My recent TN purchase. Where'd I go wrong?

[DaveKap]

Just wanted to write up this quick story about something that recently happened to me that's made me a lot more discerning about my monitor purchase choice, followed by a question.

Quick background, I loved CRTs as a kid and grew up changing every monitor's refresh rate to 100hz if I could. Initial flat screens looked awful, had blur, bad viewing angles, and worst of all, burn-in! I held onto fat monitors well into 2003 (I just loved pushing the degauss button...) when I finally saw that Dell was coming out with good looking flat panel monitors. Over the course of the last decade I've lived with two such monitors and enjoyed them both. Never learned what IPS or TN were.

As Black Friday came up, I began looking for deals on 120hz monitors. Thought the reviews on newegg and amazon for the BenQ XL2420TE were amazing and decided to make the purchase of this 144hz beauty. Got the delivery, opened up, assembled, plugged in, and holy... what the... this thing is bright! So bright it's blowing out the colors on my desktop wallpaper. OK, try to adjust, try to adjust more... um... What is wrong with this thing?

After doing more adjusting and reading, I believe what I've discovered is that TN monitors are absolute crap if you try to do anything on your desktop. Games, oddly, looked fine but I use my desktop just as much as I play games and having a crappy desktop experience is pretty awful when I need to use Photoshop and do work. So what I believe I've learned is, stay away from TN monitors.

Now for the question. I'm going to list all the awful things I experienced with the BenQ monitor and I'd like to know if this is just specific to BenQ brand, a defect in the monitor I purchased, or something that is a known issue with TN panels.

Firstly was the viewing angle. If I moved my head up or down 2 inches, I could see a significant change in the brightness of the monitor. In fact, having my view centered in the middle, I could see visibly different brightnesses at the bottom and top of the screen.

Secondly, the monitor presented some strangely awful color reproduction. Here's a tiny slice of my desktop:

On my Dell IPS monitor, the color gradient coming off the sun is perfectly smooth. On the BenQ TN monitor, there was very visible artifacting across the gradient, similar to the same kind of artifacting you'd see when your monitor accidentally gets downgraded to 16-bit color mode. How a panel's manufacturing can allow this kind of weird color reproduction is beyond me.

Finally, the monitor warms up. And by warms up, I mean when I first turn it on for the day, it's super-ultra-bright for about 10 minutes and slowly gets darker until it stabilizes at a certain brightness. I used the monitor for 2 weeks to see if this was just a "it's new, whatever" kind of thing but it only got more and more recognizable as time went on. I didn't know display technologies were still being produced that needed this kind of warming up. Weird!

In any case, Newegg is letting me get a full refund on the monitor, so no harm, no foul. Not to mention the fact that I want to hold out for G-Sync tech that seems to do for 60hz what 144hz could never do anyway. That 45 fps G-Sync example NVidia showed is just gorgeous compared to any 144 fps I hit with the BenQ.

So, all that said, am I just an elitist with IPS or is BenQ just crap? Considering what I've gone through, should I hold out for G-Sync to reach IPS monitors or can Asus TNs deal with these issues way better than BenQ does? Let me know what you think!

[Chief Blur Buster]

Thanks for your informative feedback!

As Black Friday came up, I began looking for deals on 120hz monitors. Thought the reviews on newegg and amazon for the BenQ XL2420TE were amazing and decided to make the purchase of this 144hz beauty. Got the delivery, opened up, assembled, plugged in, and holy... what the... this thing is bright! So bright it's blowing out the colors on my desktop wallpaper. OK, try to adjust, try to adjust more... um... What is wrong with this thing?

After doing more adjusting and reading, I believe what I've discovered is that TN monitors are absolute crap if you try to do anything on your desktop. Games, oddly, looked fine but I use my desktop just as much as I play games and having a crappy desktop experience is pretty awful when I need to use Photoshop and do work. So what I believe I've learned is, stay away from TN monitors.

This quite true; it is quite a common complaint with TN panels, for desktop use.

There's a lot of people who don't mind the tradeoffs, especially people who primarily uses these monitors for gaming. Sometimes the fast response & motion clarity is more important (e.g. the rave reviews about games and motion clarity, as you've already seen all over Amazon, in the LightBoost testimonials, and gamers who care about this fast response especially with LightBoost enabled, which also further affects colors on most of the monitors even further, in exchange for CRT motion clarity).

However, there's also a lot of people who dislike the TN panels, especially at the desktop.
I prefer software development (e.g. Visual Studio) on a VA panel or IPS panel.

Now for the question. I'm going to list all the awful things I experienced with the BenQ monitor and I'd like to know if this is just specific to BenQ brand, a defect in the monitor I purchased, or something that is a known issue with TN panels.

Firstly was the viewing angle. If I moved my head up or down 2 inches, I could see a significant change in the brightness of the monitor. In fact, having my view centered in the middle, I could see visibly different brightnesses at the bottom and top of the screen.

