New 28(ish) inch screen

[Tannin]

One of my much-loved Samsung 21 inch screens is dying. Now you might think that 21 inches isn't very special, but these are real 21 inch screens - 4:3 aspect ratio, 1200 pixels high: better resolution than any Full HD / 1080p monitor ever made (1200px makes a significantly more detailed picture than 1080). And they are big: don't be misled by the 21 inch diagonal; because of the 4:3 aspect ratio the picture is 330 mm high. For comparison, the 25 inch "wide screen" monitor on my seldom-used spare computer is 300mm high.

Trouble is, no-one makes big 4:3 screens anymore. All iPads have 4:3 screens, there is a growing trend for better-quality Android tablets to have them too, and you can readily buy 4:3 screens in smaller sizes for business and point of sale tasks, but no bigger than 19 inches. I have no doubt that you will be able to get 4:3 photographic size screens as big as my wonderful old Samsungs or bigger sometime in the next few years - the trend has started - but you can't buy them today.

Now I'll see about getting the Samsung repaired, of course. It will be the power supply again. I've had both of them repaired before: the power supplies seem to fail every five years or so, and always at the start of winter when the room temperature drops below 10 degrees. It will cost maybe $300 to fix, which is well worth it. (New, these screens were $1400 or so, which was real money in those days.)

Nevertheless, I am going to buy a new screen in the next couple of days, and when the Samsung comes back it can either be a second screen on this system or replace one of the cheap, generic screens on the spare system.

I'm thinking 27 to 30 inches, maybe more, certainly not less, and vertical resolution must be better than the 1200 I have now - i.e., 1440 or higher: I'm not sure how practical the really high resolutions are, never tried one. In any case, I might run into problems with display drivers for them - I'm running these off a laptop with docking station and I am certainly not going to blow two or three grand on a new Thinkpad when this T530 is running so beautifully and has years of useful life left in it. (Horizontal resolution doesn't matter within reason, it's the vertical that usually restricts you.)

This Dell looks like the sort of thing I'd like- http://accessories.ap.dell.com/sna/p...&sku=210-41434 - but at $2050 it's hellishly expensive. It has a 16:10 ratio (not 4:3 but noticeably better than the common 16:9), IPS (of course), has both Display Port and DVI inputs (DVI is the most convenient, but has max resolution limitations which might trip me up; if so, the Thinkpad has built-in Display Port which would be OK too - yes, you can get converter cables and so on, but I never really trust them, seen too many problems before.) It is reasonably energy efficient (not great but not bad) and of course it has good colour balance ex-factory. (I have a Spyder, but the better a screen's colour is in the first place, the easier life is.)

This 32 inch Samsung looks nice at around $1900 http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/m...U32D97KQSN/XY# but it's a lot of money.

At about $1000 there is this Viewsonic: http://www.viewsonic.com.au/products...LED.php#pSpecs

HP have this one at around $800 http://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaS...A&opt=&sel=MTO and about six different high-spec models in the $2000 to $3000 range.

Of them all, I think I like the Dell best at this stage, but surely I can spend a good bit less than that and get something pretty decent. Ideas and experiences please good AP members?

[JJM]

BenQ have a couple that may interest you, we have a number of lower end models where I work and they seem to be reliable.

http://www.benq.com.au/product/monitor/bl3201pt
http://www.benq.com.au/product/monitor/sw2700pt

Phillips also have the newly released BDM4350UC which may interest you..... the 40" version rated well and the new version
is now an IPS panel and early reports suggest its pretty good.

[arthurking83]

Ah! good timing

I'm literally about to plunge into a new screen myself too .. been saying this for a coupl'a years now but I forget too when I have the money(too much work) or when I have the time(ie. no work) I can't afford it.

Anyhow .. nuff of that but I've ummed and ahhed for a couple of weeks and if you can justify the Samsung 97Q(name too long to fully post) .. I'd go with that one.
Probably a better overall long term prospect.

FWIW: I really tried hard to want the Dell 2715K which is 5K3K(ie. a bit more resolution), but the problem is finding a reasonably priced graphics card that can drive it.

I have to get a new graphics card anyhow, and my budget is ~$300 for that as my current onboard chip can't do 4K .. but as I'm seeing it for 5K I need at least 600-700 for a new card.

