Originally posted by: Stormer
Thanks very much, xtknight. When one of my HS75P's went dead, I pulled an old Dell 1704FPT out of the closet. Resolution is awful -- 1152X864 -- but the matte anti-glare coating is okay. Not very fuzzy. Guess Dell decided later to lather it on. I'm trying to decide whether to shag another HS75P or bite the bullet, so to speak, and use the occasion to upgrade. You've written a lot about your NEC 20WMGX2. I know it's subjective, but is it the kind of screen you can stare at all day in a word processor? Part of the key to this on any monitor is the sharpness adjustment. I see the NEC has one (the LP2065 did not, and its anti-glare coating looked inches thick). I see the 20WMGX2 can be arm mounted; know anyone using two side-by-side? The unit is more monitor than I wanted; I don't need or want the extras or the TV. But the praise here has been so glowing, it seems like a screen someone who spends all day looking at letters should consider.
I am quite sure the coating on the Dell 2007FP would drive you nuts. (Or, at least the IPS version I had experience with.)
The LG S-IPS panels very often have tough anti-glare coatings. The LP2065 implements them, a lot of the time. Only the 24" and 25.5"(26") IPS panels are free of hard anti-glare coatings.
After calibration, the 20WMGX2 is a joy to look at. (I guess, even without calibration it is fine at most settings.) I calibrated both my panels to 140 nits. Standard CRT brightness is 100 nits, but LCDs can often go to 400 or even higher.
When the panel is bright, the glossy coating is hard on the eyes. When it's dim and at the proper brightness (Brightness: 29.6; Contrast: 74.0) it's probably the most comfortable thing you'll ever look at.
The clear anti-glare coating on the LCD26 is also very nice. I'm not sure it's quite as comfortable. Sometimes it depends on how bright it is outside (the glare). For darker pictures on a bright day the glossy coating can be an impediment. But for brighter work, it's a very good display.
Unfortunately as you're probably aware you can only find 20WMGX2s in refurb these days. I don't know of anyone with two side-by-side. Actually, I can not find the HS75P or HS95P on sale anymore either. Is there another source from which you could obtain any of these?
I use a sharpness of 8.3% on the 20WMGX2, which I believe is the default, unprocessed value. I wouldn't personally adjust sharpness on any LCD that uses DVI, because it shouldn't need to be adjusted. Good anti-glare and ClearType tuning along with an LCD that does not tamper with the sharpness using algorithms is crucial to a good text display. (With VGA that is different, of course.) Lowering the sharpness (below 8.3%) on the 20WMGX2 is not a pleasant sight, but raising it can improve legibility in some cases.
I use Ubuntu right now which I feel has very good text rendering and it has been most helpful when working with text. XP with a tuned ClearType is good, but I'd say Vista is up there with Ubuntu when it comes to text as well. Maybe you could consider one of the latter OSes. I gathered you weren't really happy with the status quo or do you just want a display that can do what you had with the HS95P?
LCDs vary more than you think even with the DVI connection. I just recently heard of Dell 22" panels that had an oversharpness that could not be quelled.