Looking for a widescreen LCD display

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m looking to spend ~$3–400 on a new monitor, preferably 24”, and am doing my researchy bit (this AnandTech thread is great). Besides numbers, I thought to collect the opinions of the Dope on what works for you, experiences, recipes (oops, wrong thread), likes/disklikes, and advice.

In short, I want to be able to work/see multiple open documents during the day, and shoot monsters at night. I spend all day in front of it (home office) working with text (Word, PDFs, some coding in DreamWeaver), so clarity on that front is essential. I play the occasional game (FPS ShootEmUPs) and while I don’t do it that often, want to make the most of the time that I do (i.e., severe ghosting would get on my nerves). If it makes a difference, the controlling box has an AMD 64x2 4800 and an EVGA 7800 GTX running Win XP.

My only real experience with the tech is with Mrs. Dvl’s Apple four-year-old CinemaDisplay. She does graphic design, so the higher end unit was justified. Given the passage of time, will a lower-end unit be fairly similar? I know the low-end internal components of today would dwarf the highest end of four years ago, but I don’t know if that translates to monitor technology.

I don’t have to upgrade at the moment – I may be able to muster the patience if the only suitable replacement requires waiting for prices to fall. In other words, if you think that given my price range (so low because this is somewhat of a whim) I’ll be better off sticking with my 19” CRT, let me know.

Thanks,

Rhythm

[on preview: also, I searched the boards for ‘display’, ‘monitor’, ‘widescreen’ ‘ultrasharp’ (in thread), and a few other terms (but LCD is too short), got some interesting reads, but didn’t see a similar question – if you know of something fairly recent, pointing me in that direction would be greatly appreciated. ]

2

When I went shopping for a widescreen LCD several years ago, I just went to NewEgg.com and looked for one in my price range with a decent brand name (ViewSonic in my case) and plenty of good reviews, which I read many of to see what they comment on. I think a large volume of customer reviews is a good indication that you won’t be disappointed.

Beyond that, look for a good contrast ratio and refresh rate. Decide whether you want a purty glossy screen or a matte finish one. I suggest matte.

My ViewSonic runs at 1680x1050, which is a good resolution to run side-by-side windows, but not such a huge resolution that I need a $500 video card for good gaming performance.

One thing you might consider is whether you want one with a TV tuner, that could be handy if you can hook a HDTV antenna to it.

3

Concur on the Viewsonic. I have this one and I’m very happy with it. It handles games, applications, and movies perfectly.

4

I’ve got the HP w240h HDMI and am very pleased. While I personally don’t do any gaming, I’ve watched my kid play and it appears to be very much up to the task.

5

I recently purchased this one: http://www.amazon.com/Gateway-FHD2400-Widescreen-LCD-Monitor/dp/B000X6XMWY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1213202481&sr=1-1

Really nice monitor with the glossy finish. The glossy finish is nice, as long as there isn’t a lot of ambient glare while you are playing a cinematic game or enjoying a movie on it. No glare for me so I got to enjoy the deeper blacks and colors and glare isn’t a problem on the desktop/viewing web pages.

I will say that an LCD is about the only appliance I would actually get that in store warranty crap for.

Mainly because there is always the chance you’ll get one with dead pixels or other issues such as backlight bleed. It’s nice to be able to take it back for a single dead pixel as most manufacturing warranties require there to be a lot of them before they take it back, and a single dead pixel, depending on it’s location can be very distracting.

6

Was out and about today, and took a look at a few monitors on display (all 24")
Acer P241WB
$430

HP W2408H
$500

Gateway FHD2400
$480

Samsung 2493HM
$500

Westinghouse
L2610NW
$500

Samsung 245BW
$400

All these prices are from Circuit City, Best Buy, and Sam’s club (had other errands and popped over in each). Actually, though every system I’ve built has been through Mwave or NewEgg, for some reason I’m a bit leery of ordering online – it’s easy to return to a box store something for a single out-of-the-box dead pixel than to ship it back. Not completely sure yet, but that’s the way I’m leaning—especially as NewEgg has the same Samsung at the same price (though probably no taxes).

One thing I noticed on the few that were hooked up to a computer-– I opened notepad to see how multiple docs would look size- and clarity-wise. I opened Notepad, created a few quick ipso lorem paragraph and copied that page into a second instance of Notepad. While 24" will allow simultaneous working and keep a few dialogue boxes open (e.g., find), the text seemed a bit … fuzzy. Can’t really explain, but it seemed that the crispness of the letters wasn’t there. Could that have been the store’s setup (seems odd that they’d have a crappy setup to sell the product with)? Could it be that I wasn’t looking from the best angle (but the screen wasn’t vague as a whole, just the text seemed slightly indistinct)? Or is this something that is inherent to LCDs and I’ll eventually get used to it? I’ll be staring at this thing for eight to twelve hours a day, so text display is paramount. Man, why can’t things be simple?

7

LCDs should be sharper than CRTs. They’re much much easier on my eyes than CRTs. I’d bet on bad store setup, my first guess would be they didn’t set the Windows desktop the same as the LCD’s native resolution. That means the monitor will have to upscale the image to match the monitor.

8

Control-z is right. EVERY time I 've looked at an LCD in best buy the desktop is set to half the native rez or even lower and sometimes it’s even set to a different aspect ratio.

Right click the desktop and change the resolution to the native resolution for the diaply. for 24" Widescreen LCD’s that’s usually 1920x1200.

When I was looking at the Gateway HD2400 I changed the resolution because ti was set to 800x600. The next day I came back to take another look and it was back at 800x600.

Anyone work for bestbuy here? Anyone know why they would do that?

9

24" LCDs can be 1680x1050 too, it’s important to know exactly what the monitor is supposed to run at. The video card in the computer might not even support the right resolution, so you might not get the option under Display Properties. Anyway, get everything matched up right and you’re set with a really nice sharp display.

My work monitor runs 1440x900 and I had to use a utility called PowerStrip to get the ATI video card in my puter to support it.

10

I haven’t seen a 24" running at 1680x1050. 22" yes, but I think larger than that and the pixels are just too big. Definitely would not recommend a 24" at that resolution.

I can see having in-store LCD’s at lower resolutions if the machine they are attached to doesn’t support the higher rez, but that was clearly not the case in all the times I ran into this issue at bestbuy.

11

Ah, I misremembered. This is the one I have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116381

It’s 20.1", not 24". It pretty much exactly fits my roll-top desk, so I can’t go any bigger.

12

I almost bought a $549 28" Hanns-G LCD a couple months ago, until I was offered a too-good-to-refuse deal on a used Dell 2405FPW, which is a BEAUTIFUL monitor (it uses the same Samsung screen as the Apple CinemaDisplays, but at half the cost). I now see what the difference between a $400 24" and a $1000 24" is, and it’s BIG.

13

Depending on whether you care about screen size or resolution, the lenovo L220x might be worth a look. It’s 22" but has the same number of pixels as a 24" screen. It uses a S-IPS panel which is the same technology as the $700 24" LCDs but you can find it for less than $450 online. Text will be a bit smaller than what you’re used to on this but it’s a good deal for the right person.

14

How so? I think that’s what I’m really wondering about … in the same general class, I don’t know if a 500:1 or 1,000:1 contrast is something I’ll necessarily pick up on. But since I’ll be looking at the screen for eight to twelve hours a day, what is the difference between the two–is it worth it?