I read just about all the info I could on both the Samsung and the 2715K Dell and while the extra resolution of the Dell would be an advantage, the one feature I really liked about the Samsung is the ability to split screen aRGB and sRGB halves for the purpose of assessing differences between the two colourspaces.
That is, on any image on screen, it can be set to display half(vertically) the image in aRGB and the other half in sRGB.

For a professional needing to assess colour accuracy for potential customers that don't have aRGB capable screens this could be important.
For me, it's just handy to have the ability next time someone raises the issue here about colour spaces .. and I'm just a curious mad scientist ... bugga!

ps. for $2099 at a real shop here in Melbourne, you can get the Dell 3216(32") 4K screen .. so $2050 for the 30" 3014 is (as you say) hellishly expensive(by way of comparison).
pps. I have the thing for walking into a store and walking out with goods ..

Good screens tho(Dells) and from memory they have internal lookup tables for calibration purposes.
Can be handy for some folks so that you don't need to waste PC resources at bootup waiting for the calibration profile to load up.

That would have been a feature I'd like to have seen in the 97Q Samsung too, but from my research it doesn't do so.

Oh, and what actually swayed me to go for the Samsung(eventually) is that on at least one review they claimed it was the most colour accurate screen they've tested both out of the box and after a calibration.

Now, I actually need to order the damned thing!

I'll get back to you later ....

[Hamster]

This one @arthurking83?

http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/m...LU32D97KQSN/XY

[Hamster]

(Never mind)

[arthurking83]

Yeah, that's the one Hamster.
Just after my reply, I actually 'remembered' to order the damn thing.
Hopefully get it in a couple of days.
If you scroll down that page you linked too, it shows you the feature where it splits the screen with dual colour space displays.

I'm also going to keep my current cheapie TN .. barely sRGB capable screen as well as a peripheral screen so it'll give me a reference point when viewing/editing images.

And for Tony:
I wouldn't so much worry about the aspect ratio .. it's simply a figure, but it's done for a reason.
That is, a very common format is 1920x1080 .. the standard HD format.
That 16:9 ratio is exactly that HD format.

The way I see it is that with the 16:9 format, it allows you to view the full 4:3, or 6:4 or whatever format image your camera takes, but has that peripheral as extra space(eg. for tool bars and so on.

I used to have a 4:3 ratio screen which fit the image from the camera perfectly .. but then no room on the sides for editing palettes and other easily accessed tools, without reducing the size of the image itself .. which then wastes available space either top or bottom of the image
ie. in reducing image size for the lateral space requirement, you either lose the ratio perspective or have negative space top/bottom of the image!

I much prefer the wider aspect ratio for 'working' with.
If just viewing images or displaying them, then for sure the more normal photo formats make sense as it's just a display and no peripheral area is needed for tools and suchlike.

I would have like one of those new fangled 24:9 extra wide screen monitors .. basically mimicking two screens onto the one display.
But they don't yet have the same overall quality that the more photography oriented screens do.

If you haven't decided by the time mine comes(hopefully up and running by the weekend) .. I'll post back on how the Samsung looks.

[Hamster]

You said you don't think it's got the internal LUT, but from my scan I thought it did. For $2k I'd hope it would, that's Eizo Colouredge territory. Incidentally why didn't you got 27" Eizo, did you want the extra size?

"With an embedded calibration chipset developed by Samsung and a 16-bit look-up table (LUT)".

[arthurking83]

Ah, Ok .. may have missed it.
Better that it has .. always.

yeah, went for 32" coz my eyes are getting pretty bad when reading .. and getting worse.

I built my sis a new PC a little while ago now, and had enough in the budget for a screen, so went with a 27"
Ran it briefly next to my 24"(both HD size) and that extra 3" difference made a world of difference trying to see text a bit more clearly.

I do a lot of multitasking with at least three or 4 programs/windows open at once, and they're all semi minimised so I can see them in the background and so on.
So the 32" is simply for my eyes, more so than seeing 'more detail' .. which you won't.
Smaller screen with the same pixel numbers usually mean a sharper looking image(higher pixel density).

Also, that particular Samsung rated really well for colour accuracy on two sites I read up.

At that price range, there were two Eizo's that caught my eye.
31.5" 4K EV3237 .. but was nearly $400 more(basically the price of the GFX card .. but the other one was an interesting idea.
26" but a 1:1 format 1920x1920 screen. EV2730Q. I like the 1:1 format a lot and could see some merit behind that format for a screen.
But then again whatever I got has to last me about 10 years or so (that's usually my primary directive with PC gear!) .. so I thought 4K and large(as possible).
If I had gone with a lower res item .. I'd have kicked myself and started looking at higher res items before my usual 10year cycle was up.

