Monitor recommendations

[DCurry]

Well, it sounds like I might be able to get a new monitor at the new job. Good thing, too, cuz not only is my current one tiny, but it ghosts something fierce and makes my eyes hurt by the end of the day.

So, what's good (and affordable) these days? I've always liked the Apple displays, but I don't think they'll spring for that unless it's an older used one (that's okay, too.) Here's the clincher - my boss is still in love with her CRT and she wants to make sure the new screen is trustworthy to make color correction decisions (usually just grayscale images.) She said it needs to be "calibratible," but I told her that you can't really "calibrate" today's screens like you could on the CRTs.

[Joe]

How much is it worth to her to have it "accurate". Frailer is a big fan of the Dell U2312HM eIPS panel

I know our company won't even spend that much so I usually get either an Acer or an AOC from TigerDirect. You can usually find them for around $109 - $139.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

Eizo. They're expensive, but I've found it to be the only monitor that you can actually calibrate and it work, plus retain.

[frailer]

my boss is still in love with her CRT

Which has probably declined in colour accuracy by now anyway... phosphur coatings 'n all. Does she like old movies too? Retro dress-up nights at the local club?

Depends on budget, entirely. DCS has flagged EIZO. They are high-end, like the better NECs. Those are the ones to look at in the $1200+ range. You can get reasonable entry stuff for that. Below that it's the more expensive DELLs and Samsungs. Maybe Panasonic/Sony., pretty much, which have e-IPS panels I think, now. If you are restricted to lower price stuff, try and steer clear of TN (twisted nematic) panel stuff. Make sure it's some variant of IPS (In-Plane Switching). Just check the specs in each case.

Apple have ALWAYS been over-priced for what they are. Back when you paid $1400 for a cinema display, you could get an NEC that would walk all over it in terms of calibration/colour accuracy.

Oh, BTW, even at entry level NECs you can get hardware calibration functionality. A huge + I.e you are calibrating the display's guts, not your video card output.

Wander through here  These guys are the best reviewers.

[DigiCorn]

I've got a couple of Samsung LEDs, and I use Eye-One Match along with my Eye-One Pro to calibrate my screens.

[Ice9]

We've been using the Lacie 324's with hoods and blue eye calibrators.  They've performed really well for the price.

[t-pat]

I just squint real hard while running the built in Mac calibration. Works fine. All those Word and Publisher colors come out exactly like I knew they would, bad.