As long as I’ve been following, using, or writing about computers, NEC has been a leader in displays. From the early MultiSync monitors to their current line of LCDs, they have been focused more on pushing performance than on dropping price, which has kept many of us from owning one of their displays. Of course, there is a large swath of users that always want to have the best, and are willing to pay for it.

Back with a CRT, this was pretty easy to do. We didn’t have to worry about lag, we could run multiple resolutions on a display without worrying about a native resolution, and higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, and better sharpness, were likely going to work for most power users. Now the field is a little different, as you have to worry about the native resolution of your panel, the response time, viewing angles, color quality, and more. All of this has led to a marketplace with different solutions for different needs than before.

NEC is still there trying to lead this market, but are they still a good universal choice for anyone that wants the best? Or has their goal of being the best led them to specialize in certain areas of performance that make their panels a better choice for a certain type of user instead of a universal winner?

Almost 15 years ago I set up my first multiple monitor system, using a 17” and a 15” CRT. At that time it was a very uncommon setup, but now it seems that many people use multiple displays to manage their workspace. No matter how many displays you hook up, there are always some things that benefit from having a single, large, high resolution desktop, such as the spreadsheets that I use for doing display reviews.

27” and 30” displays with 2560 horizontal pixels have been available for a few years now, though the pricing on them has been very high that whole time. Sometimes you can find a display on sale and pick it up for a reasonable price, but typically the cost of entry seems to be right around $1,000 and up. Because of this people are still likely to buy two, or even three, 1920x1200 displays for the same price and run a multi-monitor desktop.

We finally have our first real affordable 27”, high resolution display on the market now, and it comes courtesy of HP. The HP ZR2740w is a 27” IPS panel with 2560x1440 resolution (16:9 aspect ratio) and an LED backlighting system. With a street price that comes in at $700 or below, what has HP done to be able to bring a high resolution display to the masses at a price well below other vendors? Thankfully, they provided me with a unit so I could evaluate it and see.

For every monitor review that I’ve done for AnandTech so far, I know that as soon as I check the comments there will be a thread with the same theme: “I don’t care about 1080p monitors, I only want 16:10 aspect ratios!” When widescreen displays first came out for desktop LCD monitors, virtually every model was a 16:10 display. The 20” Dell I have on my own desk is 16:10, and almost every vendor made 16:10 panels.

As the price of flat panels dropped and HDTV adoption took over, more and more desktop panels migrated to the HDTV aspect ratio of 16:9. The reasons behind this were easy to understand, as you could produce more displays, reuse panels across PC and TV lines, and have a lower cost across the board to let you sell them for less. Most people were more than happy to pay less for a display than to pay 2-3 times as much for those extra 120 pixels at the bottom of a display. As this happened, 16:10 panels became relegated to higher end models, almost always as IPS panels and often with high end features like AdobeRGB colorspace support and more.

Dell finally decided to address this with their U2412M display that features a 1920x1200 on its 24” panel. The U2412M is also an eIPS panel that is natively 6-bit but uses A-FRC to display 16.7 million colors. Dell has managed to bring this monitor in at $329 and can often be found on sale for under $300, while most other 16:10 24” panels come in at $500 or more. What did Dell have to do to hit this aggressive price point? We put the Dell through its paces to find out.

For most people seeking accurate color reproduction and wide viewing angles, IPS has been the screen technology of choice for years now. The main issues against IPS have typically been response time for gamers, a higher black level than VA technologies, and more prominently cost. More and more vendors have been introducing e-IPS displays, which is a more transparent version of IPS that allows for the use of lower powered backlights, lowering the cost to consumers. The tradeoff is that this does have a negative effect on contrast shifts in the panel when viewed at an angle, though color shifts still are not present.

There was a bit of chatter this past fall when AOC introduced the i2353 display, which is an LED backlit IPS panel with an MSRP under $200. Had the prices of IPS panels and components finally fallen to the point where they would be able to start forcing companies to transition to them away from TN for their affordable monitor lines? To find out if the AOC monitor was still able to offer a good level of performance at this price point we requested a review sample, which they quickly provided.

Recently Taiwanese vendor GeChic got in touch with us about a new product set to appear on American shores, the On-Lap 1301 laptop monitor. The concept? A portable 13" screen that affixes to the back of your notebook lid and swings out, extending your desktop space and powered by a USB 2.0 cable. The first inclination is to expect another DisplayLink peripheral, but the On-Lap 1301 actually uses the HDMI or VGA out of your notebook and thus dodges all of the pitfalls of using a USB-driven screen. So how effective is the On-Lap 1301? We took it for a test drive to find out if GeChic's screen is the productivity enhancer you were looking for.

Almost all of us have gone to see a movie in 3D at the theaters at this point. Unlike most 3D designs at home, movie theaters use a passive 3D setup with polarized glasses that enable you to watch 3D without needing expensive, battery powered glasses.

Though the implementation is slightly different, passive 3D technology has started to come to the home as well, and the ViewSonic V3D231 is one of the first computer monitors to use it. Will the advantages of passive 3D outweigh the negatives in a PC environment? Find out as well as how the Viewsonic V3D231 fares in non-3D tasks in our full review.

The big push in movies and displays has been 3D the past few years. In movies it’s ranged from well designed and executed (Avatar) to a gimmick to charge $4 more per ticket (many examples), but for gaming, it potentially has more direct benefits. Virtually every game now is rendered in 3D, and so all of the information is there that is needed to show the game in 3D to the user, unlike the fake 2D to 3D conversions that many films use. Running in active 3D also means a panel that works at a true 120Hz, so even your 2D image can benefit.

