Asus VG236H 23-inch 3D 120Hz HDMI LCD Monitor with NVIDIA 3D Vision Kit - Bundled

Well after having owned the mediocre Samsung 2233 3D Monitor and the frankly awful Acer GD245HQ, I can honestly say that this monitor is by FAR the best 120 hz 3D monitor I have bought yet.
The monitor is heavy and feels substantial, the stand is fully adjustable with height adjustment, swivel and tilt which is great.
There is a cable clip at the back to keep the wires tidy amd instead of having these new and totally unuseable touch sensitve buttons it has some 'old school' push ones that click when you press them.

Changing through the HDMI, DVI and component channels is easy as the monitor has a dedicated source button, so you don't have to go into a menu. The component connection will take a VGA signal by the way.

The monitor surround is glossy black plastic, like the new xbox 360 and the older PS3, the screen is glossy too, which was a bit of a shock at first as when there is nothing on the screen you can see yourself very clearly, BUT I can see why they have done this. Colours and images pop out of the screen (even before you turn the 3D on) with this screen, I always thought that matt LCD's lose a bit of that Plasma type viewing experience because of the lack of a clear screen and this monitor proves it! It just looks gorgeous!
Now if you are going down the 3D route for the first time you will NOT be dissapointed one bit. The monitor comes bundled with the nVidia 3D kit and as long as your PC is up for the challenge you will be running 3D games and 3D Bluray in no time at all. There was a bit of ghosting on the Samsung 2233 and it bothered me after I got over the thrill of 3D, that ghosting is virtually eliminated from this monitor, the top and bottom inch of the screen that ghosted so badly on the Samsung is a distant memory.
Everything on this monitor is geared for super smooth gaming, 120hz for all your FPS's anyone? No screen tear! Smooth as glass panning! Yep, you should just stop reading this really and press the buy button right now!

There is minimal light leakage around the edges of the monitor, no buzzing or humming unlike the dreadful Acer (which sounded like a wasp in a jam jar in 120hz mode) and pretty decent viewing angles too.

To wrap it up, yes this monitor is expensive but look at what you get, you get a cutting edge 120hz monitor with a fantastic screen performance, a robust build with an adjustable stand PLUS the nVidia 3D kit too ! You can hook up your PS3 and your 360 with the HDMI and away you go, you have the best of all worlds. I haven't looked at the Alienware AW2310 but the price is ridiculous and it just can't be much better than this model as this model is so very good.
I would rate the 3 3D monitors I have used in this order:
Asus 9/10 Samsung 7/10 Acer 2/10.

Seriously don't worry about the glossy screen, it will only be a problem if you are gaming in full sunlight, and really you should be out in the garden with a tall alcoholic beverage then anyway! Curl up around this monitor this Christmas and keep warm with your 3D games and films and be the envy of all your friends and family, go on, you know you want to !!

First off the bat I will say that this monitor is very good. It's a tn panel so it's best suited for gaming. This is not for graphical professional work so you should avoid if your not buying it for gaming.

The glossy screen helps this tn panel to look more crisp and colorful but can be a problem if placed opposite a window. Even in a brightly lit room it wasn't a problem for me.

The design is very nice, black and glossy but is a dust magnet when new. Out of the box the brightness is at max. I have turned it down to 44 and put it on gamer settings with the contrast on 80 as that gave really nice colors when gaming. I then turn down the contrast to 50 for browsing the net.

There is minimal backlight leakage at the bottom of the screen at maximum brightness as most lcd's have and turning it down fixes that.

You must select 120hz in the Nvidia control panel as it doesn't do it automatically. You should then notice that the smoothness of the mouse and browser windows has increased. I played some games including Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Batman AA and Resident Evil 5 and the difference was evident. You will have to change the refresh rate in some of the games in the settings screen and then you will be able to enjoy smoother aiming and no more screen tearing.

I forgot about the 3d vision glasses for a while due to being amazed at the monitor itself and the performance in games. I have a gtx 580 and a phenom x6 overclocked to 3.8ghz and was wasting frames with screen tearing using my other displays as they were only 60hz.

Now when I finally got around to trying the 3d vision glasses, I was gob smacked. I haven't seen stereoscopic 3d before and was really surprised at how good it is. This is no gimmick. The family was lining up to see this and their response was like wow!

I believe that these monitors are bright out of the box because the 3d vision glasses darkens the picture quite dramatically. Ghosting is present in most probably all of these 3d displays and you will be pleased to know that it's not bad on this one at all.

You only have access to the contrast settings while in 3d mode I think but you can brighten the games in their respective settings anyway. Also, the games that are certified as Nvidia 3d ready run perfectly but some that are not certified may cause your display to stay in 3d mode after exiting the game so that you can't change your settings. I have found that if this happens you can start any game that is certified and quit it. That should fix the problem.

So overall I don't have any complaints regarding this package.

Thanks for reading.

Edit: I had to rma this monitor due to a bright blue pixel popping up to the left of the screen. The rma service was a nightmare as Asus support is terrible.
They made too many mistakes and was sending me duplicate emails with the wrong dates on them and it took them nearly a month to get in a replacement as they don't always have stock available.

And when I got the replacement, it was in an awful condition. Instead of going through that again, I decided to sell it and wait for the new 3d vision 2 monitors with lightboost technology which silly Nvidia didn't announce until recently thus allowing buyers to purchase what will be outdated hardware if you bought a 3d vision ready monitor within the last couple of months.

I think that I will go with benq this time as I have had better rma experiences with them. Just waiting for amazon to stock the benq xl2420t which should be arrive in the UK around mid November.

Bought this as a present to myself all I can say is awesome if you are a gamer. The monitor its self is brilliant bundled with Nvidia's 3D Vision kit it becomes a total gamers dream.Have my x box 360 hooked up to it as well as my pc. As I am not a teenager but a grandmother who loves RPG's this bundle has to be the best on the market and believe me I did extensive research before buying. Price on Amazon was also the best deal around