Since my 24" Dell Ultrasharp was dying (and has since been relegated to an Atari 800XL display), I've been keeping my eyes open for a nice deal on a new monitor.  Boxing Week has had some amazing deals (and tons more crappy ones).  Luckily, I found the Benq EW2420 24" monitor at NCIX for only $169.  http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=55964&vpn=EW2420&manufacture=BenQ&promoid=1301  The deal is good til Jan 4th, if you're curious.

What is so remarkable about the Benq EW2420 is that it is among the first VA panels with LED backlight.  Apparently most LCD monitors are TN, since it's faster for gaming.  But TN sacrifices colour depth for speed.  These acronyms mean nothing to me.  All that matters is that VA can produce richer colours, and coupled with LED, amazingly dark blacks.  And honestly, I know I won't notice the speed difference between a 5ms TN screen and an 8ms VA screen.  Especially since this will mostly be used as a work monitor.  Netbeans and Microsoft office don't require much update speed.

But how is it for gaming?  With the PC, I've tried World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, and Civilization V on it.  I can safely say, the vividness of the colours is amazing.  Civ V just pops with life.

I've also tried the PS3 on it, over HDMI, and it was nice, but Civilization Revolution doesn't exactly push the envelope.

This 1080p (1920x1080) widescreen monitor supports VGA, DVI, and HDMI (with HDCP), has a built-in 4 port USB hub, and even little speakers (which sound rather tinny, but for work are quite sufficient).  There's an audio input, output, and headphone jack.  It even has a neat detachable hanger for headphones (to keep them from cluttering your desk) upon which I hang my work headset.

The only thing it lacks is an adjustable height.  Of course, an old phonebook or two solves that problem.

I love this monitor, and highly recommend it to anyone in the market.  At $169 it's a steal.  The full price (according to NCIX) is $249.