Im in the market for a monitor (24" to 27") to hook up to my laptop, and would like some input as to which specs I should pay attention to, and which I shouldn't. It will mainly be used for school, where I need it for running a million applications side by side... obviously it will be used for gaming also and hopefully a future pc-build!
Specific monitor recommendation would also be nice, if you would like - I live in Denmark, so I will look into anything available.
static contrast ratio, panel type, response time (preferably not G2G). I know in the US, helpful specs, such as the ones I listed, are not listed. You'll often get dynamic contrast ratio, which allows them to inflate the numbers to ludicrous amounts, panel type, which would give a pretty indication of the monitor's characteristics (ie color-shift, color accuracy, response times, etc), and response time from black to white. Typically for response time gray to gray (g2g) will be listed, which isn't too helpful, because allows the manufactures to post good numbers that isn't indicative of real world performance.
It would be best to take specific recommendations, or do some of your own research with in-depth reviews, but monitor's aren't my specialty, and I'm not up to date on the monitor market in my own country, much less foreign countries, so I can't be of much help there.
Buy a Korean monitor. I got an X-Star to my door for under $400 and I live as far east as you can go in Canada. I love the monitor. Logan did some videos on these a while back, look it it and use the suggested retailer on ebay. You won't regret it!
Pixel Perfect just gaurantees that there will not be any did pixels. It's like an extra 20 or 40 bucks, I caved and got it because I didn't want to fuck around with sending it back to god knows where.
There is then matte and glossy. If there will be any light in the room to cause a glare go with matte, if no light go with glossy. Glossy has a bit of a nicer picture, but I went with matte because I can't stand any glare.
Honestly, glare bugs me so much, that unless I'm almost exclusively using a monitor for night time viewing, I will not get it glossy. Even with the slightest glare the gloss does way more bad than good in regards to color.
But I'm a little biased because the last glossy display I got was on my old Core 2 laptop, which also had a TN panel, so color-shifting was also an issue. Just over-all bad experience, especially in open coffee-shops, but works out nicely as a dining room/living room computer.
Now I've had a chance to look at the monitors which the video links to, at: http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_sacat=&_mPrRngCbx=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_nkw=x-star+dp2710&_ssn=dream-seller&_sop=15
however, the information regarding video inputs seems scarce, and most of them needs a dual-dvi. So will I be able to hook my laptop, which only has a hdmi, up to these monitors with a cable link the one i found here (danish site, but im sure chrome can translate it for you): http://www.proshop.dk/Skaermkabel-(VGA%2c-HDMI%2c-DVI%2c-displayport-m.v.)/DELTACO-HDMI-%3E-DVI-D-2.0-Meter-2121706.html
... and still be able to use it to extend my desktop?
Good point, Ravine, about the pixel perfect. I will most certainly get that! Think I'll go for the matte display then, since my desk is right in front of my window..
The monitor only has a single input: 1x dual-link DVI port. I speculate that you can hook your laptop to it (depending on GPU, and HDMI spec) but it would be a hassle with some sort of KVM switch, as you'd have to unhook the DVI every time to swap computers. This is assuming your laptop does support 1440p and supports the required HDMI standard (1.3 or higher). You also need an adapter that also supports Dual-Link DVI. The one you pointed out is NOT dual-link. Officially though, the monitor doesn't support laptops, macs, or weaker GPU's, but I don't see any technical reason why it wouldn't work, provided the GPU supports it, and has a proper adapter.
I believe this adapter should work (used Google Translate):
My GPU should be able to handle resolution up to 3840x2160. Though I don't know where to find out which HDMI standard its using... And so far I have not saved enough money to build my own rig, so switching from one to another will not be a problem for some time to come. And thanks for checking out the adapter!
That laptop supports 4K resolutions, and is HDMI 1.4a compliant. So it should work, HOWEVER, the adapter I linked to, upon further research, is NOT dual-link DVI, but rather a single-link adapter. I had assumed it was dual-link because it had all 29 pins, but I looked up the product on the manufacturer's website, and it's only single-link.
I won't try to browse that site again since I can't read anything, but if you can find something like this, it should work.:
Again, the important thing is that it's dual-link compatible. Single-Link DVI only has enough bandwidth for 1920x1200, where as a dual-link has bandwidth for 2560x1600