24" Monitor Showdown
BenQ FP241WZ vs. Dell 2407WFP-A04 vs. LG L246WP

By Jim Robbins - March 2007
jim XdotX robbins XatX gmail XdotX com

You may be wondering how it is that I happen to have two three 24 inch monitors to review...  After all, I am just a regular computer and video game fan who has bills to pay like the rest of you.  Well, I had been doing a lot of research on forums and review sites for nearly a year and came to the conclusion that the BenQ FP241W was for me.  Well, unless you got an updated version with the newest firmware, you didn't have any scaling options for Full, Aspect, and 1:1 pixel mapping.  So, I waited.  Now, the new BenQ FP241WZ  have the scaling options for sure, and possibly an updated panel, so I ordered one at Buy.com (about $760 with coupon) hoping I'd get a good unit with no dead pixels, etc...  Anyway, the next day, Dell had a good deal on the 2407WFP monitor (about $660), and the new A4 version supposedly has the same scaling options as well, only it was $100 cheaper than the BenQ.  So, I went to back and canceled my order at Buy.com since it hadn't shipped, and ordered the Dell.  Wouldn't you know it, the next day I get an email saying the BenQ actually DID ship, and it was coming.  The Dell was coming, too.  I told my wife what happened and she wasn't too pleased...  Would your wife or girlfriend be happy if you just spent over $1400 without telling her?  I didn't think so.  Anyway, after the initial shock wore off, she went out and bought some stuff for herself and we are even now.  *grin*  ...except for the fact I'll be paying off my credit card for many months longer than I hoped. *sigh* 

Addition:  Looks like a new 24" LG monitor just came out, and it is rumored to have the same panel as the BenQ.  So, I am going to throw a shiny new LG L246WP into the mix, too!  Imagine the look I my wife's face when she saw a third 24" monitor come into the house in less than a week! *laugh*

So, let the showdown begin!!

BenQ FP241WZ

I'll start with the BenQ FP241WZ since it arrived first.  It came bright and early Friday morning and I ripped into it right away and snapped a few pics.  The first thing I did was check to make sure all the pixels were perfect.  I used a program called CheckeMon and everything looked good!  I was glad to see no dead pixels since I would probably have to hassle with Buy.com to get it swapped or returned since I had tried to cancel this order anyway.  I proceeded to head to work and didn't come back to play with the monitor for another 9 hours.  Man, that was the longest 9 hours of my life!  *grin*

Here are the morning photos.  You can see the packing and a couple of the edges pretty well.  The top has 1 USB port for a camera or something, and the left side has 2 USB ports for other stuff, but I didn't get pics for those.  Otherwise, you can see that it came with a DVI, HDMI, VGA, USB, and power cable.  That's pretty good to have all that included.  I was impressed.  It also came with some software that I didn't install.  I just let XP auto detect the thing and my ATI drivers handled the rest.

(Note:  All source images in my article are 1600x1200 for the native resolution.  Not too big, but not small, either.)

I took some more photos when I got home and tested the backlight bleed, the input lag time and the ghosting effect.  First off, the backlight bleed doesn't seem to be a problem.  The backlight was just slightly uneven, but as I moved my head around the screen the backlight pattern seemed to change a bit.  I am guessing this is because of the type of panel in this monitor (PVA?? MVA??).  In any case, I would say that the backlight was much better than TV's or other monitors I have seen, and the color doesn't shift radically as I moved my head around or even at much sharper angles.  This is much better then the TFT Samsung panels I have used in the past.  Also, this thing was ultra bright!!  I turned the brightness down to 50 and the contrast down to 40, and it is a pretty nice image.  It still seems a little bright for my dark basement room, but when I have more time, I'll tweak that more.

(Note: That white pixel you see on my images is not my monitor or your monitor, it's my stupid camera.  I guess one of the CCD pixels fried, darn it!!)

