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2560 x 1440 LCD monitors

Because graphics card are not sufficiently powerful yet, very big resolutions are not a necessity. HD Ready and FullHD are the most commonly used resolutions (1366 x 768 and 1920 x 1080). These smaller resolution screens are already available for prices under $100, so does it make sense to purchase a 10 times more expensive LCD monitor for a couple of extra pixels ?

WQHD: 2560 x 1440 = 3,686,400 FullHD: 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 HD Ready: 1366 x 768 = 1,049,088. A WQHD monitor costs around $1000, a FullHD one $100 and a HD Ready around $80, but there are other things to factor in when you decide which will best suit your needs.

The smallest resolution HD screen isn’t appropriate for office, home or professional work. Its resolution is slightly bigger than 1Megapixel, less than the most common resolution before the introduction of wide screens, the 1280 x 1024 (= 1,310,720) offers more desktop space than this new HD resolution. In my opinion these extremely low resolution 16:9 HD screens are only good for gaming and watching movies, but in less detail of course compared to a FullHD LCD monitor. The HD specification comes mostly from the image quality of these screens, which in most cases is far better than any pre-HD LCD monitor.

FullHD monitors seem to be the most appropriate for any application, because they offer a lot of desktop space, twice as much as the HD Ready screens, while image quality is just as good or better. On FullHD screens you can adjust about any program or game to run well, because the number of horizontal lines is 1080, so 1024 x 768, 1366 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900, 1600 x 900, 1680 x 1050 and others fit in without having to resize the image to loose some lines. To avoid complications you have to disable image stretching, this way all smaller resolutions will be displayed in their original aspect ratio and one pixel will equal only one pixel (without stretching).

These FullHD LCD monitors are the most practical, and are available in many different sizes between 21.5” and 50” (or even bigger).

Now let’s look at a Dell 27” WQHD LCD monitor, which comes with very interesting specifications for just $1000.

This is a relatively new model, Dell UltraSharp U2711 27”W. Naturally it has a 2560 x 1440 resolution (aka 1440p) and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Exceptional colors and a lot of input interfaces: 1 x HDMI, 2 x DVI (with HDCP), 1x DisplyPort, 1 x D-Sub 15 (analog VGA), component video, composite video, an integrated USB 2.0 hub and a 8 in 1 multimedia card reader.

Because it’s a standard LCD with fluorescent tube backlighting its maximum dynamic contrast ratio is 80,000 to 1 (1000:1 typical). Viewing angle is 178/178 (H/V, degrees), typical for any LCD monitor above 16” size. The disturbing part is when you look at power consumption, 113Watts in ON mode and 2Watts in standby. Absolutely embarrassing compared to a 24” FullHD LED-backlit LCD monitor, which requires only 17Watts and lacks only a few feature like the card reader and USB hub.

NEC offers a similar monitor for $1400, but it has twice the reaction time (12ms instead of Dell’s 6ms) and power consumption isn’t even published. All other specs are the same or very similar to the previous Dell monitor.

Apple seems to have improved even its very huge screens with 2560 x 1440 resolution, although it comes with an integrated computer system at $1700.