27" Screens - Which is best?

[Jaz]

What is generally considered the best 27" screen available? It's not for gaming just web surfing etc. I looked at the Apple Cinema display but they only do a 24 or a 30 and are too expensive for what they are.

[briareos_kerensky]

I'd go for Dell UltraSharp U2711, HP has great 30" and 24" monitors with an excellent IPS matrix, but they are a bit overkill if they are just for web surfing.

The BenQ M2700HD should be cheaper but it has a 16:9 ratio (1920x1080), Asus and LG have 26" 16:10 monitors, which should be good value for their money, but most probably use a S-TN or E-IPS matrix.

[Lyris]

Sorry to have to do this, but, beware of input lag.

A lot of the monitors that have a ton of TV/video inputs often have quite a sizeable amount of delay, so if you're sensitive to that, be careful.

FWIW, I use a Dell 3007WFP-HC which is a 30" 2560x1600 screen. The lag is beyond my threshold (about 19ms of video processing delay or so).

My brother has an SPVA Dell which lags by about 47ms and makes me feel like I'm using an old 486.

[briareos_kerensky]

My brother has an SPVA Dell which lags by about 47ms and makes me feel like I'm using an old 486.

2408WFP, I presume. It's an excellent monitor for professional use but definitively not for gaming. However the newest monitors are using IPS panels that are faster than PVAs and deliver the same color accuracy and viewing angles. Unfortunately lag will always be part of any LCD monitor, even the fastest TN matrix can suffer of 10ms lags under the worst case scenarios, marketed input lag is usually the best case under the best conditions.

However he specified that it isn't for gaming, the real question is how much he wants to spend on the monitor.

[Lyris]

For me, it doesn't matter if it's for gaming or not. In fact, I can tolerate input lag on games better than I can tolerate it on every single mouse movement, click, and keyboard button press in the OS.

[briareos_kerensky]

A bit tangent, but...can you really notice input lag on mouse/keyboard interaction?
The only time I can notice input lag is in Painter when using large water brushes on large canvas, but that's more a program-induced lag than a real monitor/input device lag.

[egparadigm]

I just bought an HP 24" HIPS monitor and I use it also to play console games from. I can happily say I haven't noticed the input lag. I tend to play adventures, platformers and shooters; I believe it's most noticable for music games and shmups.