4k monitor (TN vs IPS)

[skaertus]

One of my customers has a 27" TN that I bought them a few years ago. No colour shifting "even if your head is dead center".

Iiyama B2776HDS, bought Nov 2011.

Thanks.

This model is not for sale anymore, it seems. It is a TN panel, but probably different from the ones I mentioned. This is a 27-inch with a 1920x1080 resolution, and those are 27.9-inch with a 3840x2160 resolution.

But anyway, it seems that not all TN models are the same. There are some decent models, after all.

 

[skaertus]

I have this monitor. I also read "reviews" that said it wasn't bright enough, however I have mine at 72% brightness and it's perfect. Most of the reviews I found were not reviews anyway but opinions by people that didn't own the monitor that said the maximum specified brightness wasn't enough, in actual use it's fine. I sit directly in front of it and the viewing angles are fine, I've no complaints. I do have Windows scaling at 150% text and Windows use is just fine for me, ymmv.

Thanks, good to know that.

I was a little bit worried about screen brightness on this one. My current model has 350 nits, and I use a MacBook Pro with 500 nits at maximum brightness all the time, so I thought I could feel the difference.

I’ve read a review mentioning that the monitor reaches 250 nits, even though it is announced as 300 nits. Anyway, it would be a step back from the Samsung TN, which is 370 nits maximum brightness.

Maybe the high contrast helps, I don’t know. Let’s see when the display arrives. If you can use it at less than maximum brightness, it should be fine.

You see no color shift as well?

Thanks.

 

[BFG10K]

One of my customers has a 27" TN that I bought them a few years ago. No colour shifting "even if your head is dead center".

Iiyama B2776HDS, bought Nov 2011.

You mean this one? https://youtu.be/bUpd9SabpcM?t=358

You can see obvious yellowing to the left, and it's miles away from the edge of the screen. If the browser had a white background you'd easily see it completely straight on at both edges.

Also cameras are usually pretty crap for showing this sort of thing, so it'll look much worse in real life.

 

[mikeymikec]

You mean this one? https://youtu.be/bUpd9SabpcM?t=358

You can see obvious yellowing to the left, and it's miles away from the edge of the screen. If the browser had a white background you'd easily see it completely straight on at both edges.

Also cameras are usually pretty crap for showing this sort of thing, so it'll look much worse in real life.

That looks to me like a light source reflection on the screen, and the light source is definitely on the left. He also leaned in the other direction and I couldn't see a similar tint on the right, so I'm pretty sure I'm correct there.

I'd gladly film my TN (Iiyama E2282HS) to prove the point if I knew of a way to accurately reproduce how my (admittedly 21in) screen looks. Taking the AT forum page as an example, in order to change the shade of orange noticeably in the top-right corner of the page (and screen, for the sake of argument), I need to stick my head so my nose is pointing at the opposite corner of the screen and be within 15cm of that corner and then look out of the corner of my eye to that portion of the orange bar. If that's something that bothers you then so be it, but I'm concerned about non-absurd viewing angles personally.

@skaertus

Sorry, I wasn't recommending that specific monitor, I was just responding to BFK10K who seems to have a bee in his bonnet about TN screens. There are some rubbish ones out there no doubt.

 

[BFG10K]

That looks to me like a light source reflection on the screen, and the light source is definitely on the left. He also leaned in the other direction and I couldn't see a similar tint on the right, so I'm pretty sure I'm correct there.

At 6:51 you can see the same thing on the right side.

At 6:54 you can see it across the top on both sides, consistent with looking at a TN from below.

I'd gladly film my TN (Iiyama E2282HS) to prove the point if I knew of a way to accurately reproduce how my (admittedly 21in) screen looks.

No point continuing the discussion until you film a 27" TN, like the one above.

 

[mikeymikec]

At 6:51 you can see the same thing on the right side.

At 6:54 you can see it across the top on both sides, consistent with looking at a TN from below.

I'm not sure we're on the same page here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79r5rxS276Y
Is this an accurate demonstration in your opinion? If so, then we're now on the same page, and I agree that if you choose an absurd viewing angle then the TN falls down. I find it odd about how he refers to "any deviation" as apparently an angle I'd expect an inquisitive cat to look at it from.
Though one thing I find very odd about this video is how the desktop background on the IPS monitor either is showing off significant backlight bleed or the desktop background is not a uniform colour (I suspect it's the latter but I'm not certain - can you send a monitor back for backlight bleed issues, ie. is it considered warranty worthy? Is there some concrete metric like the '30 dead pixels' rule to justify a return on warranty?).
I think if two people were often going to be looking at a single display for image processing purposes or some other activity where accurate colour reproduction at various angles was a significant concern, or multiple monitors where budget wasn't a huge concern then I'd probably go for IPS personally (and his point about laptops is noteworthy).