Viewing angles and banding/gradients are all known issues with many TN panels, especially if you've been a long-time CRT user and switched to LCD for the first time. It's not a defect of the BENQ brand in particular, there are good IPS and VA monitors sold by BENQ that does not have these color issues.

Alas, as you've just discovered, TN is great for games, but not ideal for PhotoShop users...

On my Dell IPS monitor, the color gradient coming off the sun is perfectly smooth. On the BenQ TN monitor, there was very visible artifacting across the gradient, similar to the same kind of artifacting you'd see when your monitor accidentally gets downgraded to 16-bit color mode. How a panel's manufacturing can allow this kind of weird color reproduction is beyond me.

Yes, this is a known issue of TN, as well. For my TN monitors, the color goes down a few bits -- not all the way to 16-bits. However, using NVIDIA Control Panel to adjust colors will add a LOT more banding than using the on-screen-menu color adjustments. If you're using a colorimeter, adjust via the monitor adjustments (hopefully your calibration software can use DDC commands to do this) to remain as minimum gradient banding as possible. However, TN panels are often 6bit+FRC = 8bit.

Finally, the monitor warms up. And by warms up, I mean when I first turn it on for the day, it's super-ultra-bright for about 10 minutes and slowly gets darker until it stabilizes at a certain brightness.

That doesn't happen with most of my monitors. This may be an indicator of a defect. You've rightfully described several TN panel defects, but the brightness change should only be subtle (e.g. a few percent). Adjusting the XL2420TE to minimum brightness, you should be able to get under ~50 cd/m2 -- which is not bright. If this is not happening to you, then this specific part of the BENQ might be a warranty claimable defect. However, the banding/viewing angles are normal aspects of TN. Yes, it is indeed strange.

That said, there's another aspect of LCD's that warrants warming them up. Slower responding panels such as VA and IPS, can actually perform better when warm. If you forgot your watch or cellphone in a cold car in the winter, you've noticed how slow LCD's become in the cold. They ghost a lot more. This can happen to computer monitors when left in a cold room overnight, then turned on. That's why makers of the colorimeters (Spyder and i1 Display Pro) recommend to warm up the display before calibrating.

In any case, Newegg is letting me get a full refund on the monitor, so no harm, no foul. Not to mention the fact that I want to hold out for G-Sync tech that seems to do for 60hz what 144hz could never do anyway. That 45 fps G-Sync example NVidia showed is just gorgeous compared to any 144 fps I hit with the BenQ.

So, all that said, am I just an elitist with IPS or is BenQ just crap? Considering what I've gone through, should I hold out for G-Sync to reach IPS monitors or can Asus TNs deal with these issues way better than BenQ does? Let me know what you think!

That's one approach you can do.
I should notice that I see less banding on the G-SYNC upgraded ASUS, but it's not zero -- you still have the inherent TN limitations to deal with. The banding comes back if I adjust the picture via NVIDIA Control Panel instead of monitor adjustments, however. That said, this is unofficial information from tests on a prototype G-SYNC monitor that NVIDIA sent. You could wait and try it out, especially if you buy with a good return/exchange policy, or visit a local demo.

You now have to think long and hard if you want to go to 120Hz+ territory, as it can get challenging to get PhotoShop-quality monitors with 120Hz+ flat panels. However, there are some solutions, with specific tradeoffs.

So on that note, if you decide to dip back into 120Hz territory, consider the Eizo FG2421, the QNIX QX2710 overclockable, or the Overlord Tempest X270OC.
-- The VA panels have almost as good viewing angles as IPS, yet has better contrast ratio than IPS, and you get the "LightBoost" style Turbo240 feature. It's, IMHO, the best strobe-backlight monitor on the market at the moment, if you don't care about G-SYNC, and can live with some of its imperfections. Grey uniformity is so-so during dark colors, so that might affect PhotoShop work of dark imagery (e.g. dungeon artwork, etc), but you will get deliciously dark blacks and have the LightBoost motion clarity.
-- The QNIX QX2710 is a Korean 2560x1440p PLS monitor that is very easily overclockable to 120Hz. Backlight bleed is a common problem though, and warranty can be a hassle, so make sure you order via Amazon or getting a SquareTrade warranty. Colors can slightly distort when overclocking. You don't get a strobe backlight, so motion clarity is not nearly as good as LightBoost or Turbo240.
-- The Overlord Tempest X270OC, is one of the world's most reliably overclockable 2560x1440p monitors, using IPS panels instead of PLS panels, has a USA warranty, and is generally higher quality than the Korean options. No strobe backlight either, but the 120Hz is widely reported more reliable and PhotoShop-worthy than the QNIX.

Again, thanks for the informative feedback! Perhaps during 2014, I should create an article for Blur Busters about TN versus IPS versus PLS versus VA, and their specific pros and cons, especially in the light of some people preferring certain aspects (some people like me, are so picky about motion blur, that we don't mind gradients) while others prefer different aspects (e.g. resolution, color, etc).

