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Geek Culture / Discount high-end monitors from Korea

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Inflictive
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Posted: 24th Sep 2013 03:15 Edited at: 24th Sep 2013 03:24
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Most of the monitors you will find nowadays are medicore quality TN lcd panels with a resolution of 1080p or lower. If you want a better monitor with smooth, accurate colors, and a good resolution, you have very limited options. You can either shell out nine hundred bucks for a fancy monitor like the Apple Cinema Display or the Dell U2711, or you can buy a Korean model.

These Korean models come with little warranty and are only available on ebay from private sellers. That said, it is an excellent deal. $350 for a monitor that uses the same panel as the $1000 Apple cinema display.



The main two brands of these monitors are the Achieva Shimian and Yamakasi Catleap. There are a few different models but they are all basically the same thing:

2560x1440 resolution
27" size
S-IPS panel, nice colors and viewing angles
DVI-D connection only, not compatible with laptops.

These monitors are made with the "imperfect" panels that didn't make the cut for apple cinema displays, so there may be some backlight bleed and 1 or 2 dead pixels. Sucks, but it's still way better than $350 monitor from best buy. There are also some "repair" methods to fix backlight bleed which involves tightening the screws on the panel or something like that. These screens are actually superior for gaming because they don't have onboard image processors, so there is almost no input lag. You can still calibrate the colors in your graphics card control panel. Also, some of these screens can be overclocked to 120hz. Seems pointless to me, but it would kind of be the ultimate monitor.

About 6 months ago I got a Shimian QH270-IPSB. It has one dead pixel and backlight bleed which is quite noticable but only against a black background. I still am very happy with it. Pictures on it just look... so much better than the ASUS VH238 monitor I use for a secondary. Colors are clear and balanced. The VH238 (a $170 1080p screen) looks okay on it's own, but these two monitors side by side have a world of difference in image quality.



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RedFlames
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Posted: 24th Sep 2013 08:23
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The thing is seriously called "Yamakasi Catleap"?! What the heck, koreans. That's so random.

So these are rejected displays from Apple? and you don't really know if you'll get a good one or a "broken" one with dead pixels and other faults?...
What if you get one that's crappy to work with and can't be fixed easily or returned at all?

I don't think I'd buy one of these, but then again those specs are pretty nice. Kind of a shady deal though...
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easter bunny
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Posted: 24th Sep 2013 10:06
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I've got a friend who has a couple of these. And yes, the main problem is that some are great quality, other's have serious problems. One's of his only has a couple of bad pixels (so it failed Apple's stringent requirements), and getting it for a 3rd if the regular price for this small defect is an amazing deal.
His other one is not so good, but still worth it. (it's got a number of bad pixels and fairly bad backlight bleed).

So I'd say it's a good deal, although I don't have one myself, I'm on a very limited budget with my Dell Inspiron 15


formerly MissJoJo - Audacia Games
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Inflictive
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Posted: 25th Sep 2013 02:08
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Well, if it's DOA or has more than 5 dead pixels out of the box you can send it back. Some sellers offer "perfect pixel" versions which are supposed to have no dead pixels. But if it breaks on you a year down the road you can't do much. I would take one of these over a typical 27" $300 1080p standard led/lcd from best buy any day.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 25th Sep 2013 04:38
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Sorry but just 1 bad pixel is unacceptable to me. I don't know when it became acceptable to sell less than perfect functionality. Would you ever have bought a CRT with a dead pixel?

What's the response time? IPS tend to be slower, right?

http://zimnox.com
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easter bunny
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Posted: 25th Sep 2013 05:01
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Quote: "Sorry but just 1 bad pixel is unacceptable to me. I don't know when it became acceptable to sell less than perfect functionality. Would you ever have bought a CRT with a dead pixel? "

It's unacceptable for Apple as well, but for me, I don't really care if one pixel in the lower right hand corner shows the wrong colour, and as it's only clearly visible against a white background anyway.....


formerly MissJoJo - Audacia Games
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 25th Sep 2013 05:03
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For 'OCD ish' people like myself, one pixel is enough to completely destroy the experience the screen provides. Regardless, these screens have a pretty good deal to them!

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Inflictive
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Posted: 25th Sep 2013 07:01
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1 dead pixel on a 1440p you can't even see without searching is much better than inaccurate, 6-bit-per-channel color with color shift and horrible black levels. Unless you can actually afford the $900 dell monitor, this is by far the best option. Keep in mind that technology is constantly changing, and you won't be using the screen forever, and the dead pixel doesen't seem like as much of a big deal.

As for response time, it is 6ms where most LCDs are 2-5ms, but don't get response time confused with input lag (which is better than a typical LCD because it lacks the image processor). Manufacturers who make screens with a response time of less than 10ms just do it to win the numbers war and it really isn't noticable at all. Also, this screen has a 1000:1 STATIC contrast ratio, most LCD manufacturers report dynamic contrast ratio instead which means nothing.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 25th Sep 2013 21:05
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Most manufactures report 1000000:1 contrast ratio or some other ridiculously high number that as far as I can tell means little. All I want is accurate colors and no ghosting. I spent nearly $600 on my westinghouse monitor 5 years ago, and its starting to get vertical lines in it, though they go away after its warmed up a bit.

Quote: "1 dead pixel on a 1440p you can't even see without searching"

Not to me. Dead pixels just pull my eyes right to them. Right now, with the 1 pixel wide vertical line on my screen (light yellow), I just line my windows up to the border edge to try and somewhat hide it.

Quote: " but don't get response time confused with input lag"

How much lag could you possibly get from any connection? I unfortunately have to use a dvi-vga adapter, my monitor has no dvi and the hdmi doesn't seem to work properly with my latest graphics card.

http://zimnox.com
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 26th Sep 2013 01:19
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Quote: "1 dead pixel on a 1440p you can't even see without searching"
Ooooh, I wouldn't see it without searching at first, but eventually I would find it and never forget its location, as well as never be able to let it stop bothering me.

I have a bit of a n00b question, why would someone be concerned about a 10ms input lag when many games on common settings with decent hardware take longer than 10ms to crank out each frame? By that I mean games running at or below 100 frames per second.

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Inflictive
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Posted: 26th Sep 2013 03:48
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Quote: "1 pixel wide vertical line on my screen (light yellow)"


Well, yeah, hundreds of bright stuck pixels in a vertical line is extremely noticable. One dead black pixel, not so much. And the pixels on this screen are incredibly small, one pixel is practically invisible to me at the range I normally view it from.

Quote: "I have a bit of a n00b question, why would someone be concerned about a 10ms input lag when many games on common settings with decent hardware take longer than 10ms to crank out each frame?"


Well, you want as little input lag as possible. If it takes 20ms for your computer to process the input and draw the frame, you don't want to add another 20ms on top of that.

Quote: "How much lag could you possibly get from any connection?"


Most monitors have a little computer built in to calculate the color/contrast settings. The image data has to run through it before being displayed which adds input lag. The korean monitors are very barebones and have virtually no input lag.

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Green Gandalf
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Playing: Malevolence:Sword of Ahkranox, Skyrim, Civ6.
Posted: 26th Sep 2013 14:48
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I can't see the dead pixels on my screens - far too many cat paw prints, beer and coffee splashes, dust, etc. Some of you are far too fussy. Randomly flickering and totally corrupt screens do annoy me though.



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