BBHD Feed - News, Gossip, Forum, Downloads, HowTo, Photos, Tweaks & Hot Deals - A better/cheaper monitor than the Digimate DGM VA from OCUK?

Yes. I have been doing a lot of research on 24" panels recently and coming to the conclusion that the best for the money has to be the Digimate 24" VA Panel. Some of you may of heard of this, many more of you will probably own one. The main seller of this monitor was OCUK, but there was a massive problem with the stock, they had been infilitrated by TN Panels, accidentally. So some customers buying the guaranteed VA Panel actually received a TN panel. Not good at all and not something I wanted to get myself into.

So I set myself a mission, find a better monitor for the price with no risk. Read more to find out if I succeeded.

The simple answer would be "Yes". I have found not only a cheaper monitor, but a better equipped one! It has the same panel as the Digimate, looks identical to the Digimate, it just isn't a Digimate. Before you ask, no, it isn't a clone, the Digimate is the clone!

I am going to ramble a bit now, but it is the only way you will understand how I found this other monitor. It all began as I said, finding the Digimate, but finding another seller. Now as some of you might already have noticed, this is hard, most of the time you just get referred back to OCUK or eBay. I give up searching the UK, I couldn't find a trace of it, so I began looking for shops in Germany selling it.

Now some of you will say, why Germany, what made you look there. The simple answer is, I can understand German, not as well as I would like but enough to know if a website is selling a product or if people are speaking about it and so on. So I set off looking for anyone talking about the Digimate OCUK monitor using Google.de. I started off fairly simply, searching for "L-2442WD" which is the Digimate product code for that particular monitor. What did I find?

Just one result, but not just any result, a 106 page thread about 24" screens. Not just any screens, P-MVA screens that cost a lot less than they probably should. I could not believe my luck, how simple was that?

Now, I used Google to translate that thread, it actually makes it pretty readable as you can see if you clicked above. I will give a run down of what I found by reading it so you don't have to do the hard work. It all began with someone posting that the Novita monitor found in Germany was not only just a TN it was also a VA. Quickly someone picked up on the Yuraku, also the same, it looks the same and basically is identical. Whether it was a TN or a VA though nobody was sure.

Further into the thread "Aldern" one the German members of the forum was posting quite often, obviously interested in what was going on. Up until page 5 though, he was adamant that all these monitors were TN panels. Until the original thread maker, "Karsten4130" posted saying he had got his monitor (a Novita, identical in every way to the DGM) and it was definitely a VA. The panel was not losing its colour under extreme angles like a TN should.

Previously in the thread, they had emailed the manufacturer who did reply saying it was a P-MVA panel and not a TN but there had already been an appearance of a Novita TN I believe, so people seemed sceptical until Karsten posted again his findings. It is hard to understand exactly what they are saying, but by the sounds of it, Karsten got a VA Novita but someone previously had reviewed or owned a TN panel. It sounded so similar to the DGM monitor from OCUK, it really was making me wonder what was going on.

Aldern then posted he had found another, the Iolair which he referred to as identical to Overclockers DGM. By page 12, another poster came along, Nickel020, he had taken delivery of his Yuraku monitor and it was 100% not a TN. This did not seem right to me, he said it had HDCP? This was not the same as the DGM but it was a VA and it was very cheap. I continued to read the thread, Aldern was stating futher into the thread that every Yuraku monitor that people in the thread had bought and posted about, not one of them said they got a TN panel.

So we come to the end of my story. The Yuraku MB24WKA not only has HDCP, it was also 100% guaranteed to be a VA from what has been said in the thread. I was not so sure, so I decided to message Aldern as he seemed to have posted the most on the thread, he also owned the MB24WKA, surely he could tell me what was going on here.

Here was his reply to my questions:
"Well the Yuraku MB24WKA is the better choice, because the other Yuraku clones Digimate/Novita/Iolair/.... and so on, are not supporting HDCP. The Yuraku includes HDCP support over DVI. All Yurakus 24" have a better P-MVA Panel, it´s not a cheap and bad TN Panel. To verify the P-MVA Panel, press the "M" and "+" button to enter a hidden menu. Then you will see the Panel Version. AU-M240UW01-V0 and AU-M240UW01-V3 are both P-MVA Panels.

Following monitors have the same P-MVA Panel inside:

Acer AL2423W (widescreen) has a 24 inch 6 ms (g2g) P-MVA (AUO M240UW01 V0) panel
BenQ FP241VW (widescreen) has a 24 inch 6 ms (g2g) P-MVA (AUO M240UW01 V0) panel
BenQ FP241W (widescreen) has a 24 inch 8 ms (g2g) P-MVA (AUO M240UW01 V0) panel
LG L246WP (widescreen) has a 24 inch 8 ms (g2g) P-MVA (AUO M240UW01 V0) panel."

So, the DGM, Novita and Iolair were in actual fact clones of the Yuraku. The Yuraku supported HDCP and none of the others did. So I had a look around for one for sale in the UK, and boy did I find one. It was on special offer, £194, not bad, a lot less than the Digimate from OCUK - so I bought it. Here are my findings:

Nice box, let's get inside

Oh no, I found a dead pixel. Looks so much like a piece of dust on this huge screen though (it took me ten minutes to find it to take this picture).

You can see the dead pixel in the black box, it really is tiny. Back to what we care about though, it is a V3 - so it is a VA?

Your damn right it is!

I really cannot say any more about it. It is the same as the DGM basically, just has HDCP and is a lot cheaper. No point me going on saying how good it is, it just is at this price.

Now, where to buy. I got mine from Aria - at the time of writing they have 3 available at a Super Special Price of £193.82.

But you can also buy it from Misco although they do not say how much stock they have. At £204.99 though (at time of writing) it is £50 cheaper than the OCUK DGM, not only that, you won't get a TN and you get HDCP.

It really is a no brainer, I hope you enjoyed reading my Yuraku 24" Review.

Note: Forum Thread: HERE - Yuraku YV24WBH1 MB24WKA AU-M240UW01-V3