Which monitor

[SleeperMan]

I'm starting to think a bit of buying LCD monitor instead of my old 17 inch
CRT one(Viewpoint - Relysis). Now, what yould you think - which is better
for various things - a bit of games, a bit of photo editing from my digital
camera, a bit of writing - you know, usual stuff. A guy in the store told me
that photo on LCD doesn't look so good as it does on CRT - is that true?
I would think about some 15 inch one - or should i go to 17 inch? I know it
should be a better type - like some SONY - or what?

Or should just stick with my CRT one?

(currently i have AMD 1700+, GeForce 4 MX 440 64 M DDR, Soyo Dragon+ mobo,
512 M DDR RAM)

 

[SleeperMan]

my girlfriend is an avid photoshop user and really loves her lcd
display

the best way to judge is simply go to a store that has a wide
selection of monitors on display and decide with your eyes!

you can read data sheets all day long but it won't mean much
it's so much a matter of personal preference!

That is one of options, sure. And i bet they can put my CDR with photos in a
comp to see them.

 

[SleeperMan]

And that point is a strong argument, space. I'd love to ditch my 17"
monitor here to save space, I really would. I think maybe in a year
or so, it'll be time to switch.

I looked on PC World, and even although it's 15", this LCD gets a good
review:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,109198,00.asp

~ Adrian ~

Quite good. And you should take into account that 15 inch LCD is almost as
big as 17 inch CRT, since in LCD picture is measured while at CRT's whole
screen including edge, where there are no picture, is counted. SO, i guess
15 inch woul dbe quite good choice.

 

[Li'l ol' me]

Quite good. And you should take into account that 15 inch LCD is almost as
big as 17 inch CRT, since in LCD picture is measured while at CRT's whole
screen including edge, where there are no picture, is counted. SO, i guess
15 inch woul dbe quite good choice.

Why do people claim a 15" LCD is (almost) the same as a 17" (visible size
15.7" minimum)?

My 5 year old 17" IIyama (visible size: 15.8") works well at 1280x960. Try
doing that with a 15" LCD!

 

[Adrian]

Quite good. And you should take into account that 15 inch LCD is almost as

big as 17 inch CRT, since in LCD picture is measured while at CRT's whole
screen including edge, where there are no picture, is counted. SO, i guess
15 inch woul dbe quite good choice.

Yes, I think what would be ideal is to "try" one for a month or so, with the
chance of a refund at the end. Maybe lease one or something like that. I
remember that CTX, LG or Ilyama or Samsung were the ones that have the fast
response time. CNET showed it somewhere on their site, although their site
wasn't working correctly earlier on.

I remember I was tempted by a black thin frame Sony version at one point,
because they listed a 20ms response time. Then, a review of it, revealed
the specs. were a con, because the display manufacturer, who provides the
display to Sony, listed the specs. at 45ms! I think as someone mentioned,
you literally have to spam the manufacturer and pretend you don't know their
products and ask them something like "Can you please tell me which of your
products have a sub 20ms response time, in a 17" frame, have accurate as can
be color and cost less than $750?".

I'd love an LCD, I'd have tons more room for documents, CDs, pen, books than
I do now. It's funny, because when I look at the depth of my monitor, I
keep thinking how nice it would be to save all that space, but on the other
hand, my games would play as good and working in Photoshop would be a little
tricky with the colors not coming out as accurate as they do with a CRT.

~ Adrian ~

 

[SleeperMan]

Why do people claim a 15" LCD is (almost) the same as a 17" (visible
size
15.7" minimum)?

My 5 year old 17" IIyama (visible size: 15.8") works well at
1280x960. Try doing that with a 15" LCD!

That's impossible to compare due to totally different techniques. LCD's are
made for certain resolutions ONLY. others can improvise, but not very good.
while CRt's are made only for certain maximum resolution, and not for
certain best one. Secondly, 17 inch CRT can't show good picture at that high
resolution - i mean letters are too small and as a result your eyes will go
balooney afrter years of stearing into such picture.

And last why all say almost? Because it IS almost. Like you say, LCD has
15.7, while CRT has 15.8 - the difference IS 0.1 inch, right?

 

[SleeperMan]

Yes, I think what would be ideal is to "try" one for a month or so,
with the chance of a refund at the end. Maybe lease one or something
like that. I remember that CTX, LG or Ilyama or Samsung were the
ones that have the fast response time. CNET showed it somewhere on
their site, although their site wasn't working correctly earlier on.

I remember I was tempted by a black thin frame Sony version at one
point, because they listed a 20ms response time. Then, a review of
it, revealed the specs. were a con, because the display manufacturer,
who provides the display to Sony, listed the specs. at 45ms! I think
as someone mentioned, you literally have to spam the manufacturer and
pretend you don't know their products and ask them something like
"Can you please tell me which of your products have a sub 20ms
response time, in a 17" frame, have accurate as can be color and cost
less than $750?".

I'd love an LCD, I'd have tons more room for documents, CDs, pen,
books than I do now. It's funny, because when I look at the depth of
my monitor, I keep thinking how nice it would be to save all that
space, but on the other hand, my games would play as good and working
in Photoshop would be a little tricky with the colors not coming out
as accurate as they do with a CRT.

