All,
If you were considering various computer monitors for a particular application, how do you typically go about comparing them to make sure you are getting the one that is best for the application? Since (like our HT monitors) all have various presets, how do you make sure you are comparing apples to apples instead of getting a biased result from poorly to well calibrated monitors? I am thinking you photographers out there will have some advice.

Of course there is a ton of info on the www, but I'd be interested in any real world suggestions and feedback to help me weed through the onslaught of info and web sites.

Also, I have heard a suggestion that side by side comparison is not the way to go, but to approach each monitor individually and record impressions that way. I don't see the logic there, but curious if anybody has experience there as well.

Thanks in advance.

I buy the cheap one. But, you know, Excel doesn't give a sh!t.

I'm intrigued by the IPS Monitors at Monoprice but just because I like to buy stuff from them.

I'm sure the geek squad will be along shortly with something that more closely resembles "help".

Cheers, Dan.

Or, CatBrat will be along shortly with something that closely resembles "humor".





J/K, Brian. We loves ya.

Tom, your current post count is a cool 7777, savor the moment. Thanks for the help - NOT!

Hmmm well at least I'm getting close. Gotta do something to decrease the boredom. (Yawn)

I look for:

A wide gamut (several percent greater coverage than NTSC), that's gotten pretty easy with LED back lights.

IPS

16:10 ratio (16:9 is just too short for its width)

Other than that, there's not much to worry about, because there's only an handful of IPS makers, and they're all turning out the same stuff. Those Monoprice ones do look interesting.

Oh, and my next monitor will have to have a DisplayPort input, but I don't have one yet.

I'm quite impressed with the Philips IPS display I picked up last year.

I've been generally happy with Dell Ultrasharps, but if you're doing anything where color matters, you'll need to calibrate them.

It doesn't matter what monitor you get, $100 or $10,000, if you're doing anything where color matters, you'll need to calibrate it.

No, I take that back.

If you're going to be looking at your monitor, calibrate it.

Agreed.

Not that I've calibrated any of my monitors of late, but...

Agreed. These were the two main points I looked for on a monitor. Well, that and price. The IPS panels get pricey quick.

another one that can be considered is the HP LP2475w;
which i have had for a few years now and find to be quite good.

I had one of those too. Nice monitor. Not big enough.

re the HP LP2475w, you can read a good review here:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hp_lp2475w.htm

and, on this page can be found lots of pro monitor reviews:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews.htm

Cool, J.B., I was just thinking about posting that link to TFT Central. Used that site quite a bit when researching monitors.

Hi guys, thanks for all of the responses. Rather than recommendations on specific models, I was hoping to get some insight on calibration and comparison techniques between monitors. This is more about the process and technique.

I was trying to keep it simple, but for background this is for a work application of reviewing ultrasound & CT images primarily. We must use a touch screen interface and have somewhat limited suppliers to choose from. We are not dealing with standard Dell, Logitech etc... We have some samples in house with more coming and I am looking to make sure that when we review our various options that 1)we are making a fair comparison between them (i.e. they are calibrated correctly - apples to apples) and 2) we are using an objective as possible evaluation, be that specific test patterns images etc...

All samples we are evaluating are already designed for this purpose, so i am getting into splitting hairs between them.

So with that further information, has anybody done a direct comparison between monitors and what calibration techniques, material, test patterns, images etc have you used? Pros cons...

Thanks again!

I have dual HP ZR24W's on my edit system which I like and seem to be similar to the one above.

On my Photoshop computer I use a Samsung 244T that I've always liked.

I never liked the 1920X1080 rez, preferring the 1920X1200 monitors.

Now that I think of it, all the rest of the monitors that I have in use are 24" and they are all HPs or Samsungs.

I should add that I use the ColorMunki system for calibration.

I use the Spyder4Pro for my color calibration.
http://spyder.datacolor.com/portfolio-view/spyder4pro/

I have no advice on calibrating or comparison. However, I am really enjoying how after stating specifically that you were not interested in actual model recommendations, you immediately received 4 more model reviews.

Murph, it's not a matter of telling him what he wants to hear, it's a matter of telling him what we want to tell him!

Seriously, I saw that he wasn't looking for model recommendations, I mentioned it only because it may / may not be helpful to anyone else too. I didn't even recommend the models I use, since they're no longer available (I assume), though I DO happen to like them.

Both very funny!

I have one.
It always had this slight yellow tinge i've never liked.
Haven't done any calibrating with it. Was actually hoping to hold off long enough on buying LCD until something more interesting came out; like OLED.
But dammit, my CRT Viewsonic died.
I had no choice.

Holy crap that's expensive.
But you have to love the simplicity of their advertising argument:
The Swiss-engineered ColorMunki spectrophotometer is a portable all-in-one device .... it even has a Built-in ... a "Swiss Army Knife" of color management.

The only calibrator I've used was the Pantone el-cheapo model, whatever that was. It was... ok.