14 DAY TRIAL // In the past, Japanese company Iiyama released quite a few mid-range and business monitors, but it also has a variety of gaming-centric displays, which has just received a new addition in the ProLite GB2488HSU.
Don't let the name ProLite fool you. This isn't a display made for professionals or businessmen, although we suppose nothing is stopping such customers from getting it.
Still, the specifications of the newcomer firmly place it in the entertainment and gaming category.
After all, there is no need for a business panel to have a super-fast response time or a refresh rate higher than that of many 3D monitors.
For those who want specifics, the Iiyama ProLite GB2488HSU is a 24-inch LCD with a TN LED panel.
TN technology may not have the best viewing angles (though they are still quite wide at this point, if not to the same extent as IPS), but it does have a better response time.
In this instance, it is of 1 ms. For perspective, consider that the normal monitor refresh rate is of 5 ms, and that's usually enough to keep up with even high-speed FPS and RTS games.
Still, any advantage is good in first-person shooters and real-time strategies, so the 1ms of the new ProLite should be a big point in the product's favor.
Another important asset is the refresh rate of 144 Hz. That's better than the 120 Hz required by 3D panels, although, curiously enough, Iiyama's press release made no mention of such a capability.
It really seems as though the newcomer is made for games and not 3D. Perhaps it was for the best, since the price would not have been of just €319 / $319 if three-dimensional video support was added on top of everything else.
Moving on, the Iiyama display features a Video Adjust Mode (changes from 16:9 to 5:4 and other aspect ratios as needed), controls for brightness and dark shades (Black Tuner, for better viewing in shadowed game areas) and the Direct Drive function (bypasses a number of functions handled by the screen, giving your video card direct control over the screen).
Direct Drive sounds like a technology somewhat similar to the NVIDIA G-Sync really, since it reduces lag and boost frame rate by directly giving the graphics card control over it. Not sure how the two compare though. Presumably, NVIDIA's solution is better (albeit restricted to its own video cards) because it has a hardware module to do it all (installed inside partners' monitors themselves).
Anyway, Iiyama's ProLite GB2488HSU monitor has a diagonal of 24 inches, two HDMI inputs, dual-link DVI and DisplayPort, plus a USB hub. It will start shipping from March 13.