20" widescreen LCD, Response Time VS. Panel Type, Little help please!

[Hello3]

Like the title says I have decided to get a 20" widescreen LCD and I basically need help deciding which attribute is more important, the Panel Type/Technology (TN / MVA / S-PVA / S-IPS) or the Response Time (16ms / 12ms / 8ms). Unfortunately I cannot afford the few LCD's that offer both a low response time and a true 8-bit panel with 16.7M colors, notably the NEC 20WMGX2 and Acer AL2032WA/Ferrari F20 which are all far above my budget.

I will be mainly reading spreadsheets, word documents and websites and also playing World of Warcraft on this screen. For those of you who have not played World of Warcraft it is a 3rd person perspective, press a button and watch your player animate type of game, it is not as fast paced as a first person shooter. I'm just throwing out a simple question. What would be most beneficial for me, a good Panel Type for a quality colored screen with a higher 16ms response time (ie. the Dell 2007WFP) or a TN Panel with faster 8ms response time (ie. Samsung 205BW)?

I bolded the important stuff for the people who like to skip the explanations =).

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Hello3
(TN / MVA / S-PVA / S-IPS)

Reverse that order, & you pretty much have the order of best to worst.

Reponse time is generally a smaller issue than it's made out to be.
WoW should be fine even with 16ms, but each to their own really.

 

[Hello3]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: Hello3
(TN / MVA / S-PVA / S-IPS)

Reverse that order, & you pretty much have the order of best to worst.

Reponse time is generally a smaller issue than it's made out to be.
WoW should be fine even with 16ms, but each to their own really.

Thanks for the quick response. Haha, you're right I listed the panel types from worst to best and the response times from best to worst, I'll fix that right away.

What do you think of the Dell 2007WFP compared to the Samsung 205BW or Viewsonic VX2025wm/VX2035wm?

 

[n7]

I'd like to give a better response, but the only one of those three i've personally seen in action is the Samsung.

I'd recommend looking thru reviews, & of course, user review on forums too, to see what the general consensus is, since i haven't followed that market as closely as i should.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1745344&enterthread=y has a lotta good info, but i suspect you've read thru most of it

 

[Hello3]

I've read through xtknight's buyers guide many times, and it's really great. Although it may have confused me as much as it helped.

I'm leaning towards the Dell because people on the forums have said great things about it even though there's a chance of getting an S-PVA version now instead of the S-IPS. Personally I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference. When I goto stores to see the LCD's there's not much I can test besides staring at webpages, non-interactive videos or semi-interactive demo's on the computers that come with the screen. It's very hard for me to choose because they all look beautiful to me, or maybe I'm just not that picky. I'd love to try all of them out with WoW to test the response times but there's no way for me to do that without bringing them all home and plugging them in one at a time.

Any World of Warcraft players on these forums that could give me some advice?

 

[xtknight]

For response time: TN<S-IPS<P-MVA<PVA<S-PVA

Without scale though, that doesn't mean much. S-PVAs with overdrive reach under 20 ms, which was the fastest TN a couple years ago, and it's not a roadblock in gaming for most people. The S-IPS version of the Dell is maybe 5 ms faster than the S-PVA version, so there's not a big difference.

I don't see any reason why the Dell 2007WFP wouldn't be perfect for your purposes. I really don't feel like explaining one more time why the VX2025WM isn't as good but it comes down to color reproduction, DVI problems, and backlight bleeding.

BTW, the Dell 2007WFP is one of those true 8-bit color and fast-response-time screens (regardless of if you get an S-PVA or S-IPS). S-IPS panels will have a wider viewing angle but other than that I doubt you'll be disappointed with an S-PVA. The colors may not be as good, but the contrast is higher, so it's hard to say really. It depends whether or not you calibrate it too. AFAIK they are still alternating the panels in the 2007WFP.

The Dell isn't far behind the NEC in terms of response time (if you end up with the S-IPS). I've played WoW on my S-IPS and haven't felt hindered at all by the little motion blurring it has.