On to the input lag...  This was a very important issue for me as I can't stand moving the mouse and having my FPS games not do what I want WHEN I want it!!  Of course, that is the reason you see the Mitsubishi CRT in those upper images.  I have an ATI X850XT PE AGP video card in my computer, and I turned on 1:1 mapping so no scaling on the LCD would interfere with the input lag.  I downloaded Virtual Stopwatch Pro from http://www.springcreeksoftware.com/ and set the fonts pretty big so the camera could see it easy. (Thanks to Mario Allard for the link!)  I also set my camera to manual mode, put it on ISO 400 and set the shutter time as low as it would go so I'd get some clear pictures of the times.  I took about 100 pics using the default red color and about 25 more using grey, just in case one color was faster than all colors together.  I had kind of a range, but I'd say the average lag time was 32 to 33 ms.  Sometimes it was a little more, sometimes a little less. *shrug*  If you are running a screen at 60hz, then 1 frame = 16.6ms.  So, basically, we are twice that for lag time, so we are about 2 frames per second behind the CRT.  I'd say that's pretty darn good!!  Only 1/30th of a second off perfect?  I doubt any monitors in the near future can do better than that if they keep using overdrive technology.  Anyway, it should make for near perfect online gaming.  Heck, my ping time has more lag than that.  *grin* 

Ok, so now I needed to check on the ghosting.  I opened up Guild Wars, since this is a game my aging AGP card can actually run at 1920x1200 and ran around a little bit.  It was pretty good, but not perfect.  I could see a hint of blur while rotating quickly, but this is by far the best LCD panel I have seen.  It wasn't quite as good as the CRT, but I was loving the widescreen ratio.  I felt like I had a huge view of the virtual world.  I also try the "Perfect Motion" on settings 1,2, and 3.  You should actually see the blur disappear by using any of the settings.  I think the way it is supposed to work is by adding black frames or by scrolling black sections through the screen.  I could indeed see a flicker, and the higher the Perfect Motion setting, the higher the flicker.  I think that I may be able to get used to the lowest setting in FPS games, but if there is anything relatively static on screen, the flicker was more annoying than helpful.  I tried to take some pics to see if I could catch sections of black moving in the image but it didn't work.  I did however get some pics of PixPerAn in action so you can see how the ghosting is compared to the CRT.  I should note that my CRT has a small amount of light on dark smearing anyway, and you'll see that in the pics.  The BenQ images are on the left and the CRT images on the right.

A request on the forum wanted me to try Perfect Motion with PixPerAn.  Here is a photo of the result.  You can see, it does reduce ghosting, but it looks like a dark spot is moving through the image.  That's where the flicker comes from, I guess.  *shrug*  As far as movies and Perfect Motion, it seems like the movies looked great without it on.  I didn't try it, as this monitor already has much less ghosting than any consumer level flat panel TV you can buy.  I work at Best Buy part time, and all the flat panel LCDs have smearing problems, some worse than others.  I am guessing that using PM on movies would be more distracting than anything.

Now, we need to plug in every device I own...  *sigh*  Yes, I tried inputting data to every video port on this thing.  I tried all kinds of resolutions.  I tried Full, Aspect, 1:1.  I tried with DCDi on and off, which didn't seem to make a difference that I could notice.  So, I'll give you a summary of what I actually tried, and I'll only add a few pics since they all pretty much came out the same.  Here's the List

My PC, only via DVI
This worked just as you would expect.  Run it at 1920x1200 and the screen is pixel perfect for all modes.  Run it in 1280x1024, and it stretches wide in Full mode, scales with the proper aspect ratio in Aspect mode, and goes to perfect 1:1 mapping centered in the 1:1 mode.  (no pics, it just worked right)

The XBox 360, component video
Unfortunately, this didn't work as well as the DVI input.  Full mode Always stretched everything to full screen as expected with no bars and an improper aspect ratio.  Aspect mode also worked as expected, and left the bars on the left and right for 480P, and on the top and bottom for 720P, 1080i, and 1080P.  This was the best mode and video input for the 360!!  And, to the bad part... 1:1 mode left an additional space on the left and right sides of the 1080i and 1080P modes, so it wasn't pixel perfect.  Aspect mode looked to be, but 1:1 wasn't, even though it should have been.  I think this is an issue that the older FP241W had after the newest firmware was added, too.  In any case, Aspect mode did the trick.