IMO there's a huge variation in TN quality depending on the manufacturer you go with. A customer gave me their ultra-cheapo tablet (Toshiba WT7-C), and the taskbar on Win8x isn't half as visible (the taskbar changes from 'translucent' to 'almost invisible') if I change my viewing angle to it to the equivalent of changing my posture from 'sit up straight' to 'slouch' if it was a desktop monitor (that's what I personally would refer to as 'terrible viewing angles' as a general term, but I want to know where other people are coming from on this topic).

Also, is ASUS generally considered to be a reasonably decent mainstream screen manufacturer? Admittedly the last ASUS (TN) screen I bought was in 2009-2010 I think and I wasn't that impressed (compared to Iiyama TNs from that time), so I stuck with Iiyama.

 

[Headfoot]

For non gaming purposes I like IPS if you are doing color sensitive work like photo viewing/editing. If you're doing mostly media consumption (watching videos, looking at photos but not editing) then I prefer VA because the contrast ratios are a lot better but the color accuracy is still very close to IPS generally speaking. VA's downfall is ghosting a slow GTG response time, as well as input latency. All of which doesn't really matter that much unless you're gaming. There's a reason all the high end 4k sets these days are either OLED or VA

 

[skaertus]

Thanks for all the feedback. As mentioned before, I bought the LG 32UD59, which is a 32” VA monitor with a 3840x2160 resolution.

The experience so far has been positive. The monitor is bright enough inside my room, so no real problems here so far (I have not yet tested it during the day with windows open, though).

The monitor is also huge, so sometimes I have to turn my head to see certain parts of the screen. That did not happen in my previous 27” monitor.

However, having a 32” (31.5” actually) monitor really sounds like an upgrade, and I can get more real estate and not only a sharper image. The image is sharper in the 32” 3840x2160 than in the 27” with a 2560x1440 resolution; DPI count is higher and you can tell that.

It seems to me that a 150% scaling in the 4K screen would give me the same screen real estate than using 100% in the 27” screen. 100% in the 32” 4K monitor is a tad small, but still usable. However, I am using a 125% scaling, which I found to be the best configuration so far. Lots of real estate in the screen, and the image is in a comfortable size.

The image is beautiful and so are the colors. Contrast is better than on the 27” IPS.

Viewing angles are OK, and you can notice that they are not great if you are sitting too close to the monitor (I wonder how TN monitors would do here). There are also problems with color shifting when sitting too close. I have never taken much notice on this before, but it is clear in this case. The large size of the monitor helps these problems being more noticeable.

Anyway, sitting a little bit not too close to the monitor helps solving this issue, and also addresses the problem of me having to turn my head every time to see things in the screen.

The monitor has integrated speakers, which is good. The speakers are not great, but they are useful if intended for personal use. I have not tested them to the extreme, but they are clearly not exactly meant to replace a home theater.

I have not tested or even seen the TN models I mentioned, and they may well be good as well. But I guess this VA model may fare better, and I think it will serve its purpose well.

 

[BFG10K]

I'm not sure we're on the same page here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79r5rxS276Y
Is this an accurate demonstration in your opinion? If so, then we're now on the same page, and I agree that if you choose an absurd viewing angle then the TN falls down. I find it odd about how he refers to "any deviation" as apparently an angle I'd expect an inquisitive cat to look at it from.

No, his monitors aren't even calibrated and he's showing extreme angles nobody cares about.

This is what I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/bYKUFNSya_Y?t=968

Both are 27" and with the Dell TN on the right (a decent quality display), directly straight on on there's visible color shift. The top part of the screen darkens while the bottom is lighter and washed out in comparison. It's as plain as day to see even with his camera, especially when he looks up and down at the green bush.

This is exactly what I saw on my AOC TN, even with your head perfectly straight and dead center. He even specifically mentions in the video that extreme angles aren't needed to show the issue. And if you move your eyes or head slightly, it gets far worse and looks like constant motion blur, even on a still image

This is the reason why TNs are never bigger than 28", because 27" is already well past their usable limit.