Wednesday, 12 June 2013

New monitor - ASUS VG248QE

I ordered my monitor on Friday, and it arrived around midday Wednesday. Newegg's shipping really is spectacular.

I decided to get this monitor because I really wanted something that felt a lot like my oldschool CRT monitor, with the high refresh rate and all that. It still can't compare to a CRT in other aspects, and all LCD monitors lack one of my favourite features: proper support for multiple resolutions. I can have my desktop at 1600x1200, and play games at 1920x1080 fullscreen if I really wanted to. There's no crappy blurring or dithering, which is so nice.

That said, this monitor feels pretty good. 144Hz is nothing to laugh at; my CRT did only pull 100Hz at full resolution, though I think it got up to 180Hz at 800x600, which is cool. The colours look like shit, there's no doubt about that. They're worse than my CRT, they're bright, they're washed out, and the contrast sucks. It's a lot bigger though; 24 inches felt really amazing when I first got on it. The only complaints about it, aside from the color, is that it's glossy. Glossy sucks. The screen isn't, but the stand and frame are glossy as hell. It makes it feel cheap and ugly.

Eventually, I might find a good IPS panel and try that on for size. Then I can get a good contrast of good performance vs. good looks, to judge things properly. Right now I'm comparing it all to the ever-superior CRT monitors, which will never be beat.

One major reason I decided to get a new monitor, aside from the fact that I had money I needed badly to waste, was that I'm going to be building a desk soon, and it won't really have as much room or be in the same spot as this one, so I won't be able to have a big, fat monitor on it like I do now.

Anyway, here's a picture of my desk now:



It looks pretty sexy, not gonna lie ;)