                      1:1                                            Aspect                                          Full

The XBox 360, VGA
Dang, this pretty much sucked.  The colors were washed out, and I was very disappointed as I just bought this cable just so I could use it on a 24" monitor when needed.  I think this is actually an XBox 360 problem, as I have seen my neighbors 360 hooked up via VGA on a 19" LCD, and it looked washed out on there, too.  It did give some interesting resolution options, however, but it wasn't worth it for the washed out color.  Also, the other bad thing is that it wouldn't sync to 1920x1080 in any mode correctly.  I messed with switching resolutions and manually changing the sync settings, etc, but never could get it to work right.  Again, I think this is a 360 problem as I have seen people complaining about more monitors than just this one with the vga cable.  I guess we'll see how the Dell fairs on VGA...

Cut off on the left and stretched wrong - 1920x1080 VGA on 1:1

Sega Dreamcast, VGA
Ok, the Dreamcast was awesome on this monitor.  It synced properly to 640x480vga, and even when stretched it looked great.  My pics of this came out really dim because I was still using the ISO400 and ultra fast shutter speed.  I'll spare you the ugly images, but know that normal VGA output looks pretty darn good in Aspect mode.

Sega Saturn, S-Video
Yeah, I still have one of these.  And it was nice and sharp in Aspect mode.  Of course, the image was ultra blocky, but it was a clean blocky!!  Again, my pic is dark, but this is a must see.  *grin*

GameCube, Component Video and Composite
I was pretty disappointed in the composite video quality.  There was a lot of noise on the fringes of things.  It didn't look like any kind of comb filter was implemented.  I wouldn't recommend using composite at all if you can help it.  However, when I switched the GameCube over to the component video, it looked great!  Here are a couple of darks shots...

                Composite                               Component Video

Original XBox, Component Video
The original XBox doesn't have too many games that work in a higher than 480p resolution.  And the majority of games that were in 480p weren't widescreen.  I do have a couple of games that go up to 1080i, and I'll show off Dragon's Lair 3D.  When in 1080i this title had extra space on the left and right when in 1:1 mode, but looked proper in Aspect mode.  Otherwise, 480p acted as you would expect in all 3 modes.

                       1:1                                          Aspect

Oppo 971H, HDMI (from a DVI to HDMI adaptor)
This is the only device that seemed to work correctly for a 1080i input and 1:1 mode (other than the PC, that is).  The Oppo itself has a small under scan, even on my projector, and it did exactly the same thing on the BenQ.  It's good to know that 1:1 works with some devices at least.  It's not perfect, but at least Aspect makes up for it most of the time.  Both of these pics are in 1080i via HDMI.  Sorry about the dark pics again...

Toshiba HD-A2, HDMI
Ok, this unit is a great HD-DVD player.  Ok, as good as they get for now, for less than $500 that is.  Anyway, it works much better than the 360 HD-DVD drive, as it has a good remote, the image is more clear, and it integrates nicely into a full home theater setup.  Oh, and it sounds better than the 360 HD-DVD drive too!!  Yeah, I have used the 360 HD-DVD drive in my full home theater, and it was lacking a little, so I picked this up.  In any case, this unit had the same problem with 1080i via HDMI.  It had black bars on the sides.  I doubt this is an underscan kind of think like my Oppo, however.  It DID look right in Aspect mode, once again.  I am guessing that 1080i and 1080p just can't sync properly to all sources.  Heck for all I know, it's because HDMI has too many versions and they can't talk with each other correctly.  (That's a wild guess, folks).  But, in Aspect mode, it looked fantastic!  Check it out.  I actually set my camera back to normal for the next image.  *grin*

In conclusion, the BenQ FP241WZ is a fantastic monitor.  It has a few quirks with the 1:1 mode, but all can be forgiven by using the Aspect mode.  It also has the Perfect Motion technology to eliminate any blur, but adds a bit of flicker as a result.  It is a little on the bright side, but it can be toned down to work in a darker room.  It is perfectly clear, and looks great in the portrait orientation, too.  It has a ton of inputs and a USB hub for a few items.  The base is nice and sturdy, and if you get a unit that is slightly crooked (like leaning slightly to the left), a little force can straighten it out.  I think the springs are just a little tight in the base.  All in all, I'd say that this monitor is a keeper.  It's too bad I ordered the Dell, now I'll have to get it out and repeat all the work I just did on this one... Heck, I am ready for the fun!  Oh well... *grin*

