Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Peripherals > Monitors > 24-inch LCD Monitor Roundup - The Perfect Size?

Iiyama B2403WS Contd.

03:50 - Thursday 6 December 2007 by Benoît Dupont

NEC had already done the trick. By activating a hidden menu, we could tune the panel’s overdrive. Well with Iiyama, it’s no longer hidden but the tuning is still a little bizarre. We can set the OD (overdrive) setting from 0 to 5. Oddly enough the number 2 is the one which presents the best results. And what a show!

The screen is simply the fastest up to date, in front of even the Samsung 226BW (version S of course)! The difference between the two is close. This means that the Iiyama should be considered a competitor of hardcore gamer monitors. It’s a good thing these tests are comprehensive- Otherwise we might not have found this out.

Exceeding limits The overdrive is well handled, there’s no outrageous overshoot. Because of the overdrive there might be some slight video noise when the OD is set to 2.

Using the monitor The screen is perfectly adapted to office work. We have a well-tuned display, perfectly usable if you want to do your accounts as well as when rebuffing photos. A real delight (it’s justa shame that these tasks aren’t particularly delightful…). This is a great gaming monitor. All the evidence points to this. If you take this monitor, alongside a high-end PC setup you should have an impressive combination on your hands. There isn’t a whole lot of difference between it and the 226BW, and that puts it completely out of the other monitors’ leagues.

This new 24” will be a hit as soon as it’s released to the gaming community. The only thing we could find to complain about is its relatively weak interpolation of images at lower resolutions.

However, the results for videos are mixed. Of course, we appreciate the incomparable depth of black and the sharpness of skin tones, which, by the way, are particularly well rendered. The classic DVDs are quite enjoyable but it is in high definition that the monitor really shines. On the other hand, both SD and HD have one problem. The display is quite susceptible to swarming, as we’ve seen in the examples of other monitors. So you’ll need to take a step back, to avoid being inconvenienced. It realy is too bad, we were so close to perfection.

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fluppeteer 06/12/2007 17:43

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s/HDPC/HDCP/. Speaking of which, "tomshardware.co.uk/membres"? I don't *think* I'm French.

"It also eliminates the screens smaller than 23” as they don’t feature a resolution compatible with Full-HD (better than to 1920 x 1080)."

Actually, Lenovo's L220x is a 22" 1920x1200 panel. The extra 2" of saved desk space matters if you have to fit it on your desk with another five monitors, or if you want to mount it beside a CRT of similar height. Bigger is probably better in a television, of course - and it's around the same price as 24" panels (at least, those with DVI), so you're not saving anything but space. I believe it also has issues with scaling, if not as badly as the first batch of 30" panels. It might be an interesting option for some readers, though - I was looking at one as a 1600SW replacement.

You can also get Viewsonic's 23" VP231WB WUXGA panel, but it's very expensive. I'm ignoring QWUXGA panels, too. None of these support HDCP.

bobwya 07/12/2007 11:54

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Lets get one thing straight you don't need HDCP to watch Blu-Ray and HD-DVD from a PC. DVI will be sufficient. Maybe just if you're Vista!!

There is no colour gamut for the Dell... Whoops!!

I personally would like to see some higher end 24" monitors added into the mix... Is it really worth those extra bucks to get a better (wider) colour gamut?? For example I have my eye on:

BENQ FP241VW

Which is a lot more expensive then the monitors reviewed here... But a TFT should last years and years (if it is turned off to save the backlight)... So surely it is worth spending more on a monitor than computer parts that will be obsolete after a few months!!

Lets at least revisit 24" monitors with a review of the high end in the near future please!! THG simply do the best reviews of TFTs on the web. However what happened to the latency response graphs you used to publish?

Bob

fluppeteer 07/12/2007 12:59

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Um, you don't need HDCP to watch high definition video *until* the image constraint tag is turned on. At which point you need a secure end-to-end system (which at one point meant specifically the 64-bit version of Vista, if you're on a PC), or a legally dubious crack of the system. Maybe the ICT never will be turned on (for discs - I believe you need it already if you want to plug a Sky box into it). Regardless of my feelings about HDCP and DRM in general, exacerbated by owning several monitors capable of full HD without any HDCP support, I'd be biased towards monitors with it for the premise of this article.

A wider colour gamut isn't necessarily a good thing for HDTV - so long as you can express the whole range of colours encoded in the standards, extra gamut just stretches the digital pixel levels further apart with some of the extreme values unused and makes calibration harder. This assumes you're trying to set up the HDTV to look as near to the specification as possible rather than shooting for extra-vibrant. The same isn't so true for colour-managed applications with wide gamut printing, so I won't turn down an Eizo CG221 (another WUXGA <24" monitor) for Photoshop work if someone offers it to me...

I've always been a little wary of black frame insertion (not that I've ever seen it in action, but one thing in favour of LCDs is the lack of flicker). The FP241VW looks interesting, though. I'd like to see a round-up of the high end too - perhaps getting to the bottom of exactly what Toshiba are offering with their apparently rebadged T221?

Incidentally, a friend is standing by the strategy of using a decent CRT (e.g. a GDM-FW900) as a desktop HDTV. It would be interesting to compare one with these flat panels, especially given the going rate for one on eBay.

Bob's right, though - THG monitor reviews are always worth reading. Here's hoping for more!

sxn979 09/12/2007 12:54

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i had two days to enter this site and when i did i thought something was going wrong with the explorer.

very good stockselling review. i believe you couldn't find older monitors in the market for sure.
and the prices you mention ... even in Greece these monitors are cheaper.

and what happened with all the amd reviews? and this, amd that, even OUR OWN SILENT HTPC is amd.
i don't have a problem with amd i'll buy a pundit p2-m2a690g and an athlon x2 4200 next week, i just try to understand what's going on here.

andyinlondon 09/12/2007 07:56

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It is a pity that the featured DELL 2407WFP monitor is discontinued by dell :-(

Pyg 12/12/2007 16:26

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Never mind the FP241VW, why leave out the Benq FP241W? Consistently rated higher than all of the other monitors here, even though it was the first to offer HDMI connection, and available for £434. I have one and it's ace, I haven't been able to compare it with any other monitor though.

Stoppemfloppen 03/01/2008 22:52

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I was disappointed with this review. Most of the pages seemed muddled, graphs weren't in the right places and only 4 reviewed? This is the first monitor review in over 6 months on THG. There have been literally hundreds of new monitors of all sizes and this is all we get? And to omit the BenQ FP241W was a mistake surely?

I want to buy a quality 24" monitor when I upgrade my PC as my old Iiyama VM Pro 454 is beginning to die a death. Please can we see some of the higher end stuff reviewed. Better still, can we actually see some more monitors reviewed?!

Rapidshare 24/03/2008 16:53

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More information for this topic see at http://fileshunt.com. Maybe it will change your point of view.
If you can search
http://fileshunt.com

Anonymous 22/09/2008 08:58

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what is going on at Tomshardware?

I agree with Stoppem, this review looks like an early beta version that was never finished...

Tomshardware used to be the prime place to go find out about monitors. It seems you've folded down to automated syndication of various tech news, and your reviews are done by unpaid inturns who don't really feel like it!

That there's no roundup of 22" monitors is just beyond me...

You guys need reviewers / writers? send me a message, cause this is pathetic.