[Dug]

I've got a Dell U2713HM which would meet your requirements.
Vertically it measures 340mm and I see wide aspect ratio as room for the side menus in Lightroom.
Res is 2560x1440 with a dot pitch of 0.23.

It's my first IPS screen and I'm really liking it.
Calibrates well with my Spyder5.

[Tannin]

Cheers all.

I've chased down the maximum res of the graphics chip on my Thinkpad, which is 2560 x 1600. So anything higher than that is out of the question. For example your Samsung, Arthur, is a non-starter.

I was about to press the buy button on the Dell - horrorshow cost notwithstanding - but on the off-chance I hunted around and found the same model at Mwave for quite a lot less. They advertise it at $1760 but by the time you add freight and fees it totals $1845 - still $200 cheaper than buying it from Dell direct.

Good luck with your Samsung - I'm sure it will be excellent - and I'll post again with a report on the Dell when it arrives.

[Cage]

@ Artie

Mate, when you crank that 32" up, you will think you have died and gone to monitor heaven. I know I did when I moved on from the 22" 1080p TN to the 25" 2560 x1440 U2515H.

I've just had to replace my GPU and I nearly got trapped with the length of some of these new cards, ie they just won't fit in my case.

Can't wait to hear your first impressions. (In your own thread, of course. )

Tannin, apologies if this seems like thread hijacking but I guess it's all relevant.

PS: I'm sure you will be delighted with your new Dell. I sure was with mine.

[Tannin]

Not at all, Cage. Feel free. My agenda item has been resolved in the affirmative but there is no reason not to consider business arising. Go for it.

I'm a little puzzled, by the way, why there seems to be a need for these ginormous graphics cards. Sure, for gamers you need a heap of grunt, more so with a very high resolution, but a very modest graphics card should be perfectly capable of running any normal (non-game) software at, say, 4000 x 2000. Are the manufacturers artificially restricting the abilities of sensibly sized and priced cards so that they can sell more top-of-the-line models? I should know this stuff in my job, but I've long since stopped paying any attention to graphics cards as no normal (i.e., non-gaming) person ever needs anything more than on-board graphics or at most a cheap little graphics card these days, and add-in cards have become so rare that I've probably not sold one to anyone except a gamer for three or four years.

[Hamster]

Cheers all.

I've chased down the maximum res of the graphics chip on my Thinkpad, which is 2560 x 1600. So anything higher than that is out of the question. For example your Samsung, Arthur, is a non-starter.

I was about to press the buy button on the Dell - horrorshow cost notwithstanding - but on the off-chance I hunted around and found the same model at Mwave for quite a lot less. They advertise it at $1760 but by the time you add freight and fees it totals $1845 - still $200 cheaper than buying it from Dell direct.

Good luck with your Samsung - I'm sure it will be excellent - and I'll post again with a report on the Dell when it arrives.

When I looked at the Dells I couldn't get a consistent answer regarding the colour calibration software and use of calibrator. Sometimes it said that a calibrator could be used and that included the iDisplay Pro, other times it seemed to say it was only possible with an iDisplay Pro. I then tried talking to Dell tech support to clear it up and they were as much use a chocolate teapot (actually much less use)
Are you expecting to have to use an iDisplay pro to do your calibration?

[Cage]

Not at all, Cage. Feel free. My agenda item has been resolved in the affirmative but there is no reason not to consider business arising. Go for it.

I'm a little puzzled, by the way, why there seems to be a need for these ginormous graphics cards. Sure, for gamers you need a heap of grunt, more so with a very high resolution, but a very modest graphics card should be perfectly capable of running any normal (non-game) software at, say, 4000 x 2000. Are the manufacturers artificially restricting the abilities of sensibly sized and priced cards so that they can sell more top-of-the-line models? I should know this stuff in my job, but I've long since stopped paying any attention to graphics cards as no normal (i.e., non-gaming) person ever needs anything more than on-board graphics or at most a cheap little graphics card these days, and add-in cards have become so rare that I've probably not sold one to anyone except a gamer for three or four years.

Cheers Tannin.

Yep, the gamers are driving the technology for GPU's, CPU's and PSU's. Faster, hotter (more cooling) etc.