Dell 2407WFP

Ok, on to the Dell...  I took some pics at about 1am Friday night, err.. Saturday morning.  I didn't hook it up and get the testing going until after a few good hours of sleep, however.  I think I am not quite as excited about the Dell as the BenQ seemed to fit the bill, but I'll try to be objective.  The stand on the Dell didn't seem as robust as the BenQ.  It does have a nice silver look and nice shape.  Only, it doesn't go as high in the back so it is a little less convenient to pivot.  Even if you don't use your monitor in the portrait orientation, that pivot function sure is handy when plugging things in and out...  There are a couple of card slots on the left side of this monitor, and the buttons are on the front.  I like having the buttons on the front a little better.  Only, the Dell stand seems a little weak, and the monitor wiggles around a lot while trying to push them.  I tested for dead pixels, and this monitor is in good shape.  Nothing dead!!  Yeah, that's two for two!  I had to play with the brightness with this unit, as it was too high.  I turned it down to about 33, and it doesn't feel like I am staring into headlights in my dark basement room now.  The Dell came with the cables you would expect, VGA, DVI, USB, and power.  Of course, no HDMI cable because there isn't an HDMI port.  Here are a few shots...

On to the backlight...  The Dell had a pretty even backlight, and seemed slightly more uniform than the BenQ.  The color did seem to change slightly as I moved my head around.  Again, this is due to the type of panel used in this monitor.  Even though the color changed a little, it's still way better than the usual 19" TFTs I have been using in the past.  One thing that I noticed that seemed a little odd was kind of an inverted backlight problem?  I guess that isn't a good way to describe it...  When I did the solid screen color tests I noticed the the color was just a little dimmer on the edges than the middle.  I can't see it while typing this right now, but only on solid color patterns.  Anyway, here are a few shots of the backlight...

Next:  Lag time.  This was a little harder to judge on the Dell.  It seemed that some of the shots came out really good, like less than 30ms, and others came out around 50ms.  Of course, there were a lot of shots in the middle, right around the 30ms to 34ms mark.  I would say the average lag is probably going to be pretty close to the BenQ.  I'll put more shots of the Dell up and let you be the judge.  This is about half the good images I got from the Dell.  It's a good random sampling.

Ok, on to the ghosting...  I opened up Guild Wars again, and ran around for a while in the colorful virtual world.  Somehow, the ghosting seemed slightly different.  I felt like things were just a little bit more clear than on the BenQ, but my test images came out slightly worse.  I also notice that a white pointer on a black screen would smear more on the Dell.  So, I guess I can't say it is better or worse, just different...  The Dell doesn't have a Perfect Motion function, but BenQ is one of the first to try and add such a feature.  ...Dell pics are on the left, and copies of the CRT pics are on the right.

Anyone for some scaling and video inputs?  Not Dell...  Well, not very well, unless you use only a PC or 480P devices.

My PC, only via DVI
Yeah, this is a computer monitor, and it works just like the BenQ did.  1:1 mode makes stuff pixel perfect, Aspect grows the image to the proper aspect, and Full Stretches everything wide.  It worked pretty well, only when you had a mode that the Dell hadn't used before, it always switched it to full.  I suppose that is kind of nice if you want some resolutions in Aspect and others in 1:1.  Only, it is a little unintuitive if you just set the screen to 1:1 then it switches back to full.  *shrug*  In any case, it works well for a PC on DVI.  The only thing I didn't like is no Contrast adjustment is available on the DVI mode.  Stuff using VGA gave me Contrast as an option, but not on DVI.  No pics here, it was as you would expect...