There are a variety of things to consider when purchasing a new LCD, and the 3D (120Hz) aspect really muddies the waters. Nearly all 120Hz/3D consumer displays use TN panels, and there's still a question of whether 3D is even worth pursuing. We'll investigate these areas and more in our review of the Samsung S23A750D.

Recently I reviewed another monitor from BenQ that was designed as an all-in-one model to handle your computer use, as well as TV or video game usage. While the performance of the display was decent, the combination of everything wasn’t an ideal fit.

This new display from BenQ, the VW2420H, has a similar *VA panel and LED backlighting setup as the previous one, but this time it is just a normal monitor. Will it fare better without all the extra features?

So far we've tested HP's TouchSmart 610 all-in-one and Dell's Inspiron One all-in-one, and in both cases we've found things to like along with aspects that left us wanting. Today we have on hand Toshiba's DX735 in its least expensive configuration. Starting at under a grand, the DX735 at least superficially suggests a design that's more focused, more streamlined, and less schizophrenic than the competition. Did Toshiba do right where the others stumbled, or is the DX735 just another case of too many compromises?

Our last Windows all-in-one review was for HP's TouchSmart 610, an interesting if slightly pricey piece of desktop kit. HP brought a lot of innovation to the table but they couldn't quite patch over the underlying problems with the hardware and software ecosystems that keep a touch-based all-in-one from really achieving all it can. Today we have on hand the Dell Inspiron One 2320, complete with Dell's own touch-based software interface and its own bells and whistles. Is Dell able to smooth over those issues better than HP could, or did they stumble on to some new ones?

As much as it might pain some of us to hear it, Apple's iMac really did essentially legitimize the all-in-one as an alternative to the typical desktop-and-monitor combination. There have been Windows-based alternatives here and there historically, but it's only been in the past couple of years that the Windows all-in-one market has really started to gain traction. Of course, the fact that system requirements have also reached a point where a large range of CPUs are still sufficiently fast helps.

At present, the iMac's Windows counterparts also offer a functionality that Apple has yet to duplicate: touch interface. HP adds an additional wrinkle with the TouchSmart 610: a hinge that allows you to slide the unit down and use it "kiosk style". That hinge, along with the latest Intel hardware and a surprisingly high quality screen, suggests a machine intended for myriad uses...not just an all-in-one computer, but an all-markets-in-one appliance. Find out how it performs as we put the TouchSmart 610 to the test.

One of the main reasons for the move towards LED lighting in home TVs hasn’t been about lower power usage or better performance, but about making that flat panel TV in your living room look sexy. With the ML248H, ASUS is trying to do the same for your desktop.

With a 16.5mm thick profile, the ML248H has that thin panel look that makes you want to wall mount it to show off how thin it is. Of course, if you want to show it off you also want it to perform well, so we will see if the TN panel in the ASUS ML248H can keep up in that area as well.

The EW2420 from BenQ is designed for use as a multi-purpose display. While it has the standard DVI and HDMI port you would expect on a current monitor, it also has an additional HDMI port for another video source like a video game system or Blu-ray player, as well as speakers for the audio from these sources.

Of course, if the panel doesn’t perform well then it doesn’t matter how many inputs it has, but the BenQ looks promising with both a VA panel and an LED backlight. The last time we checked out a BenQ LCD, it was an MVA panel that caused us to lament the decline in quality seen over the years. Read on as we determine whether the EW2420 can stand with the better offerings on the market.

For years now Dell has been one of the few companies that consistently offers a range of displays using IPS panels for desktop displays instead of only the more affordable TN panels. Now with the availability of e-IPS panels, Dell has been able to offer even more models and lower the price all the way down to $319 for a 23” 1080p display.

Considering most IPS displays use S-IPS or similar panels and cost north of $500 for 23", E-IPS promises improved viewing angles compared to TN and can hopefully avoid any other negatives. How does Dell's U2311H stack up to other displays, and is it a worthwhile compromise between TN and S-IPS? Read on to find out.

There's something special about 30" displays. They're the biggest, the baddest, and the spiritual flagship for each respective display maker. It's where manufacturers pull out all the stops on visual quality, inputs, build quality and features. We reviewed HP's updated 30-incher, the ZR30w a few months ago, and now it's Dell's turn to refresh and update their own 30" display - the U3011. 

How does it stand up to the competition? Read on for the full review. 

So I have a confession to make. The past few months I've been incredibly preoccupied with smartphones, so much so that the ASUS MS238H has been sitting on my desk for a very long time. The data's been largely taken, the display calibrated, but for whatever reason the review has endlessly been on my back burner - I'm sorry ASUS. The upside of this situation, however, is that I've spent a long time using the ASUS MS238 and feel like I know it inside and out, and it's a slim value performer. 

Read on for our full review.

As a vocal proponent of improving laptop LCD quality—and LCD quality for desktops as well—the past few years have been painful. True, laptop LCDs have never been at the level of their desktop counterparts, but once upon a time there were at least a few laptops that didn't use TN panels. One of those is the vaunted IBM ThinkPad T42, launched way back in 2004. Besides coming before virtually everything migrated to widescreen displays, the T42 is one of the few laptops to use an IPS panel. As luck would have it, I recently had a chance to use a T42, and I took the opportunity to run it through our standard set of LCD tests. Mostly I was curious to see the results, but I figured some of our readers would enjoy getting our impressions of this archeological find as well. Find out just how little has improved after six years of LCD "updates".

There’s a new segment in the ever changing LCD display market, one that readers have been asking us to take an in-depth look at for a while now - 120 Hz panels. We’ve been playing with ASUS’ newest display, the VG236H. It's a 120Hz, 1080P, 23" 3D enabled display that joins a small but growing demographic of similarly speced LCD displays.