I’m looking for a new monitor, since mine is about 6 years old and is starting to get dark. I want something 19", flat screen, but I don’t want to spend on an LCD screen. I play a number of games, so graphics are important, but overall I just want to know what people think is a good monitor. I placed this here because I don’t know if this question can be answwered factually so much as subjectively, but if a moderator wants to switch it to General Questions, fine by me.
I’ve had a Sony 19" monitor for a couple years now and it’s been good to me. When I was looking I also thought well of the NEC and ViewSonic models. My roommate just got a slightly used ViewSonic that looks nice. I’d say that you’ll probably be fine with just about any name-brand unit.
But be sure to go and actually look at monitors at the local Best Buy or wherever. That’s the only way you can know which one is right for you. Go to multiple stores to inspect them, because chances are good that any given display model can be screwy just from people fiddling with it all day, and that will taint your impression if you only see that example.
I swear by Viewsonic but only their upper models (I have the Pf95 and a 17" one that I don’t know the model code to).
Sony is way over priced IMO. I would stick with name brand companies and review the specs (one of the reasons why I picked the Pf95 is because of it’s great refresh rates).
I recently bought two NEC-Mitsubishi 1960 NX 19" monitors.
These are not super-cheap, but I think they’re good and they do look great, which was important to me since I’m looking at them almost all day (and they had to look good with my powerbook).