XBox 360, component video
Guess what?  The Dell won't do 1080p via component video.  It gave me an error screen.  That was pretty frustrating, as I happend to leave the 360 in this mode, so I had to switch it over to the BenQ to kick the res down, then switch back to the Dell.  Now, 1080i mode worked, but it was terrible.  It had this really annoying flicker, as if it really was interlaced!!  I can't believe that the scaling chip wouldn't just do a line doubling function.  The flicker pretty much made in unusable for any 1080i source, in my opinion.  I tried to take a pic, but since it froze the screen, it looks like 540p (half 1080i), with big edges and not very clear.  I was pretty disappointed.  720p mode worked, and it scaled properly with Aspect on, but it didn't seem very smooth.  It came out kind of blocky.  Again, I am going to guess Dell put in a cheap scaling chip to save money.  The pics don't reveal too much, but the onscreen action told all. 

                    1080p                                        1080i (flickers)                              720p

XBox 360, VGA
Again, the vga cable for the 360 isn't fantastic.  The colors are washed out some, but this screen would take the 1920x1080 resolution.  The only problem is that no matter what I set it on, 1:1, Aspect, or Full, it always stretched it to Full mode for this res.  So, if you want a 360 at 1080p, you can use the vga cable, only it will be stretched slightly tall.  *sigh*  1280x768 is a 16:10 ratio, so I tried that and set the screen to full.  The Dell did a decent job with that, but it still seemed a little more blocky than I would like, but it was acceptable. 

1920x1080 First Try Didn't work                  1280x768

Addition:  The guys in the forum were saying that the VGA cable was working on their A04 for this mode with the right aspect ratio.  I double checked, and I do indeed have an A04!  I know that it wasn't working the first time I tried it, so I hooked it back up to give it another run.  And, wouldn't you know it, it worked the second time.  Man, I hate electronics sometimes!!  It worked in both 1:1, and Aspect mode and kept it's actual aspect ratio correct.  I played some saved XBox live videos in each of these modes, and found that 1:1 mode worked pretty well.  However, I ran the videos again in Aspect (not that you need aspect mode for 1080p, but I was getting some frame tearing directly in the middle of the screen.  I guess it doesn't like trying to scale something it doesn't have to.  I have added another couple of pics, but these are HUGE!  I used the full res of my camera to take these pics so you can see the Dell menu as well as the aspect ratio.

Smaller

HUGE!!!  About 2.5Meg each

Sega Dreamcast, VGA
Ok, this was terrible... The DC outputs at 640x480, I'd guess, and it added this terrible vertical banding effect to all the Aspect and Full modes.  Of course, you don't want to play 1:1 mode in the middle of the screen for this, so I wouldn't really want to use the DC on this monitor ever.  I'll display the pic of the boot screen so you can see the effect.  The effect was obvious while playing games, but it was hard to photograph.

Sega Saturn, S-Video
This one was a bit disappointing as well.  S-Video didn't come out at clean as the BenQ.  I suppose if you had a device using s-vid, it would be just ok, but not good.  It just seemed kind of drab and sharp or clean.  Anyway...  *shrug*  You probably don't want to play Bug! anyway, but my kids will!!

GameCube, Component Video and Composite
Ok, I found a mode that works better on the Dell than on the BenQ.....  Composite!  Yes, that's right, it was better.  I am not saying it was good.  It was still lacking a comb filter, but it did look better.  I really doubt most people using one these monitors are going to be using composite, but just in case, this monitor will get by ok.  As for component video, the Dell looked ok at 480p from the GC as well.  It's almost as if Dell put in specific hardware to scale certain resolutions for various inputs and made some bad assumptions.  Like 1080i always flickers..

                Composite                               Component Video

Original XBox, Component Video
I was expecting this to work decent based on the 480P component video from the GameCub, but it wasn't so great.  1080i flickers really bad in Dragons lair, and 720p was just ok.  As for most of the stuff you'll play on this console, it will be 480p.  480p had some weird shimmer to it.  It's like it didn't sync up quite properly.  The aspects worked fine, but I didn't like that strange jitter it was getting.  I didn't get a picture of the jitter, but it was small and just subtle, so I don't know if it would show up anyway.  I seem to remember this same kind of effect when I had my XBox hooked up to an old style rear projection HDTV.  It might just be my XBox.  *shrug*  It didn't look like that on the BenQ however.  *shrug*  No pics here...

