As promised we are now rolling out our new and highly demanded ‘top 3 recommended monitors’ feature. Given the range of PC Monitors available in the monitor shop we can understand how confusing it is – especially if you get conflicting advice from elsewhere about a particular panel. You need to decide on a screen size, a manufacturer, a particular aesthetic than appeals to you, connectivity, stand adjustability, panel type, price and many other factors and it can be a pretty overwhelming task. That’s why, in response to our recent poll, we are now rolling out the new recommended monitors feature for each manufacturer. If you can’t decide on a manufacturer you may want to take a look at the Top 10 Monitors section – but we certainly recommend you keep up to date with our personal screen recommendations. These are not just best sellers – they are monitors that we know offer you the best value for money and/or image quality. We will of course update the ‘top 3′ for each manufacturer just as we will update the ‘top 10′, periodically. Here is the list so far with more recommended monitors to follow from other manufacturers in the very near future:

Top 3 recommended Acer monitors:

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Update: We have had significant feedback about the changes. There are many people who prefer the sidebar-style ‘search’ facility which is a little more compact and gives a rating if you hover over a product. It gives suggestions as you type, which is useful if you can only remember part of a monitor model or need further inspiration. Our recent changes have meant the removal of this facility on the monitor shop main page and manufacturer pages. Given this, we have placed the previous ‘search’ facility back on the monitor shop pages in lieu of the v2.1 facility. Features such as the ‘drop-down’ on all manufacturer pages and the monitor shop archive have received a positive response so they will most likely stay.

We have decided to take our monitor shop upgrades one step further from the recently announced v2.0. Although we refer to this update as v2.1, implying a minor change, the whole shop is now a lot more user friendly – allowing you to find the best computer monitors for your needs more easily. Some highlights of the new update includes:

- New search interface including an overall search on the main monitor shop page and various manufacturer-specific searches. The search is intelligent enough to allow keywords such as ‘LED’ and ’3D’ to be inputted to narrow the selection.  

- The monitor shop (main page) was becoming overcrowded with updates, so a seperate archive of older updates was created.

- Manufacturer ‘quick select’ drop-down feature has been added to all manufacturer-specific pages, allowing easier navigation between PC monitor manufacturers. 

- All manufacturer pages now include the ability to browse through all available monitors specific to that manufacturer, in addition to the recommendations which are categorised by screen size.

- Some manufactuers (such as Samsung) had a significant number of recommended 23 inch+ monitors (with more coming shortly, no doubt). We have split these into two seperate size categories of 23 inches and 24 inches+.

- Monitor Shop USA has undergone a complete overhaul with a new user interface and specific manufacturer sections.

We hope you like the changes and appreciate the enhanced user-friendly interface. If you have any concerns or questions, do not hesitate to contact PC Monitors and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

In response to a recent poll (although more largely due to us itching for an overhaul), the monitor shop layout has been changed. If you click on a specific manufacturer, you are taken straight to the recommended computer monitors of that manufacturer. These are the monitors that we feel offer you the best value for money, are of exceptional quality, and/or receive positive press and user reviews. We have also embedded links to an ‘about us’ page, where you will find a brief history of that monitor manufacturer and a little about the shop. We have also added a ‘Search Monitor Shop’ link (which does exactly what it says on the tin). We hope you appreciate these changes and, as always, look forward to your feedback.

We are happy to revert back to the old format or incorporate any changes you, our beloved readers, would like to see. Just comment on this post or contact us and we’ll consider your view.

BenQ have announced a world first with the not too distant arrival of three new Vertical Alignment (VA) LED-backlit computer monitors. The 24″ VW2420H and 21.5″ VW2220H follow from the styling of the new ‘V series’ (such as the V920 we reviewed recently) but add a gold instead of silver ring around the monitor base. The EW2420H offers a greater variety of ports at the back and current styling of the monitor is unknown. Style aside – the switch from TN to VA panels gives the new monitors a stated contrast ratio of 3000:1 as they render deeper blacks with less backlight bleed. It also improves viewing angles and colour accuracy (8-bits per pixel rather than 6) – importantly there is not the colour shift across the screen that you get on TN panels. If BenQ can price competitively (something they’re good at), eliminate the ‘black crush’ issues and improve on the response time (RTC anyone?) of the Samsung F2380 then I have no doubt that these new panels are going to be real winners.

The EW2420H and VW2420H are slated for August release in the US/UK and the VW2220H for November. Prices TBC. For more information read BenQ’s Press Release.

PC Monitors has published the BenQ V920 review. Being the smallest, cheapest and lowest resolution computer monitor we’ve used for a while we didn’t really know what to expect. Did the world’s thinnest monitor give the world’s thinnest performance, or is this the next must-have monitor? Find out in our review.

BenQ V920 review on PC Monitors