In my case my mobo has excellent on-board sound but no on-board graphics chip so an add-on card was a necessity. I found a Gigabyte card that suited, my mobo is a Gigabyte, with 4096 x 2160 res that accommodated the Dell's 2560 x 1440 res, that fitted comfortably in my case for a tad under $150.00 + postage. Some of the cards I've seen cost more than my whole set-up.

[Cage]

...yeah, went for 32" coz my eyes are getting pretty bad when reading .. and getting worse.

"Should have gone to Specsavers"

[Tannin]

When I looked at the Dells I couldn't get a consistent answer regarding the colour calibration software and use of calibrator. Sometimes it said that a calibrator could be used and that included the iDisplay Pro, other times it seemed to say it was only possible with an iDisplay Pro. I then tried talking to Dell tech support to clear it up and they were as much use a chocolate teapot (actually much less use)
Are you expecting to have to use an iDisplay pro to do your calibration?

OK, I'll play dumb here (someone has to ask the obvious questions!) why couldn't ...

(a) I just use it straight out of the box? My two big Samsungs are factory set pretty well, so much so that it doesn't especially matter if I calibrate them or not. Mostly I do, but I'm not really fussed if I don't for some reason. The Dell (and most of the other models we have been chatting about here) claims to be factory calibrated. My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the colour will be perfectly acceptable without me needing to do anything at all besides plug it in. (Compare with my assortment of other screens - the two cheap generic TN/film screens on my seldom-used home desktop system, the huge but very old 21 and 22 inch CRTs on my office accounts and workshop systems, and the built-in screens on the two laptops - all six of these are pretty much unusable for photographic work without calibration, and rather unpleasant (to my eye) even for just casual image browsing. (Well, the gigantic old Mitsubishi 22 inch CRT is fairly OK, but the others are awful, especially the older one of my two laptops.) The worse the screen, the more important calibration becomes, it seems to me. As further evidence for this point, I present to the court my girlfriend's screen, another Dell Ultrasharp, which is quite decent out of the box, though better still after calibration. Calibration for good screens - which everybody does - isn't really all that necessary, while calibration for cheap screens (which nobody does!) is essential!

(b) I run the Spyder 4 on it the same as any other monitor? For that matter, why couldn't you run your X-rite iDisplay over it the same way you would with a Samsung or an LG or a Phillips? Does the Dell have peculiar internal settings that are only adjustable using its own proprietary software? If so, is this common with other high-spec monitors of the same general kind?


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<rant>
More generally, I think people tend to go to extremes with colour management. Most people don't even know what it is, let alone think about it and I'm sure that most of us here share my experience of visiting friends and discovering that their screens are so hopelessly out of balance that using them is like looking at the world through a glass of something alcoholic and expensive served with a sprig of mint and a paper umbrella in it, usually blue grenadine but I've also seen screens coloured galliano, midori, and probably sump oil.

That's one extreme. At the other end of the scale, many photographers and graphic artists go to the other extreme and get very precious about it. I've known people spend more time mucking about calibrating and fiddling than they do actually using the system for its ostensible purpose. Why? It's not as if anyone will ever, ever notice the miniscule adjustments they fuss with. Nobody looking at the picture sits in a darkened room with a balanced, measured light source from a calculated angle falling on a 100% gamut, fully calibrated monitor. They just look at the pictures on the screen they have. And - let's be realistic here - in any normal room, the ambient light varies all day long, even with the shades drawn it still varies, and there is always more ambient light than the calibration software likes. The way I see it, you get more daily variation from ambient light than you get between (say) my big Samsung uncalibrated and the same screen perfectly adjusted five minutes ago. So why worry? Check it, get it around about right if it's a long way out, and then get on with real work, that's my motto.
</rant>

[Dug]

The Dell (and most of the other models we have been chatting about here) claims to be factory calibrated. My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the colour will be perfectly acceptable without me needing to do anything at all besides plug it in.

You should find like when I got my Dell Ultrasharp IPS monitor that it come with a print out of the factory calibration.
It was a couple of months before I got a calibrator for it.
The Spyder 5 pro also makes allowance for room brightness and colour temperature, which most likely accounts for the difference in my before/after comparison.

[Hamster]

OK, I'll play dumb here (someone has to ask the obvious questions!) why couldn't ...

