What Hardware Should I Buy? - Feb 2009

Displays

So you might have built the perfect gaming system, but it's hardly worth it without a decent display to do all those fancy graphics and high definition movies justice. Sadly it isn't as easy as just picking the biggest screen you can afford and hoping for the best, with enormous differences between even similarly priced monitors in colour accuracy, inputs, viewing angles and refresh rate.

It's become something of a myth in the monitor industry that for gaming, response time is king, with many manufacturers willing to compromise on other fronts to ensure ridiculously low response times which don't have any real world advantage outside of enlarging your gaming e-peen.

There's also the issue of which panel technology a monitor is using, with cheap TN+Film monitors featuring fast response times but conventionally poor colour accuracy and viewing angles filling the market, and better PVA, MVA and IPS monitors traditionally priced out of many users' reach.

As you can see, going beyond response times and diagonal size soon complicates the issue of which monitor to choose immensely, but fear not, because here at bit-tech we've found the best monitors to suit any budget.

Sadly monitor availability differs significantly between Europe and the USA, so this month we're only covering those models available here in Europe, although we'll be looking at including transatlantic models in the coming months.

Affordable

HannsG HG221AP 22-inch widescreen monitor
UK Price: £103.44 (inc. VAT)

When you’re budget is squeezed, a monitor is an easy place to cut corners, especially as there are so many no-name brands now flooding the market with cheap (but in the end utterly crap) cheap TN+film panels.

This HannsG though is different and for just a snifter over £100 you can bag yourself a perfectly capable 22” 1,680 x 1,050 flat panel that’s more than capable of doing modern games and video playback justice. While the image quality obviously isn’t going to be up to much if you’re planning on image editing, it’s certainly respectable, and at this price point that’s better than a lot of the more expensive competitors.

However, it’s not going to win any awards for connectivity and comes with just a solitary VGA input connection – so no DVI or HDMI connectivity, but at this price, it’s still a very attractive and capable monitor. If you're looking for a DVI-based monitor, HannsG has a similar display - the HW223DP - which sells for just under £130 and should feature the same panel but we haven't tested it yet.

Mid Range

Viewsonic VX2260WM - 22-inch Full HD monitor
UK Price: £164.97 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $241.99 (ex. Tax)

While it's long been possible to pick up a TN+film 1,680 x 1,050 16:10 panel for under £150, this 22" model from Viewsonic is one of the first to boast a full 1080p compliant resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, making it a very attractive prospect indeed.

While image quality is predictably not amazing, it's certainly not a let down. Images are sharp and clear thanks to that lofty resolution and while there are still some hangovers from the affordable price tag such as some slight colour compression and less than stellar viewing angles, for the money this is an excellent choice. It even comes with an HDMI for connectivity to a next-gen console or similar high definition source. There's also no pesky back light bleed and the depth of blacks is as good as we've ever seen on a TN+film panel.

It's the sharpness garnered from cramming such a high resolution display into such a (comparatively) small display that really elevates this monitor above the competition though, delivering eye popping detail along with a generous amount of real estate. Just bear in mind that picking a monitor with such a high native resolution over a cheaper 1,680 x 1,050 monitor will mean you'll need some serious graphics grunt if you're looking to play PC games on it.

High End

BenQ FP241W 24"
UK Price: £312.99 (inc. VAT)

It might have been a few years since we first reviewed the BenQ FP241W, but in our experience it’s still one of the best 24” 1,920 x 1,200 monitors out there. Thankfully, that fact is made even sweeter with a massive price reduction since it was first released and it's now available for under £315!

Packing brilliant image quality that's as good for image editing as it is for gaming, tons of connectivity options (including HDMI) and support for full HD 1080p playback with the higher resolution, the Benq FP241W 24" is a great choice for anyone looking to move their PC gaming upto genuinely HD resolutions.

As we said when we originally reviewed it, if you’re looking for a 24” monitor, this is the one to go for.

Premium

NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi
UK Price: £1,544.28 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $2,172.66 (ex. Tax)

If your budget for a monitor stretches to quadruple figures, then there really is only one monitor we can recommend - the NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi.

Here in the bit-tech office/labs we were so impressed with the 3090WQXi that we got hold of one following our review to use to run some of our ultra high resolution graphics benchmarks. Every time we have to go back to playing games on our meagre 20” and 22” monitors we die a little inside and at least one member of the bit-tech team is still seriously considering shelling out for one at home - it's a lot of money, though. The NEC’s stunning image quality really is unrivalled for gaming or high definition video playback, and the sheer amount of desktop real estate on hand thanks to the monster 2,560 x 1,600 resolution makes other monitors seem puny in comparison.

The price tag might be ludicrous, but as is so common with high end hardware, you get what you pay for. This is the monitor we at bit-tech all lust after for our home setups and if your budget is big enough (and in which case we’re all insanely jealous) you need to get one – it’s as simple as that.

That's all from us this month! If you've any recommendations or suggestions you'd like to make to future editions of this series, please let us know in the forums. Also, if you have recently built a system of your own to a cost - we're keen to know how you got on with it!