Display panel types and purchase advice

[speancer]

Hello!

I seek council concerning display panel types and maybe some monitor purchase suggestions.

A few weeks ago I started my search for a new monitor. My first natural choice was a pretty responsive, 27" 1440p IPS panel with high refresh rate, as I've used this size, resolution and panel type for years, but with standard refresh rate, so I went with Acer Predator XB271HU. It's a pretty good monitor, amazing colours, good viewing angles, good response times for an IPS, 165 Hz, G-SYNC. However, like all IPS panels I think, it suffers from IPS glow and poor black uniformity. I was hoping it would be less noticeable on this new display, but I think it's actually worse.

I think we can skip TN panels entirely. Just recently I tested BenQ Zowie XL2546 and TN panel is unacceptable for me completely. Colours are poor and washed out, viewing angles are a nightmare, can't stand it. Unless you know of some super-good TN monitor, I'd rather skip this type. I've had an eye on HP Omen X 27 (27" 1440p 240 Hz TN), but I guess viewing angles would also kill it for me.

Now, here comes my concern with VA panel type. I actually have never ever seen a VA panel. It's said to be almost as good at colour reproduction as an IPS, nowadays it offers high refresh rates as well, additionally it offers high contrast ratio, resulting in deep blacks. Viewing angles are also said to be good. However, I see a lot of people saying that VA panels are no good for competitive play, as they suffer from noticeable ghosting and smearing, so they offer poor motion handling in general. Is this true for all VA panels? Are there any VA monitors that would be suitable for fast-paced FPS? Or should I avoid VA entirely and only focus on IPS panels (as I hate TN) ? Feel free to suggest some models.

As for an IPS, is the glow effect in monitor's corners on these panels just normal for this display type and I should expect any IPS monitor I buy to have it? IPS is good for gaming these days, been for a while already, modern IPS monitors are just slightly slower than TNs, but I wish there was no glow/clouding/flashlighting, however you call it. Is it something I am bound to experience on IPS in general?

I am looking for the best all-rounder here, so a monitor that would be good for competitive fast-paced FPS, media consumption and AAA games, so TNs are probably out of the equation in this case.

[speancer]

Update:

I just went through over a dozen reviews of VA panels and it seems like VA does not offer good viewing angles at all, so guess I was wrong about that one. Every single VA monitor I saw tested by RTINGS has poor viewing angles, black uniformity is also not that great apparently, clouding/backlight bleeds are also present. In this case I guess IPS is the only choice for me.

[RedCloudFuneral]

The thing with VA is that they have the largest range of response times. Their suitability for competitive play will come down to the game you are playing with the deciding factor being how dark the game is. A bright game like Fortnite would be an ideal use case, but me playing Wolcen or Grim Dawn with my 165hz panel, it smears worse than a 60hz IPS. Still it's a better gaming experience because of the lower input lag & other clarity benefits of high refresh(it's mostly the background smearing and not the characters, I can still track movement so I don't know if its affecting my performance at all. I'm not sure how this would transition into first-person competitive gaming, I didn't have much fun when I tried Destiny 2 as I kept getting disoriented but I don't know how much of that is the monitor(it is a darker game.)

TFTcentral has a review on a 240hz VA going live(to non supporters) tomorrow, it might be worth waiting on a purchase until you've read that just in case the new VA panels change the equation.

[Chief Blur Buster]

The thing with VA is that they have the largest range of response times.

The funny thing about VA is that it sometimes simultaneously has the fastest and the slowest response times. For different colors.

On some new VA panels, there are color pairs with response less than 1ms (GtG90%), and some color pairs with response more than 10ms (GtG90%). Some panels are so bad that there are huge motion clarity differences between super-bright outdoor scenes (fast, clear motion) and dark indoor dungeon scenes (ghosty, smeary motion).

VA is getting better. Like the 0.7ms IPS and 1ms IPS breakthroughs (GtG90%), VA has some ace cards up their sleeve, so there is more room to milk VA improvements.