Which 19" LCD - 971P or 190X6?

[EnglishDude]

Hello all,

My current monitors is a 17" Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410 (an excellent monitor I must say) and a 17" Samtron 75E - the VMP 410 is on its way out and the 75E gives me headaches and has awful colours, so am looking to replace those with a 19" TFT monitor. After a bit of searching, I've found a couple but can't choose between the two:

Samsung SM971P and the Philips 190X6. I've found a few places still selling the 190X6.

Personally, I'm not a gamer, I use my computer mainly for WWW, video and work. I'm a huge stickler for image quality - I will be using DVI for this monitor.

Advantages of the Samsung is that it:

Is a PVA panel (apparently Samsung's spec says its a SPVA but a lot of people have been saying it's not)
Has 1500:1 contrast ratio (Major point)
Has better black level (Major point)
Samsung generally make better TFT panels than Philips apparently
Has excellent viewing angle (not that big of a problem for me)
Looks nicer

Advantages of the Philips is that it:

Has the perfect pixel gurantee, where Samsung's gurantee isn't good (Major point)
No input lag (Major point)
Is lead free
Faster (8ms black to white as opposed to Samsung's 6ms GTG)

Which one of those has better colour depth? I'm not quite sure what input lag is, but apparently PVA panels has bad input lag and that might be a big problem for me.

Any recommendations?

Thanks very much for your help in advance

Regards - Piers

 

[xtknight]

I would say the 971P, easily. The panel in the Philips just can't compare. It has poor color depth and a poor black level in comparison.

The 971P should have very little if any input lag. It doesn't use aggressive response time acceleration like some panels, which is the main contributor to input lag. If you had someone use the 971P and 190X6 beside each other, it's very unlikely they would choose the Philips.

 

[EnglishDude]

Excellent thanks for the fast reply! Just realised that it's pretty pricey at £300 ($580)... Will keep the 971P in mind but can you suggest a much cheaper one - in the £200 ($400) mark please? Thanks again!

[Edit] Something like the 940B? Also as I'm using a Mac, would adjusting the monitor present any problems?

 

[xtknight]

The 971P is a good panel, and from there down you're basically stuck with TNs like the Philips. The best of the TNs I'd say is the Samsung 940BF (BenQ FP93GX is decent as well). Adjustments on the monitor do not involve any operating system interaction. If you want to adjust your monitor from the OS, there is a Mac version of Samsung MagicTune for Samsung LCDs.