120 Hz or IPS?

For everyday office/web type tasks that don't lean heavily one way or the other (i.e. no gaming, no movies, no photo editing), which would you recommend?

Both provide small yet clearly tangible benefits in day to day usage over a garden variety TN panel, which makes it a tough decision.

 

I don't think 120hz provides much benefit. The human eye can't tell anything beyond 60hz (there is a lot of experimentation here. At 30FPS movement is fluid, but there is a small chance you can see some of the image switch). At 60FPS 99% of the human population has reached beyond anything they can possibly distinguish.. 120 hz is only useful for 3D panels because 3D requires two images at 60hz, so you can't do proper 3D without a 120hz panel.

IPS on the other hand provides a much more tangible benefit: better viewing angles, better color reproduction, and a much better monitor overall.

Web Pages/Documents will look a lot nicer on an IPS panel over a TN panel.

 

If you don't game, then I'd definitely say ips. I game and could instantly tell a difference in my 120hz monitor. I won't get any other monitor for gaming. But from what you've provided, it sounds like ips would suit you much better.

 

This was my dilemma a while ago, i went 120Hz and now it's meh so i wish i bought a nice IPS screen instead like the U2711 .

 

IPS, because of the viewing angles (you can see accurate color reproduction whether you are standing or sitting)

 

for your use case, 120hz doesn't provide any benefit. IPS does. simple.

 

You should just get the biggest TN panel you can afford. I would take screen size and resolution over 120hz/IPS for simple office web tasks.

 

Search on Ebay for an asus 25.5". I can't remember the name, but it's a 1200p panel and can be had for about $200.

 

Get an IPS panel, no question.

The only reason to get a 120Hz panel is for nVidia 3D Vision support. And since you're not going to be doing that, 120Hz would be an unused feature for you.

 

Flipfire hit the nail on the head here - what are the other characteristics of the panels you're looking at? Resolution is definitely key.

That said, IPS ... 120Hz is only useful in a few situations, mostly where 3D is concerned. I'm not sure about its other uses at this time.

 

There are very few people whose eyes can discern a 60hz flicker, and therefore 120hz provides a noticeable fluency and reduces eye strain.

But, chances are, if you haven't noticed it yet, you aren't in that group of people.

 

You don't notice flicker as such with LCD's since there is none in the old sense, the screen is always bright.

For things like office tasks and non demanding things where you can just sit back and watch, I agree that 60Hz is fine, but I did notice a difference when I used my friends 120Hz monitor in game. You can see more when you turn round quickly, which makes tracking moving targets a little easier. Though it wasn't anything mind blowing, I did notice a small difference.

 

I can't agree. Although stuff looks fluid at 30fps, the human eye and brain can handle much higher than that. To me 30fps is unbearable in online gameplay. It needs to be at least 60 before I feel good. For single player I can deal with a little bit less though, with minimums at 45fps. A 60hz monitor though is fine for gaming, as the difference between it and a 120hz monitor is not that great. But on my CRT I need to keep it at at least 75hz or the flicker can get annoying on the desktop, even though 60hz feels fine for me for gaming.

Yeah, the OP should go IPS all else being equal.

 

120Hz has absolutely nothing to do with framerates perceived by the human eye, eyestrain, etc.

120Hz is available on computer monitors because of nVidia Stereoscopic 3DVision, which uses active shutter glasses technology to display two 60Hz images to each of you eyes.

120Hz is available on HDTVs because it is the Least Common Multiple (LCM) of 30fps (the framerate at which TV programs are produced) and 24fps (the framerate at which movies are produced). Having an HDTV that can process 120Hz means that both your TV-based and movie-based content displays on a frame-for-frame basis, rather than getting the blur artifacts when trying to view 24fps movie content on a 60Hz display.

If you're buying a display for use on a computer, and you don't use nVidia 3D Vision, then 120Hz is a useless feature to you.

 

I would definitely say IPS would be much more noticeable over 120Hz. I don't own any 120Hz displays, but I see nothing wrong with the 60hz refresh rate 60 FPS always seems perfectly smooth for me when I am playing games and I would MUCH prefer the wonderful colors and viewing angles of my IPS monitor to more fluidity that I likely won't even really notice.