Ips vs tn..that big of a difference?

wesman15

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Jun 21, 2012
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Ok, so I just ordered this monitor from newegg Asus VS238H-P 23-Inch Full-HD LED Monitor and I'm not sure if it's ips panel or tn. Does it make that big of a difference in picture quality if it's tn as opposed to ips? If it is tn, should I return it and get a low-end ips panel for the same price?
 
depends on what type of ips.

e-ips (6bit), tn, and va panels all have the same color accuracy.
e-ips however offers a much much wider field of view than tn. we are talking almost 180deg without distortion compared to perhaps 10-15deg on tn panels depending on if they have a coating or not.

p-ips, s-ips or h-ips (8bit) panels do have improved color accuracy over the other types of panels in addition to the wide viewing angles.

personally i buy nothing but pro ips panels if i can help it. i dislike tn panels (especially laptop tn panels) but some individuals love the 120hz models. to each their own i guess.

what is best for you depends on what you expect in a monitor and your budget.

search for that model number on the web and i'm sure you can find a website which tells you if its a tn or ips.
 
Actually, to tell whether it's a TN panel, you can just look at the quoted viewing angles - at Newegg, it says 170°(H) / 160°(V) for the VS238H-P, which means it's a TN panel. Also, if you look at a TN panel from below, it will look a lot darker than viewing it from the side. VA panels usually have viewing angles quoted as 176/176 and IPS panels usually have viewing angles quoted as 178/178, but distinguishing between PVA, AMVA, and cPVA, or between e-IPS, P-IPS, S-IPS, and H-IPS is impractical from the listed specifications. For those, I can offer you a couple of better sources than just searching the web:
http://www.prad.de/en/guide/vergleich_auswahl.html
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/panelsearch.htm