Oppo 971H, DVI
Ok, the Oppo actually has a DVI port, so I expected this to work well.  Again, my hopes were dashed.  It wouldn't do 1080i at all from the DVI port.  It also wouldn't do 480i via DVI.  The BenQ took both of those resolution via HDMI, so that's one good thing for the extra connector, and minus one for the Dell...  *sigh*  Since it did do 720p, that means the Dell supports HDCP via DVI.  I didn't check on the BenQ but I am sure it has HDCP on both the HDMI and DVI ports.  Back to the Dell...  I guess you can see a couple of 720p shots here, but it was just average, and not as cool as the 1080i I was hoping for.

Toshiba HD-A2, DVI (via an HDMI to DVI adaptor)
Ok, once again, there was no dice on getting a 1080i signal into the DVI port.  I had left this device in 1080i, and had to hook it up to the BenQ to switch it down, then back up to the Dell again.  I tried 720p mode, and all seemed well.  The scaling worked, or so it seemed, that is until I tried to play a movie.  I got terrible frame tearing in the middle of the image.  I don't know if this was a byproduct of using the HDMI to DVI adaptor, or if just too much data was trying to be scaled too fast inside the Dell.  I know it wasn't the player creating the tearing, as it is typically hooked up to my 720p Panasonic projector, and it's never done that in 720p before.  Anyway, here are a few pics to confound us all.  *big sigh*

(Note: The blur in these clips is not the monitor, it is motion blur as Superman is moving fast and the plane is crashing hard!)

Addition:  I hooked up the HD-DVD player again today, via the HDMI to DVI adaptor.  I was thinking maybe the frame tearing was due to some problem with 1:1 vs Aspect mode.  I put it in 1:1 nd booted up the A2.  Again, the highest res I could use was 720p, as the Dell won't take a 1080i signal over DVI.  No Tearing this time.  I switched over to Aspect, and no tearing there, either.  I guess messing with settings, or perhaps a reboot of the various hardware fixed the glitch.  Did I mention the word "confound" before?  *smirk*

Time to wrap up the Dell review portion.  I found that the A04, that has the 1:1, Aspect, and Full modes is kind of lacking.  I am sure Dell added this as an afterthought because so many people wanted it.  However, it just doesn't cut it, in my opinion.  I much prefer the BenQ for scaling, even though you had to use Aspect mode sometimes when 1:1 should have worked.  In any case, the Dell seems to be a good desktop computer monitor, and there are some extra inputs if you have the occasional extra thing to plug in.  However, if you are using it as a multimedia center on a daily basis, I'd pass and spend the extra cash on the BenQ.  Also, I didn't like using the Dell too much in the portrait orientation.  I think the color shifts a little more than the BenQ, and that made the portrait orientation a little hard on the eyes with the colors slightly different for each eye.  So, if you have a computer at the office, and need a big work space, this thing will do the job well!  It's pretty sharp, and a little bright, which would be good under those crappy fluorescent lights you have in your cubicle.  Yeah, I have a cubicle, too.  *sigh*  Computer programmer for life, I guess.  *laugh*  I think it's probably decent for PC games, too, but only PC gaming, it seems. Stupid scaler..  *grumble*

LG L246WP

Yes, that's right... I am adding a third monitor to the showdown, and no, my wife didn't kill me.  *grin*  She knows that I won't be keeping all three!  This LG was fresh at my local Best Buy, and since I am a part time employee, I picked it up for less than the retail price of $699.  It wasn't even on the shelf yet, when I bought it.  For all I know, I bought the unit they were going to put on display.  That's ok, I work in the Home Theater department, so it doesn't matter for my job.  *laugh* 