P.S. Up to you, but if you order monitors online, feel free to support Blur Busters via ordering via the Official 120Hz Monitor List.

[DaveKap]

That list is actually what I'm going to be keeping my eyes on as G-Sync comes out. However, like I said in my post, G-Sync does for 60hz what 144hz couldn't do alone, so getting a G-Sync IPS 60hz monitor is perfectly fine if the 120hz version is either too expensive or non-existent for a while. Input lag has never been an issue for me on IPS monitors at 8ms refresh rate, so the pros that TN monitors have isn't worth it for all the cons. Mind you, my current monitor has zero faults outside of not being G-Sync and only being 60hz, so I can wait a while to actually buy something new. This was purely a Black Friday Buy.

I am wondering, though. Someone told me that G-Sync still needed to be supported by the games being run in order to actually work, similar to how PhysX cards used to only work with supported software and were essentially useless for anything else. Is this actually true? Nothing I've read seemed to indicate that G-Sync's feature was near the software level, I had always just assumed it was a hardware level communication between the monitor and video card and would provide consistent smoothness for anything being rendered.

[Chief Blur Buster]

That list is actually what I'm going to be keeping my eyes on as G-Sync comes out. However, like I said in my post, G-Sync does for 60hz what 144hz couldn't do alone

Yes -- however, also keep in mind GSYNC also improves >60Hz operation too!

I am wondering, though. Someone told me that G-Sync still needed to be supported by the games being run in order to actually work

Not true --
It's probably was a misinterpretation of the fact that it doesn't work properly with certain games.

The reality is that GSYNC works out-of-the-box with most games, including older games. As you can see in the GSYNC Preview, it works with all source engine games automatically, as well as Quake Live, and other older games too. Though, most of the GSYNC benefits occur when you're getting a variable framerate, or any issues such as stutters (e.g. http://www.testufo.com/stutter) -- GSYNC will generally fix that right up, even in older games.

[DaveKap]

Yes -- however, also keep in mind GSYNC also improves >60Hz operation too!

Oh, I know! I just mean if G-Sync 60hz IPS/VA monitors come out first and 120hz versions take longer to make retail or reach an acceptable price range, then I'd sooner buy the 60hz version than deal with a non-G-Sync monitor at 144 or 240hz.

Not true --
It's probably was a misinterpretation of the fact that it doesn't work properly with certain games.

Is this documented anywhere? My guess is that any games where framerate locking is required for the engine to run correctly (Dark Souls, Deadly Premonition) but if there were a list or guide, that would be handy to have.

[SS4]

If the game engine itself is creating the stutter unless FPS are locked then of course no amount of video HP and technology will change that if thats what you mean, but i'm sure theres not a ton of game that suffer from this. I'd have to look up those 2 you listed to see whats really happening though.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Is this documented anywhere? My guess is that any games where framerate locking is required for the engine to run correctly (Dark Souls, Deadly Premonition) but if there were a list or guide, that would be handy to have.

The information I got is from NVIDIA's GSYNC's FAQ. Very few games. The games aren't specified, but I've found that you can modify the game exclusion list.

Generally, even framerate-locked games such as 60fps Sky Rim, can benefit from G-SYNC in some stutter reduction and less input lag -- since the 60fps refreshes are refreshed quicker (1/144sec scanouts instead of 1/60sec scanouts for each frame)

[Chief Blur Buster]

If the game engine itself is creating the stutter unless FPS are locked then of course no amount of video HP and technology will change that if thats what you mean, but i'm sure theres not a ton of game that suffer from this. I'd have to look up those 2 you listed to see whats really happening though.

That's true, certain game engines can inject stutters that GSYNC may not be able to fix. However, this is fortunately a small minority of games.

GSYNC monitors also support regular VSYNC ON and VSYNC OFF modes, as a fallback.

[whitespider]

With you on this dave. For me there is simply no visual comparison between a TN screen and the screen on my U2711 (ips). I also have a Catleap 2b, which can be overclocked to 130hz, and while the catleap is a better gaming monitor for smoothness in games that don't perfectly sync at 60hz, and it's also quicker, the U2711 looks worlds better than that as well. Which is interesting, because they are both IPS screens. The dell has way less brightness, but crams far more lively colors (and better represented colors) than the catleap. Both screens however are not even speaking the same visual language and a TN screen. My problem with tn screens is not banding, it's the actual color representation. The hue. The range of vibrancy. Something just feels very off. Things that I remember having a visual punch, and excitement - on the u2711, seem like a "cam" of a film compared to watching it in the cinema. Washed out, poorly represented, yuk.

[Neo]

DaveKap,

TN is horrible.

It's zero-viewing angle based on real world experiences.

VA and IPS versions are better. End.