Disappointed in widescreen monitors

[Walter R.]

I am using Win XP SP3. All is working well.

I have been using a 19" monitor with a 4:3 aspect ratio and the 1024x768
resolution. Circles were round and websites displayed beautifully.

Always reaching for something bigger and better, I bought a 22" widescreen
monitor. It has a native resolution of 1680x1050.

I will probably return it because I cannot get a decent display. Either,
circles becomes ovals, or websites display only over part of the monitor
screen, leaving blank areas right and left, or on the right side only.

Am I doing something wrong or, is this the nature of widescreen monitors?
They do not seem to make monitors with an aspect ratio of 4:3 any more.

 

[LVTravel]

I am using Win XP SP3. All is working well.

I have been using a 19" monitor with a 4:3 aspect ratio and the 1024x768
resolution. Circles were round and websites displayed beautifully.

Always reaching for something bigger and better, I bought a 22" widescreen
monitor. It has a native resolution of 1680x1050.

I will probably return it because I cannot get a decent display. Either,
circles becomes ovals, or websites display only over part of the monitor
screen, leaving blank areas right and left, or on the right side only.

Am I doing something wrong or, is this the nature of widescreen monitors?
They do not seem to make monitors with an aspect ratio of 4:3 any more.

Have you set the resolution on the video adapter to the widescreen (16:9
aspect ratio) resolution that is default for the monitor (1680X1050?) If
not you will get oval circles. You may need to update the video card driver
in your computer to accomplish that. I had an older Sony computer with an
older video card that originally was set at 1280X1024 which is a 4:3 aspect
ratio. When I went to the widescreen 16:9 monitor I had no setting for that
on the driver that was on the system. Went to Sony's web site and there was
no updated driver but the video card maker (nVidia) had a new driver on
their web site that had the proper resolution available. Check first the
computer manufacturer's web site for your model then if they don't have
anything check the video card manufacturer's site.

Right click blank area of desktop, left click Properties, settings and use
the slide to see if the correct resolution is present.

Need further help, post back.

 

[Richard Urban]

Is your screen resolution if fact set for 1680x1050?

Your video card may not be able to support this resolution and would cause
just such problem.

 

[VanguardLH]

I am using Win XP SP3. All is working well.

I have been using a 19" monitor with a 4:3 aspect ratio and the
1024x768 resolution. Circles were round and websites displayed
beautifully.

Always reaching for something bigger and better, I bought a 22"
widescreen monitor. It has a native resolution of 1680x1050.

I will probably return it because I cannot get a decent display.

Are you actually using the native resolution? Any other resolution
results in interpolation which results in loss of focus. The display
will be fuzzier unless you use the LCD monitor's native resolution.

Either, circles becomes ovals,

Well, does your video card's driver or software permit you to specify
the aspect ratio? My 7-year old ATI AGP video card and its software
lets me specify an aspect ratio. In some video software, you deselect
the option to stretch the screen or disable "scale image to full panel
size". Some apps will compensate for a 8:5 aspect ratio, or they may
elect to only use a partial screen area. Some games don't check so all
the characters look squatted.

Are you using the VGA or DVI input on the LCD monitor? There may even
be a menu option in the LCD monitor to neglect its widescreen size and
only use a smaller area (to allow 4:3 to show correctly even for those
apps that would otherwise look squashed vertically).

or websites display only over part of the monitor screen, leaving
blank areas right and left, or on the right side only.

No monitor can fix that. The web page specified a fixed width in
pixels for their web page. If your monitor is wider than than, the
blank areas show because, well, the web site didn't want to paint a
wider page. A web page can specify percentages for how much of the
width and height of the screen it will use for some area, like a frame,
image, border, table, or whatnot. Then you won't get the blank
borders. If they use a fixed size (in pixels) than that's what you
get. Their choice in how to decide on painting their web page.

Am I doing something wrong or, is this the nature of widescreen
monitors? They do not seem to make monitors with an aspect ratio of
4:3 any more.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010190020 1301922115&name=No

That your particular retail store doesn't carry them merely reflects
where the market exists for them to obtain a profit on their sales.

 

[Paul]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010190020 1301922115&name=No

That your particular retail store doesn't carry them merely reflects
where the market exists for them to obtain a profit on their sales.

If you sort that list by highest price, there are a few 1600x1200 21.3" or
smaller monitors, with 178 degree viewing angle. These will be some of the
more obscure panel types, like IPS. It is unclear, whether
the companies making this kind of technology, can afford to continue,
with TN (inferior tech) stomping on all the competition.

This article probably isn't the best, but at least you get a list
of panel types to look for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_film_transistor_liquid_crystal_display

I tried to find the largest non-widescreen on Dell, and this was it.

A 20" 1600x1200 (178 degree - on some adverts, you have to multiply by two...)
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/pro...l.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&sku=320-4687

Review comparing some of these things, here.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/20inch-4_8.html#sect0

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/20-21inch-2_19.html

There are a few nice monitors around, but they won't be at a local
big box store near you.

I think the comments here, sum it up.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/lcd-monitor-buyers-guide-2008-2009_6.html

"The era of inexpensive monitors based on S-IPS, MVA and PVA matrixes is over...

The reason is obvious: the mass customer is satisfied with the quality of TN-based
monitors and very satisfied with their pricing, so the demand for the more expensive
monitors based on other manufacturing technologies is steadily declining."

From page 3:

"Widescreen LCD panels are more profitable to manufacture. The diagonal being
the same, they have a smaller total area, which means that the manufacturer
can cut one wafer into more panels."

So the end result, is uniform garbage - nothing but wide screen, TN panels.
With all sorts of contrast enhancements, overdrive, and tricks, to make
their datasheet specs look better.

Paul

 

[Anteaus]

Have to agree that standard aspect-ratio is better for coding -in fact better
for most purposes- you can see more of the program without scrolling.
Unfortunately once you go over 19" you don't have much of a choice in that
respect.

I was always under the impression that the widescreen style was driven by
the media industry, although in fact they don't make all that much difference
to entertainment, most films being in a 'super-letterbox' format that doesn't
fit on any current display. Since the vast majority of computers are not used
for watching films, if this is the reason it's a case of the tail wagging the
dog.


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