Ok, time for the unpacking and setup.  This process doesn't go as easy as it did for the other monitors.  I had to flip the box upside-down and pull the box off of the foam.  It wasn't like the others, with 3 layers of foam.  It had foam on both ends and the screen already had the back part attached.  However, the base wasn't on the back, so I had to screw it on with the thumb screw.  You think that would be an easy task, but it wasn't.  Anyway, it took me much longer to setup than the other two, and I started out frustrated with this unit.  *sigh*  So, I got it assembled finally and put it on my desk.  This unit included an HDMI to DVI cable, a VGA cable, a USB cable, and a power cable.  There are inputs for only Component Video, VGA, and HDMI.  Yep, only three...  Seems kind of low compared to the other models.  It does have a sticker saying it is Windows Vista certified.  Of course, all the monitors in this review have HDCP and therefore qualify for the stupid DRM deeply embedded in Vista.  Yes, we have a PMP here, a protected media path, if you video card supports it, of course.  This monitor has an audio output, for extracting audio from HDMI, or so says the manual.  Looks like you can clip a speaker bar onto the bottom of it, too.  This unit didn't come with one, however.  the L246WPM (m for media, I guess), has that speaker bar.  Anyway, on to the pics...

Once again, the backlight bleed was absent.  Of course, based on the kind of screen, depending on the angle of viewing, you could see lighter or darker spots on the screen.  Check it out at a few angles...

Wow, lag time was difficult to judge.  I had to take twice as many pics for this screen as the other two.  I think my brighter grayish background pic was messing with my camera light sensor.  Anyway, the lag time seems to be less on this monitor.  I was typically getting less than 30ms, and ususually it was around the 22ms range.  That's about 10ms faster than the other monitors.  It doesn't quite reach the 16.6ms level on average.  And remember 16.6ms is 1/60th of a second, or only a single frame of lag time.  I'd say this unit is getting pretty darn close to the CRT.

Next, I'll go over ghosting.  I hopped onto Guild Wars again, and it looked somewhere inbetween the Dell and the BenQ.  Now, I didn't really have a preference before, as the ghosting felt slightly different in the previous 2 cases, as it was this time.  So, I am going to say it's just about the same no matter which of the 3 is in use.  I took some pics in PixPerAn again for you to see the blurring effects.  This test is probably more similar the the results of the BenQ, as the Black to White transitions were a little smoother than the dell.

My PC,  via DVI to HDMI Cable
Hey, it looks just like a computer monitor, again!  Yeah, it's a nice desktop monitor.  I like the default color settings a little nicer than the others.  It isn't so blindingly bright as the Dell or BenQ.  However, you have to use the HDMI port, which seems kind of strange.  Also, when using HDMI you have menu options for PC mode or Video Mode.  While in PC mode, you can pick FULL or 1:1.  While in Video Mode you can pick Full or Original mode.  Original is the same as the Aspect setting on the other monitors.  I went to verify this again, and the Original mode doesn't come up while my PC is hooked up.  It must only come up if a video only source, like a DVD player is hooked up.

XBox 360, component video.
Looks like this monitor will not do 1080p via component video.  It does not give you the 1:1 option in this mode, only Full and Original.  I found that 1080i via component video looked pretty good however.  Not the 1080p we all want, but not bad.  The 720p mode seemed like it did a decent job scaling as well

XBox 360, VGA
Ok, now for some bad news... The 360 would not attempt to go into 1920x1080 mode.  It kept kicking it back to 640x480 every time I tried.  I went into the monitor menu and turned off DDI/CI so that the screen wouldn't send signal info back to the 360, but it did the same thing.  Another problem I found, was when you are using VGA, you are limited to Full or 1:1 mode.  So the best I could do via VGA was to set it to 1280x768 and use full mode.  1080i on component video looked better, however.  I was sad that 1920x1080 would work since it did on both of the other monitors.

Sega Dreamcast, VGA
Once again, the VGA input would only allow Full or 1:1.  And, 1:1 on 640x480 is tiny, so I played a bit on full.  It scaled nicely, but I didn't like it stretched wide.  I guess the LG has the least amount of flexibility when it comes to scaling.

