I've had the VP930b for a week now, and have put it through the steps and uses, plus a bit more, in order to share my opinions on it.
Before going on, I'll should add this is my first LCD monitor, and prior to this I had been using a 17-inch CRT from ViewSonic. The jump in size is not small since the viewing area of a CRT is always smaller than the official size contrary to LCD displays, and while this is standard, it probably also helps perpetuate the folk wisdom that company announced specs are not to be trusted. As such, the gain was actually 3 inches and not 2.
Size and resolution
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In my previous monitor, I usually set the resolution to 1024x768, and found this to be the best size for my everyday use. I am now operating at 1280x1024, which is roughly 25% more pixels and should thus be about that much smaller. The 3 inches help offset this, so it is still a fairly ideal resolution size for my taste. Although some may find this talk about the resolution pointless, I have seen several people in the forums complaining that if it wasn't 1600x1200 then it was pointless. Aside from the fact that I know many people who prefer their 17-inch CRTs at only 800x600, I did see a Dell 2001fp in action, a 20.1 inch screen at 1600x1200 and found the usual text and icons to be uncomfortably small. So frankly, I wouldn't want this screen to force me to use such a resolution.
What it comes with
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The screen comes with a very nice stand, a small booklet with 2-page instructions written in some 20 languages, a 6-foot DVI cable, a 6-foot VGA cable, a power cable, and 2 CDs. For movies, I purchased a longer 10-foot DVI cable at NewEgg for some $15 or so.
The stand is really impressive. It is quite heavy, and I wondered why at first, since the screen itself is fairly light. Of course there is the simple issue of stability, to not allow it to topple over too easily (zero risk), but another factor is clearly the ease to allow one to set its height or rotate it without having the base so much as budge. To lift or lower the monitor (it can go as low as 14.2 inches overall) one just raises or lowers the screen and lets go. When one does this one feels as if there were some ball-bearings within the stand, which allow this to be done very smoothly, and it never budges when one lets go. All in all it feels very solid. Rotating the screen is also no struggle, though I've only done it once to report this.
One can also detach the screen from the stand and mount it on a wall, should you have the inclination to do so.
Installation
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Moving up to an LCD was a necessity, since frankly the depth of the old CRT was the maximum I could fit on my desk. Seeing all this space available now, especially with a bigger screen, is quite the shocker. Installing it was no problem. I didn't hesitate to insert the first CD with the monitor's drivers and manual, and that went without a fuss. The second CD comes with some programs to help calibrate the monitor and another program to ease the pivot possibilities.
Calibration
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Unlike the sites that review monitors, I do not have a $150+ color calibration device for the monitor. They all claim that the colors are far from ideal, which I can believe, and that once calibrated professionally, they can be wonders.
The VP930b is the successor to the much lauded VP191b, which was said to have almost ideal colors AFTER it had been calibrated. One of the programs on the second CD is PerfectSuite, a manual calibration program. It takes you through a number of steps in which you first determine the brightness and contrast you prefer, and then spend some time matching various grey squares with grey backgrounds in order to find the best color balance. This is actually quite necessary IMO since the initial brightness is pretty extreme, and if you play with the brightness and contrast, the colors are immediately affected.
Image quality
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I'm not a professional, much less a specialist, so this is no doubt quite subjective. I tested the image through both the VGA and the DVI, and must say that I found the DVI connection to produce a small but clearly superior image quality. Initially, I found the text to be a bit pixelated for my taste, but once I had set my settings to ClearType, this was resolved. The overall image quality, colors, and brightness are all superb to my eyes.
Videos/Movies
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Since I had specifically chosen this model for its fame as a top all-rounder, I didn't expect to be disappointed by the movies, and I wasn't. I ran numerous scenes such as dark ones from the Lord of the Rings (vol.1), to large single color-type scenes from the Big Blue, to various action scenes and others. It handled them very well, and the complaint of pixelated landscapes occurred only very occasionally and the contrast and display of dark tones was excellent overall. I had no problem watching a full movie on it, and found it a pleasure.
Games
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I'm not the biggest game buff in the world, and no doubt some will disagree with my assessment. Still, I ran several fast-paced games such as Need For Speed: Underground 2, and found not only the colors and visibility to be excellent, but never was able to notice any real ghosting. If there is any, I can only presume it is extremely slight, certainly not to the point of annoying the player. No doubt, if I spent my time trying to find and see it, I would be able to satisfy this masochistic desire (spending time trying to find faults in one's stuff is masochism IMHO), but I'm a "cup is half-full" kind of person, so I don't spend my time looking for these faults. If I see them, I'll be honest about them, but otherwise they can't really be that serious in my book.
Issues/complaints
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The only one I have, and one that has been reported by VP191b users as well, is an annoying blue square that appears on the screen announcing the type of connection being used. It lasts a few seconds and appears when one starts the computer, when one changes the resolution, and when one exits the screensaver. While I couldn't turn this warning off, one can make it transparent, and appear in a non-obtrusive point of the screen, which is what I did of course.
Final thoughts
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Overall, I've regained quite a bit of deskspace, and for a very worth cause. The monitor very much lives up to my expectations, and I am very satisfied with the purchase. Strangely enough, it is also less expensive than its predecessor the VP191b, and can be found for less than $420 as of this post. The best deal I saw was at ZipZoomFly.com offering it for $419 with free FedEx 2nd day shipping.
Albert Silver
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