New monitors

[Zaphod]

so, i'm about ready for a dual monitor setup. i'm gonna get 2 24" lcd monitors. the question is what brand/model? it used to be the dell ultrasharps were the one's to beat. is this still the case? there seem to be an awful lot of good monitors around the $250 -$400 dollar range vs. the $700 for the ultrasharp. i stopped by bestbuy the other day and they had the non-ultrasharp dells and they looked pretty decent. and the asus displays on newegg are getting high reviews. thoughts? thanks!

[dragonash]

i tend to go by the reviews on newegg.
they have great prices, plus most of the time the reviews are from computer knowledgeable people. Not "it looks puurty" type of reviews.

Also, I have an ASUS laptop....thing is a beast and the display is awesome to boot. So if they are that good with a laptop display, I can only assume they gotta be good with monitors :)

[Ninjahedge]

Dells are OK sop long as you look for things like teh response time. The old 17 inch I have is a good sharp display, but I used to get a lot of ghosting, even on Guild Wars.

The 20" (4:3, 2001FP) are very nice with very little ghosting (especially if you enable motion blur) and very sharp. After having them for over 4 years I have 1 dead pixel on each.

What are you going to be using them for? If gaming, I would recommend the widescreens, but if you are doing office work, they can take up a LOT of desktop space with less virtual desktop than a standard 4:3.

There are not many of those available now since everyone wants the widescreen so they can, I don't know, watch movies on their computer instead of their Plasma TV, but still, I found gaming satisfactory on my 20".....

Needless to say, I am just waiting on the 30" (2560x1600?) screen to come below $800! ;)

[Zaphod]

Hmmm...I was thinking of maybe getting just one 30" display, but i have plenty of space in my home office for (2) 24" monitors. I do everything on the computer, games, work, media, etc...etc... I've just really gotten used to having two monitors at work and i was playing a game the other day at home and said, gee i wish i had dual monitors so i could check the status of my upload without having to window out/pause the game.

I think I'm going to pass on the UltraSharp. I can't figure out why it is so much more expensive than all the other monitors out there with roughly the same specs. Most of the $200 - $400 monitors support the same resolution and the same refresh. The one difference is the type of flat panel used in the UltraSharp. It uses an S-PVA type panel where the rest mostly use TN panels. I forget why the S-PVA is supposed to be better (I think it had to do with color gamuts and viewing angles) but that is actually the one thing I don't use my computer for, graphic design. So I'm not so much worried about color gamut or looking at the monitor from extreme angles.

[Ninjahedge]

You mean you do not stand up and move around the room while playing??!?!?!?

[Dr. Death]

Be careful when looking at the ultra-high resolution screens, like the 30". My older video card does not support those resolutions, so I got a 24" 1080p. Make sure your video card supports the native res of any large screen monitor you are looking at.

The PVA screens do have better color gamut, and that's why they are more expensive. Unless you are doing photography work or something similar, you probably don't need a PVA screen.

[Ninjahedge]

I THINK my 4870 will cover it. (It is currently hooked to two 20" @ 1600x1200 each.... Nice setup, but a lot of space...)

[shifty]

You shoulda bought two of the 32" TV's on sale at Woot yesterday ( http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8980 ).

I bought one for my basement, now I'm wishing I'da cashed in on the $299 small form factor PC they had a couple days before ( http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8966 )

[Ninjahedge]

Nah, the 32" looks nice, but the res is only 720p. Fine for most media, but not the greatest for a computer (text can get chunky if you wantto use it as an actual monitor...)

As for doing the MMPC, you may just want to buy that Popcorn Box (G$?) was talking about a while back. Seems to fit the bill nicely so long as you have a server up and running....

[Dr. Death]

Right. That's why they're blowing them out. That, and they have the useless NTSC tuners in them.

You should be buying 1080p in a TV right now.

[shifty]

$300 though. I'm sure I can turn around and sell for that much if I needed to.

Ultimately, my wife just wants a TV in the workout room, so I think this should suffice.

[Zaphod]

so, after reading countless reviews, talking to various peeps, and going to best buy, i said, 'this is stupid'. i then turned around, went to bb, stood there for 15 minutes looking at the diff monitors, and bought 2 of these 23" monitors

http://www.lge.com/us/computer-products/monitors/LG-lcd-monitor-W2361VG-PF.jsp

so far, so good! i was a little worried about the anti-glare coating (which i'm not really sure why they call it that since it seems to me to cause more glare. they have shiny panels as opposed to flat matte panels.) but my home office lighting is such that it doesn't bother me and the picture sure does look nice! i played some L4D and Crysis on them and no issue i can see!

i'll have to play some rts games to see if i can span the monitors, putting stats on one screen while playing on the other, but for now, its all good! from a work perspective, it's just great having multiple monitors (heck, i could utilize at least 3 monitors for work if not more.)

[Dr. Death]

The shiny panels are annoying (to me anyway.) The flat matte panels reflect much less light, BUT they do blur the image slightly (since the surface isn't smooth and diffracts some of the light.)

Glad you like your screens.

[Ninjahedge]

They look nice, but I always balk at 1080 high....

Once you go as large as I have (1600x1200) it is very hard to go smaller at work/with a new set.....

[Zaphod]

well, nh, u were absolutely on the money there! initially, i really liked those monitors. but after a couple weeks, three things caused me to take them back.

1. the shiny screens. at first they really didn't bother me, or so i thought, but after a couple weeks, i realized (or at least thought) i was actually getting headaches after staring at them for any decent amount of time. this seems to be true since after i got rid of them and went back to good ol matte, headaches gone. i think it was my brain auto adjusting to looking through whatever was being reflected to the screen image itself.

2. couldn't adjust tilt/swivel/etc. they are locked onto the base and that's it. i never thought that would bug me, but it did.

3. the final straw was, as you put it, the resolution/aspect ratio killed them for me. this one actually took me a few days to realize. they were 1920x1080/16:9 monitors. well, the 22" that i replaced with these was a 1920x1050/16:10 monitor. well, i never even considered there would be that much of a difference between 16:9 & 16:10. there is! it's kind of hard to explain, but computers seem built for 16:10. it just looks waaaaay better at 16:10, it 'fits' i guess you could say. for the first week of using the other monitors, i kept sitting there looking at them and trying to figure out what seemed 'off' and finally realized it was the 16:9.


so, i've since gotten 2 samsung 2443bwt monitors. they are 1920x1200/16:10 monitors with matte screens. they are a world of difference from the other two. yes, they were more expensive, but so worth it. (btw, newegg/ups really do rock! ordered 2 day shipping and newegg got them out the same day and i actually got them in one day).

anyway, just thought i'd share! 16:10 monitors are definitely the way to go! cheers! :D

[Ninjahedge]

Linkies there Zaph?

[Zaphod]

oh, here:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=samsung+2443bwt (sorry couldn't resist :D )

here you go:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001323