vp930 my thoughts and calibrating colours

Hi.

I brought this monitor after been dissapointed with 2 prior TN panels.

I have been a long term CRT user, my CRT is a CTX 17" which I decided to replace because it was dying (dodgy power switch), wanted to cut my power consumption and needed bigger monitor.

So I brought a 17" acer cost around £130 (forgot the model#), I immediatly couldnt get on with it, problems were following when compared to my CRT.

Black shadow behind moving mouse pointer.
Black shadows behind scrolling text.
Flickering in black areas of windows been moved around screen (probably black leaking over neighbouring pixels)
Poor quality in divx videos.
Glary hard to read text even tho it was bigger then on my smaller CRT monitor.
Very bad viewing angles, lying down in bed to watch my movies greatly darkened the screen and I had to sit up so coundn't relax properly.

Exchanged it for a LG 1917MT TFT. Cost £160

Most of the above problems still existed although was a bit improved.

I did do some research prior to the LG but obviously not enough, when I brought the LG although I knew it was a TN panel the vendor had it listed as 16.7mill colours not 16.2 which would be associated with 6bit+frc it also showed much improved viewing angles. But the viewing angles were almost as bad and I when I rechecked the specs a month after I brought it they were updated showing 16.2.

Then I did much more research and learnt about MVA IPS TN etc. read toms hardware and other review sites and came to the conclusion I need to spend much more money and get a VP930. I was close to getting a widescreen but for the budget it would have meant a TN and also have the problems of stuff that dont work properly on widescreen.

My VP930 arrived and I was expecting greater lag from moving mouse scrolling text etc. since TN is supposedbly faster right?

Immediatly I noticed now when moving a mouse pointer around the desktop there is no visible shadown, likewise scrolling text no longer looks weird with a shadow behind. The monitor does struggle with colours over black background but I would say not as bad as both the previous TNs. With a light background I dont see any visible lag. Played some FPS games and no visible lag in graphics. Movies are much improved, dark colours no longer blocky and smoother although still worse then CRT but certianly much more bearable. Last my favourite I can look from below and no distortion so lying down in bed is now good again. Text I think is still bit hard to read compared to CRT but truetype counteracts this somewhat and I am prepared to get used to this.

Basically I am very curious how TN vendors are claiming to be more lower latency then MVA yet this monitor is very visibly faster then both TNs one of which I still have so can compare side by side.

Concerns I do have tho are the following.

When I opened the box the cdroms envelopes looked used ie. no tape and crinkled so possibly this monitor was a previous return to the vendor. Adding to the concern is I noticed a electrical fume type smell which normally you associate with electrical compenents running too hot, some others on this forum have noted this also.

Calibration, all the people who have reviewed this monitor have stated that the colours are very good after calibration and of course they had the proper calibration equipment, my question is why havent they revealed the calibrated settings so we can all set them and have calibrated monitors. My monitor is revision 3 and the reccommended revision 2 settings appear too dark.

I also wonder why people think 19" is a bad size, 1280x1024 in my opinion on a 17" would have text and icons that is too small, likewise a higher res on this monitor would make text and icons too small, and the fact I would have this res on a bigger screen is the main reason I wanted a 19". 1280x1024 on my 17" CRT eg. looks way too small to read text etc.

19" has higher DPI then 17" what is the disadvantage of this?

Thanks to all who take time to read this.