Philips Blade 2 239C4QH
Featuring a 23in IPS panel in a stylish, slimline enclosure, the aptly-named Blade 2 has been made as thin as possible by moving as much of the technical gubbins as possible into the base – which features a row of wipe-clean touch-sensitive buttons as well as VGA and a pair of HDMI inputs. There’s no self-assembly required with this monitor as the hinged base folds flat for storage. Although contrast and black levels weren’t quite as strong or consistent as I’ve seen from other IPS panels, picture quality clearly outclasses TN displays and an overdrive feature helps tweak response times for gamers.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £170
More info Philips
Philips S-Line 221S3UCB
The 21.5in Philips S-Line 221S3UCB is very different from the other displays I’ve looked at here. It’s not particularly stylish, nor does it offer particularly exciting performance. It comes with no controls whatsoever – not even brightness, and has no video inputs. This is because this monitor uses a single USB 2.0 input for both power and display connections, making it a very simple addition to your Windows laptop with the minimum of fuss. Yes, there are now 23 and 24in USB monitors available, but these tend to require more power to run making them more demanding on your laptop.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £120
More info Philips
Next page: Samsung T24B750
COMMENTS
Stop promoting this junk!
1080p is just junk, the whole pc monitor industry has been sucked into TV manufactures wet dreams for cheap panels.
We had affordable high resolution CRT's a decade ago and now years on unless you take out a bank loan were stuck with this low resolution crap. Whats even worse is that 4K is here apparently but only in 55" screens or above, unless of course you take out the afformentioned bank loan.
If tech sites like the Reg and many other really really wanted to address their audiences views and requirements they should mark down any 1080p panel with a vocal explanation in each review. My ipad now has a higher resolution that the monitor I use for content creation which is rediculous.
1920x1080 is so 2010...
Enough of this widescreen POS we want lots of pixels in every direction 4:3 rules ok.
Being serious,
I use two Dell 24in 1920x1200 screens for my main dev work. slightly different model numbers, Totally different colour profiles. WTF! Thankfully I have a Spider and can calibrate them but the earlier post about colour profiles is very true. The makers all seem to think that the only thing we are going to show in these screens is the latest hollywood crap sequel/prequel.
Pah. Nuke them all I say!
Scores
So five monitors share equal first place at 85%.
Five more monitors share equal sixth place at 80%.
Is the competition really that close?
I'm no closer to being able to chose my new monitor now than I was 20 minutes ago.
I'm sorry El Reg, I'm not a habitual flamer; but please give me more specs and numbers. Tell me how many dvi/rgb/dp connectors the screen has, also please give me a review score that doesn't end in a zero or a five.
Finally, the BenQ XL2420T gets 85% at £290 - also the AOC i2353Fh gets 85% at £130. Is the BenQ really more than twice as good in order to justify the price? Is it really so impossible to pick between these two that on a scale of one to 100, they both get exactly the same marks?
Re: Asus PA248Q
Yeah, really disappointed with this article - I'd love to replace my aging monitor (used mainly for gaming, so the Asus is out) with a modern equivalent, but there's no way I'm giving up my 1920x1200 resolution - and none of these panels seem to offer it.
Review comment
It'd be nice if the inputs each supported were listed to save checking each individually...