~ Adrian ~

I would agree that specs can be inacurrate. Maybe it's best to find some
reviwes and judge by them, but even those can be faulty, so it's best to
find a few of them, not just one. I've read review of Plextor Premium about
2 weeks ago and it was quite a dissapointment. Then i found three other ones
and none of them had that downside as the first one, so i really don't know,
how they manage to get that error and then say that this drive is bad...

 

[Li'l ol' me]

That's impossible to compare due to totally different techniques. LCD's are
made for certain resolutions ONLY. others can improvise, but not very good.
while CRt's are made only for certain maximum resolution, and not for
certain best one. Secondly, 17 inch CRT can't show good picture at that high
resolution - i mean letters are too small and as a result your eyes will go
balooney afrter years of stearing into such picture.

And last why all say almost? Because it IS almost. Like you say, LCD has
15.7, while CRT has 15.8 - the difference IS 0.1 inch, right?

I thought most 15" LCDs were about 15.1" and 17" CRTs were minimum 15.7".

And there's nothing wrong with 1280x960, I'm currently typing this in
1280x1024 on a new 17" with a 16" visible. Now THIS is slightly too small,
but my Radeon 8500 won't do 1280x960 without 3rd party s/w or registry
hacks. 1152x868 isn't bad, but you can't even do that on a 15" LCD. That's
why I wouldn't consider a laptop, or anything less than a 17" LCD.

 

[SleeperMan]

I thought most 15" LCDs were about 15.1" and 17" CRTs were minimum
15.7".

And there's nothing wrong with 1280x960, I'm currently typing this in
1280x1024 on a new 17" with a 16" visible. Now THIS is slightly too
small, but my Radeon 8500 won't do 1280x960 without 3rd party s/w or
registry hacks. 1152x868 isn't bad, but you can't even do that on a
15" LCD. That's why I wouldn't consider a laptop, or anything less
than a 17" LCD.

I just tried my monitor to 1280x960. I really don't know, how you manage to
watch such small screen as my eyes weregetting to hurt me after 10 seconds.
And yes, my 17 inch monitor has 15.7 inch visible screen. i wouldn't know
for LCD, but i guess it should be as yousay, so it's really "almost" the
same.
If you're used to have such big resolution, then you have the problem in
case of LCD. But in my case, as i always use 1024x768, LCD with 15 inch
would be just ideal, right? All i have left here is decision of representing
true colors or should i say the difference. And of course, quick response
time for games.

 

[Li'l ol' me]

I just tried my monitor to 1280x960. I really don't know, how you manage to
watch such small screen as my eyes weregetting to hurt me after 10 seconds.
And yes, my 17 inch monitor has 15.7 inch visible screen. i wouldn't know
for LCD, but i guess it should be as yousay, so it's really "almost" the
same.
If you're used to have such big resolution, then you have the problem in
case of LCD. But in my case, as i always use 1024x768, LCD with 15 inch
would be just ideal, right? All i have left here is decision of representing
true colors or should i say the difference. And of course, quick response
time for games.

It's horses for courses as they say, and this horse wears good glasses!. My
now-retired IIyama has the same visible size as yours and 1280x960 was very
borderline, but 1152x868 was great (try it if you can, it might be a happy
medium). But 1152 looks slightly pixellated on my new 16" visible, so I'll
be using 1280x960 when I can work out how!

I used to use 1024x768 in my 15" CRT days. It's Ok for web-browsing, and I
play most games at 1024x768 even now as above this is either too slow (my PC
that is) or I can't tell the difference.

If you like 1024 on your CRT, I *guess* you'll love it on a 15" LCD.

I've no idea when it comes to colour representation, but if it wasn't for
the response time issue I would have bought a 17" LCD this week. I've just
bought a 17" CRT to replace a 5 year old 17" CRT, but I only intend using it
until I hear better things about LCDs and games. I heard 20ms was the ideal
MAXIMUM refresh as this allows 50fps which is good enough for most people as
long as its sustained.

Another thing I recently read about LCDs was about dead pixels. The only
company that guarantees NO dead pixels is CTX.

 

[SleeperMan]

It's horses for courses as they say, and this horse wears good
glasses!. My now-retired IIyama has the same visible size as yours
and 1280x960 was very borderline, but 1152x868 was great (try it if
you can, it might be a happy medium). But 1152 looks slightly
pixellated on my new 16" visible, so I'll be using 1280x960 when I
can work out how!

Well, 1152 works, but i must lower refresh rate from 85 to 75 Hz. And maybe
i would get used to it, but it's still small...

I used to use 1024x768 in my 15" CRT days. It's Ok for web-browsing,
and I play most games at 1024x768 even now as above this is either
too slow (my PC that is) or I can't tell the difference.

Same here---

If you like 1024 on your CRT, I *guess* you'll love it on a 15" LCD.

I've no idea when it comes to colour representation, but if it wasn't
for the response time issue I would have bought a 17" LCD this week.
I've just bought a 17" CRT to replace a 5 year old 17" CRT, but I
only intend using it until I hear better things about LCDs and games.
I heard 20ms was the ideal MAXIMUM refresh as this allows 50fps which
is good enough for most people as long as its sustained.

Another thing I recently read about LCDs was about dead pixels. The
only company that guarantees NO dead pixels is CTX.

that's another new thing i'll explore further---thanks