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Life after Apple LED Cinema displays...is better than expected
Pros
Low Glare,
Vibrant Colors,
Simple Setup,
Bright Screen,
Excellent Picture Quality
Cons
Excessive Heat,
cannot adjust height or swivel
Recommended it?
Yes
Good For:
Replacement, Computer, Office
Key facts to keep in mind about this monitor while reading this review:
1) It's a TN display2) It's less than $2003) I've owned this monitor for 3 weeks
== Life before Asus ==
I have been a long time user/fan of Apple products but in particular Apple monitors have kept me opening my wallet (and destroying my balances). The first standalone Apple monitor I bought with my own money (love you Mom!) was the 30" Cinema Display. I loved the colors and I suppose it was big enough but monitors could always be bigger IMHO. I also liked the fact it came calibrated out of the box for Apple's palette.
After my 30", I bought the Apple 20" LED, 23" LED, and somewhere along the way a Dell 30" for work. It was the first and last Dell monitor I'll buy for use on a Mac...could never get the monitor calibrated and I could swear the panel was completely uneven along with a magenta hue on the bottom right. I also bought a 27" inch iMac to get an additional 4" on my 23" setup.
Early 2010 rumors started popping up that a refreshed Apple 30" LED was coming out. I was pumped. I would check macrumors.com every single day and CMD+F for "monitor". Later in 2010 I found out it was actually going to be a 27" LED. I was caught off guard with the 3" difference but to be fair Dell and others were also switching to 27" displays. Apple tends to buy up mainstream parts in bulk and monitor panels are no exception. I sold my Dell 30" in anticipation and when the 27" LED finally came out...I was disappointed. It wasn't the 3" difference, it wasn't the short miniDP cable, it wasn't the below average builtin speakers...it was the "gloss" panel yet again.
Apple (at the time this review was written) has discontinued every other monitor in their product line in favor of the glossy 27" LED. I put up with Apple's glossy streak for ~3 years and I'm just not going to take it anymore. Give me the matte option like the MBP (which I have) and I'll come back, Apple.
FWIW, the 27" LED was for work and I'm not going to ask my co-workers to move around so there's no line of sight from my monitor to a window.
== Life after Apple ==
My [difficult] journey to a non-Apple non-glossy display finally ended at the Asus VW246H. If you skipped the previous section, color quality is my #1 concern.
Oh boy, buying the Asus VW246H was a leap of faith after I read the specs. First off, this is a TN panel. I've been using IPS and IPS variants for the past 5-6 years. The only thing that really swayed me were the overwhelmingly positive reviews. The only other thing I've bought from Asus was a mother board, "logic board" for the Apple folks, that fried on me after 39 days. I'd say I'm a forgiving guy.
The Asus VW246H is a no frills sort of monitor. You'll get a few inputs (one of each): DVI, HDMI, and VGA. There's a speaker but I didn't try using it for the same reason I don't attend karaoke bars: because I don't like hearing my favorite songs butchered. Your desk and the VW246 will need to be a match made in heaven because there's no height adjustment...that or put some books under it.
I use this monitor with a Windows machine and a Mac Pro. When I hooked it in the colors caught me off guard. They were amazing out of the box. I hooked in my X-Rite EODIS2 Eye-One Display 2 and after calibration to WP 1.2G was even further impressed.
I had to go to the Asus site to confirm that the VW246H was a TN panel because the colors and contrast were fooling me into thinking this was an IPS panel. However, after some additional usage (especially with Word) I could quickly tell the difference because the font aliasing (in Windows and Mac OS X) was "fuzzy". Frankly, even the aliasing was acceptable.
After a brief word processing stint came my Terminal.app test: can I work full screen with xterm-colors for a few hours without my eyes or head hurting? Check. Then the obligatory Office Space test (obligatory: maybe just for me). I was impressed with the VW246's handling of solid blacks and grays. Miltons' rosacea never looked so good (and red).
I have not experienced any input or image lag with the VW246 thus far. The input lag was a huge problem with the Dell 30" LCD.
Like most passively cooled monitors, heat is a problem with the VW246. For my desk, a small clip-on desk fan behind the monitor was enough to mitigate the heat.