It's almost after 2am, and this is my 3rd monitor review, so I didn't hook up the XBox or the GameCube via component video.  They were put away, and I didn't want to mess with them this time.  Of course, I couldn't hook the Sega Saturn up, because this unit doesn't have S-Video.  I can tell you what the outcome will be however based on the other component video things I tried...  The GameCube and XBox will look pretty good in Original mode, as it will give you the correct aspect ratio.  And, as my other tests show, it has pretty good scaling for different 480p, 720p, and 1080i modes while hooked up to component video.

Oppo 971H, DVI to HDMI
Ok, I played with this unit a little more with this monitor as it had some promise.  It allowed me to select 480P, 540P, 720P, and 1080I via the HDMI connection.  Of course, I used the Original mode so the aspect ratio was correct.  I played my clip in the 1080i mode since it would take it ok, only it seemed like it wasn't deinterlacing.  It looked as if it was just throwing out every other frame.  So I had some jagged lines on the edges of objects.  Motion seemed correct, but when you don't deinterlace, it should be smooth, just jagged.

Toshiba HD-A2, HDMI
Once again, time for the ultimate HD-DVD experience...  The unit could take 720p and 1080i, so I used the latter.  This time, I wasn't seeing any jagged edges like on the Oppo.  I popped in Superman (my only HD-DVD), and played through a few scenes.  I was saddened to see there was a lot of graininess to the images.  The darks had a lot of noise in the backgrounds and it just wasn't a clean picture.  It also seemed as if the contrast was somehow crushed down so you could see some color banding on people's faces, etc.  I didn't get any of this kind of effect while using the PC or stuff hooked up to component video.  Something in the HD-DVD player must not have liked talking with something in the monitor.  Darn HDCP probably screwed something up.  Heck, I don't know, but it looked much worse than I have seen HD-DVD ever before.

(Warning, theses 2 pics are huge.  2.5 to 3 meg each.  This is the full res of my camera so you can see the grain, and my dead camera CCD pixel *sigh*)
 

BIG EASY SUMMARY

Here are a few final pics of all three monitors.  My ISP is probably going to cut me off for this, but they are all about 3 meg each.  We'll see what happens... Enjoy while you can.  BenQ on the Left, LG in the middle, Dell on the right...

HUGE FILES!!  You have been warned!!

Well, that's it, folks!  I think I have spent a lot of time looking at lots of issues people on the forums usually discuss.  I hope I have helped some of you out!!  I'll try to add to the article as things come up.  For now, I am planning to keep the BenQ at home, and I'll take the Dell to work.  Let's see if my wife will let me keep there.  Somehow, I am guessing in a week, I may not be so lucky.  Then comes the LG into the scene.  I think this is a great PC monitor.  I'll be taking it to work instead.  It isn't so great on scaling options, but I did like the colors and contrast better than the Dell for general every day use.  However, it couldn't do 1080p with my XBox 360.  I need a monitor at home that can do it all, and that's the BenQ.  I need a monitor at work that's good for mostly the PC, and that's the LG.  Then, the Dell is in between with some pluses and minuses both directions.  It's a hard call, and not a single unit seems perfect yet.

My ideal monitor would be one that has the physical looks of the Dell, the inputs and scaling of the BenQ, the speed and color of the LG, only I want it to be around $500 and have all of those features work the way I think they should.  *laugh*  Yeah, maybe in 2012!! 

Anyway, one last comment... Don't buy the Gateway FPD 2485W.... That thing sucks.  I bought one at Best Buy, and it was cheap with my employee discount, but it wasn't worth it.  It went back within the hour.  I don't want to offend anyone who has one, so if you like yours, then great...  I didn't like the one I had for an hour.

Btw, if you have any comments or questions, hit the HardOCP forums for some discussion on my article.  Thanks!

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1030746126

If you like this article, and it has helped you to decide which monitor to buy or not buy, then please consider a donation.  I personally spent a lot of money for these three monitors, even though I'll have to send one back, but my total bill will easily total over $1400.  I also took many hours of time taking photos, writing and testing.   As you can see, there are no ads on this page to distract you, either.  Oh, and the money goes directly to my wife's PayPal account.  That way, she can actually pay the bills for these things and I won't spend it on other toys!!  *laugh*  Thanks!

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