out of sleep. It does this non stop until I kill the app. Also the monitor only has one HDMI and one VGA connection. The software does not work on the HDMI connection and sadly the screen looks better on VGA. I've also noticed the back light intensity adjusts itself even with power saving options turned off.

Anywho... I want a 27 inch monitor with good color reproduction. That's really my only demand other then I would prefer to pay less then $400. I'm not stupid so I will go higher on price if I have too. It would be a bonus if the presets for brightness, contrast, and color were actually useable as well. My old 22 in Samsung had great presets for everyday stuff and I only created a custom profile for picture viewing.

 

QNIX is the way to go.

Check this thread out

 

The biggest question is how good do you want the color reproduction to be? I use a Dell 24" Ultrasharp Premier Color and the colors are astounding - night & day compared to anything I've used since...it also cost two to three times what I've used previously too. Out of the box they come calibrated for 99% AdobeRBG. They are not the best for gaming though geared mostly for professional photo-editing. The 24" model, new is $412 from Dell right now, the 27" jumps quite a bit to $750.

Again - a lot depends on what you're using the monitor for. I use it for a bit of photo editing and love the vibrant rich colors. I game too and don't need 120hz which is silky smooth.

 

I would recommend the BenQ XL2430T monitor. It is still within your price range. It features BenQ's Motion Blur Reduction, 1ms response time, and 144Hz refresh rate. I would have recommended the BenQ XL2420G, but it is slightly outside your price range. I found this article that lists several other monitors that I think you may want to look at.

 

Dell all the way.

 

Dell

 

Hello everyone.What do you think of this monitor ?

http://www.iiyama.com/gb_en/products/prolite-b2780hsu-w2/

It is the colour that interests me (i have a white setup), it has good characteristics,I would use it mainly for gaming but for normal use as well. Problem is that is only a 60Hz monitor. :/

 

+1

The BenQ XL range really are something special. "Only" TN tho, in order to get the 144hz so if accurate colours are for you you'd be better of with an IPS.

But for gaming you'd struggle to beat these, the stand alone is phenomenal and the MBR really works, even at 144hz. I've heard many only work up to 120hz.

 

If I were you, I wouldn't get 27 inch @1080p, the monitor looks stretched, and it does not look as sharp as 23-24 counterparts either, now let me tell you how I went all the way, My first monitor was an AOC TN panel, I hated its gamma shifting and awful color reproduction, my second monitor was an ah-ips Asus mx239h, well to tell you the truth in a dark room, where I always stay, the blacks were awful and it was just medium grey rather than black, it felt like I was missing all details in dark scenes, everything was washed out and looked awful, it turned out that monitors with edge to edge glass, look that way for the fact that the glass is highly reflective, and the deep black bars near the edges, reduce the black perception, well in a vain attempt I bought an AMVA+ monitor, a 27 incher, Asus VN279H, just for the blacks they were supposed to offer, well I was happy for a couple of days, but all of a sudden, I noticed that perfect black also had a cost, black crush, awful and ugly black crush in extremely dark scenes, so I kept on calibrating for days and weeks, but black crush was going to stay there, no matter how hard I tried, desperately I went for my last monitor, this time a Samsung S24D390hl, the first monitor I got, suffered from DSE, dirty screen effect near edges, I RMAed my monitor and got the replacement, after a few days, I put it next to my Vn279h to do a side by side comparison, to tell you the truth only then I found out how awful 27 inch is @ 1080p, everything was far sharper on samsung s24d390hl, whites were white, color accuracy was almost perfect, OSD and other features for adjustments were great, viewing angles were top notch, even when I compare it to ah-ips, it was time for the hardest test, how do blacks look like in a dark room, I was anxious, turned off lights set brightness at 60, and chose gamma mode 3, started playing splinter cell black list, and wow.... I literally mean wow... little to no glow, no back light bleeding... well blacks were not as good as the AMVA+ monitor, but that black without any crushing in a cave like my room, for a none VA panel was excellent....
I highly recommend this monitor, I almost tried all LCD panel technologies out there in a year since I bought my gtx 780, and today after almost a year, I have some peace of mind...

 

Keep in mind that different brands and even different models within brands can have markedly different results when it comes to blacks, colour reproduction, motion etc.

If I were buying a monitor now, I'd get this one:
http://www.benq.com/product/monitor/ew2750zl/

It's a new model though, may not be available everywhere yet.

 

It also has this ACR function (like the Samsung "gaming mode") and overdrive as well. I just wish it were at least 75Hz.

Now on the Resolution matter: @Saman, thanks for providing all this info. 1080P is the cheapest "good" resolution anyone would buy. I thought about using the VSR function that the Omega Drivers of AMD provide. Downscale 2K and 3K Resolutions to run on a 1080P monitor. From what I've seen so far it works well.

 

you won't replace the missing pixels with downsampling. 1440p will look amazing compared to 1080p on a 27" monitor. Something to keep in mind.

 

That i know, still it is an alternative. Is 2K 60Hz OK for Gaming?

 

I might try 2k DSR on my 1080p tonight actually. Might be OK for desktop stuff.

Than again could be awful lol

 

Your GPU will perform as if it would be connected to a real 2K display. Clearer image, less FPS (but still high). You can go up to 4K actually. VSR of AMD Radeon goes up to 3K for 290X at the moment but I am using it on 2K too. Works well.

 

Tried it, looked OK actually, but I wouldn't want to use it for programming or anything, bit blurry.

I did like the extra screen real estate tho, kinda regret not getting a 2K monitor now

 

I Don't know how the Nvidia DSR works, but AMD's VSR works only with games. SO with actual desktop tasks you still have your actual 1080P resolution. What VSR does is add resolutions in the game preferences that are not natively supported by your monitor and downscales, so that the game can be played with higher resolution on your monitor. If Money is a matter then this is a great solution. I want to buy a new gaming Monitor 27" -28" one,144Hz but I want it in white colour because of White setup but I can't find one... This should be 1080P most likely since VSR eliminates for me the need of buying a more expensive one. I will be playing in "virtual" 2K and 3K and still enjoy the 144Hz. This sounds great.

 

What do you think of this one?

http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/cpindex.pl?ctn=272G5DJEB/01&hlt=Link_Overview&scy=GB&slg=ENG

 

DSR it works everywhere on Nvidia, even the desktop

You just change the resolution in the normal Windows way so for all intents and purposes Windows thinks I've got a 2k/4k monitor.

EDIT: You don't *have* to change the Windows resolution BTW, you can just change it in games like the AMD implementation you describe.

Just though I'd make that clear...lol