Calibration on Mac OS X (Snow Leopard, the white point and gamma are different for Leopard):
- "Standard" mode- sRGB- Brightness: 76- Contrast: 82
Calibration on Windows:
- "Standard" mode- sRGB- Brightness: 70- Contrast: 90
All in all, if you're considering this monitor: Go for it.
1) It's a TN display2) It's less than $2003) I've owned this monitor for 3 weeks
== Life before Asus ==
I have been a long time user/fan of Apple products but in particular Apple monitors have kept me opening my wallet (and destroying my balances). The first standalone Apple monitor I bought with my own money (love you Mom!) was the 30" Cinema Display. I loved the colors and I suppose it was big enough but monitors could always be bigger IMHO. I also liked the fact it came calibrated out of the box for Apple's palette.
After my 30", I bought the Apple 20" LED, 23" LED, and somewhere along the way a Dell 30" for work. It was the first and last Dell monitor I'll buy for use on a Mac...could never get the monitor calibrated and I could swear the panel was completely uneven along with a magenta hue on the bottom right. I also bought a 27" inch iMac to get an additional 4" on my 23" setup.
Early 2010 rumors started popping up that a refreshed Apple 30" LED was coming out. I was pumped. I would check macrumors.com every single day and CMD+F for "monitor". Later in 2010 I found out it was actually going to be a 27" LED. I was caught off guard with the 3" difference but to be fair Dell and others were also switching to 27" displays. Apple tends to buy up mainstream parts in bulk and monitor panels are no exception. I sold my Dell 30" in anticipation and when the 27" LED finally came out...I was disappointed. It wasn't the 3" difference, it wasn't the short miniDP cable, it wasn't the below average builtin speakers...it was the "gloss" panel yet again.
Apple (at the time this review was written) has discontinued every other monitor in their product line in favor of the glossy 27" LED. I put up with Apple's glossy streak for ~3 years and I'm just not going to take it anymore. Give me the matte option like the MBP (which I have) and I'll come back, Apple.
FWIW, the 27" LED was for work and I'm not going to ask my co-workers to move around so there's no line of sight from my monitor to a window.
== Life after Apple ==
My [difficult] journey to a non-Apple non-glossy display finally ended at the Asus VW246H. If you skipped the previous section, color quality is my #1 concern.
Oh boy, buying the Asus VW246H was a leap of faith after I read the specs. First off, this is a TN panel. I've been using IPS and IPS variants for the past 5-6 years. The only thing that really swayed me were the overwhelmingly positive reviews. The only other thing I've bought from Asus was a mother board, "logic board" for the Apple folks, that fried on me after 39 days. I'd say I'm a forgiving guy.
The Asus VW246H is a no frills sort of monitor. You'll get a few inputs (one of each): DVI, HDMI, and VGA. There's a speaker but I didn't try using it for the same reason I don't attend karaoke bars: because I don't like hearing my favorite songs butchered. Your desk and the VW246 will need to be a match made in heaven because there's no height adjustment...that or put some books under it.
I use this monitor with a Windows machine and a Mac Pro. When I hooked it in the colors caught me off guard. They were amazing out of the box. I hooked in my X-Rite EODIS2 Eye-One Display 2 and after calibration to WP 1.2G was even further impressed.
I had to go to the Asus site to confirm that the VW246H was a TN panel because the colors and contrast were fooling me into thinking this was an IPS panel. However, after some additional usage (especially with Word) I could quickly tell the difference because the font aliasing (in Windows and Mac OS X) was "fuzzy". Frankly, even the aliasing was acceptable.
After a brief word processing stint came my Terminal.app test: can I work full screen with xterm-colors for a few hours without my eyes or head hurting? Check. Then the obligatory Office Space test (obligatory: maybe just for me). I was impressed with the VW246's handling of solid blacks and grays. Miltons' rosacea never looked so good (and red).
I have not experienced any input or image lag with the VW246 thus far. The input lag was a huge problem with the Dell 30" LCD.
Like most passively cooled monitors, heat is a problem with the VW246. For my desk, a small clip-on desk fan behind the monitor was enough to mitigate the heat.
Calibration on Mac OS X (Snow Leopard, the white point and gamma are different for Leopard):
- "Standard" mode- sRGB- Brightness: 76- Contrast: 82
Calibration on Windows:
- "Standard" mode- sRGB- Brightness: 70- Contrast: 90
All in all, if you're considering this monitor: Go for it.
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