Ok I picked one up on Boxing Day for $299 and I couldn't be happier. I know all types of hot-shot "but I do image editing" so TN panels suck are going to come on here and say its complete crap but if you aren't expecting a professional grade monitor, this is v a very good choice. I was impressed with its size and the resolution is just right. Text doesn't feel too small and visibility is good for me - I wear glasses usually but I can sit comfortable and use this screen without them on.
The screen is bright and has pretty good contrast - it requires some tweaking to get the colours right but it looks really nice once you do. I did all the LCD tests I could find and was always able to distinctly make out the different grays, blacks, whites etc that were shown on patterns for contrast testing. It does have some slight colour banding - ie, when you look at a gradient going from black to red, you will see some slight stepping in the changing of colours, but it is very minimal and only noticeable on green and red, not blue. There is also slight, maybe ~5% backlight bleeding on the top and bottom of the screen but unless you are looking at a completely black screen you will never even notice it. Its more or less impossible to notice in Windows.
The stand is unfortunately the cheap version and not the nice one that comes with the Ultrasharp screens. It can only tilt up and down a few degrees but cannot turn or adjust in any other way. This is kinda a let down but for $299... well what do you expect? There is also no USB hub but thats not really a big deal. My girlfriend just got a 1907 Ultrasharp panel last night and I couldn't really see much different in picture and colour quality. Her screen did have a larger viewing angle. The viewing angle on this screen is kinda limited so you have to be sitting more or less in front of the screen to see the image properly. That said, its not really terrible like other screens I've seen. I can sit and watch TV in my bed while looking at the screen at some strange angles pretty comfortably.
Also, the monitor doesn't have options for scaling which is kinda the biggest let down for what would otherwise be a great screen. No other screens really have scaling options anyway so I guess its not a huge deal. My experience is with ATI drivers so I can't say how it works for NVIDIA drivers but if you set it to a 4:3 resolution, it will stretch the image. However, if you set it to a lower 16:10 image, it display the image in full screen or you can use the ATI drivers to letterbox the whole picture. I really wanted proper 4:3 scaling for non-widescreen games but I guess you can't have it all. Also, there is no noticeable ghosting in gaming or movies.
Facebook
Twitter