Sorry, I wasn't trying to induce a rant ????. Some valid points, if that's how you want to use your screens then go for it I say. But if that is the case why not just get a screen costing half the price and use your spyder on that?
The real value of correct calibration is in the printed outputs. You cannot stop people looking at your photos on a crappy screen, you are correct.
Carry on.
<backs slowly from the room>

[Tannin]

<chuckle>

I can't comment on print calibration, I have a mono laser and only print invoices.

Why not spend $800? Because the picture quality often doesn't compare, at least not in my (fairly limited) experience. I've never for one moment regretted any of the other mega-expensive screens I've bought over the years - the 21 inch Hitachi CRT ($1400), the 22-inch Mitsubishi CRT ($1600ish) or the two 21-inch Samsungs ($1500ish each). In their day, they were all equivalent to maybe a $3200 screen today, so the Dell is just a cheapie. (Does that sound like a glib rationalisation? Sure it does. Don't knock rationalisations. Rationalisations are more important that sex.*)

Probably I'd be fairly happy with about half of the $800ish IPS screens around, but which half? Damned if I want to buy one in hope and then discover that I hate it.

But I didn't actually want to spend the best part of two grand - I had about half that in mind to start with. Then I was seduced by the resolution of the Dell. I can't use anything higher (unless I spend two or three thousand on a new Thinkpad - can you even get one these days with three internal hard drives? Doubt it) and I'm certainly not going to downgrade to a 1080p screen, which leaves me with only the 1440 and 1600 height models. I'm not sure how many of the 1440s would go OK on my laptop - they come in a motley variety of shapes and horizontal resolutions, some of which probably won't be compatible, and (so far as I know) none of then have the superior aspect ratio of the Dell. (16 x 10 = 4 x 2.5 which is quite a bit closer to the ideal 4: 3 than 16 x 9 = 4 x 2.25.) **

But you are right Hamster: I don't need all that fancy colour stuff in the monitor itself, I quite possibly won't even install the software for it. But I do need the biggest, best quality, highest res screen I can fit onto my system, which seems to be the Dell. It's a bit like wanting the factory sunroof and discovering that the only way you can get it is to pay an extra $15,000 for the alloy wheels, the sat-nav, the V8 engine and the leather seats.



* Yes, honestly. Ever tried to go a week without a rationalisation?

** See *^

[Hamster]

<chuckle>

I can't comment on print calibration, I have a mono laser and only print invoices.

Why not spend $800? Because the picture quality often doesn't compare, at least not in my (fairly limited) experience. I've never for one moment regretted any of the other mega-expensive screens I've bought over the years - the 21 inch Hitachi CRT ($1400), the 22-inch Mitsubishi CRT ($1600ish) or the two 21-inch Samsungs ($1500ish each). In their day, they were all equivalent to maybe a $3200 screen today, so the Dell is just a cheapie. (Does that sound like a glib rationalisation? Sure it does. Don't knock rationalisations. Rationalisations are more important that sex.*)

Probably I'd be fairly happy with about half of the $800ish IPS screens around, but which half? Damned if I want to buy one in hope and then discover that I hate it.

But I didn't actually want to spend the best part of two grand - I had about half that in mind to start with. Then I was seduced by the resolution of the Dell. I can't use anything higher (unless I spend two or three thousand on a new Thinkpad - can you even get one these days with three internal hard drives? Doubt it) and I'm certainly not going to downgrade to a 1080p screen, which leaves me with only the 1440 and 1600 height models. I'm not sure how many of the 1440s would go OK on my laptop - they come in a motley variety of shapes and horizontal resolutions, some of which probably won't be compatible, and (so far as I know) none of then have the superior aspect ratio of the Dell. (16 x 10 = 4 x 2.5 which is quite a bit closer to the ideal 4: 3 than 16 x 9 = 4 x 2.25.) **

But you are right Hamster: I don't need all that fancy colour stuff in the monitor itself, I quite possibly won't even install the software for it. But I do need the biggest, best quality, highest res screen I can fit onto my system, which seems to be the Dell. It's a bit like wanting the factory sunroof and discovering that the only way you can get it is to pay an extra $15,000 for the alloy wheels, the sat-nav, the V8 engine and the leather seats.



* Yes, honestly. Ever tried to go a week without a rationalisation?

** See *^

Yes, I know what you mean, I'm often guilty of over speccing things in order to be sure I got what I thought I wanted :-)

It sounds like you've thought out your reasons pretty well for what you require. I asked about the calibration side because I want to make sure I have the complete workflow sorted, right through to high quality print for something like competition entry. Which means heading down the "extreme" end of things.