Request help to choose a new monitor

[Petey]

Can you specialists help me choose a monitor please.

It's time to replace my glass tube CRT. I use a really old 17
inch monitor made by DEC back in 1999! To its credit it was
noticeably better than average for its day as it was made for
commerical office use. I have it set to 1152 x 864 at 72 Hz.

A few years ago I looked at getting a flat screen. I got put off
because I saw some 17 inch flat screen monitors had punchy
contrast and brightness but seemed to have a coarse screen
resolution. Then I read how colour rendering on some flat screens
was poorer than on a CRT. Finally I saw power savings from flat
screens were not as great as I thought. So I kept the CRT but now
it's time to move on!

Can you help me narrow down what sort of flat screen to get.

It's for home office use. Not used for games. I don't need
leading edge stuff.

Price is a major factor but I don't want to pay a low price and
get poor value (if you see what I mean).

I'll be replacing the system unit itself soon.

What size and type of screen are currently in the "sweet spot"
where price/performance is particularly good?

I'm in the UK so deals in the US are not available to me.

What sort of must-have specification should I be looking for?

 

[Paul]

Can you specialists help me choose a monitor please.

It's time to replace my glass tube CRT. I use a really old 17
inch monitor made by DEC back in 1999! To its credit it was
noticeably better than average for its day as it was made for
commerical office use. I have it set to 1152 x 864 at 72 Hz.

A few years ago I looked at getting a flat screen. I got put off
because I saw some 17 inch flat screen monitors had punchy
contrast and brightness but seemed to have a coarse screen
resolution. Then I read how colour rendering on some flat screens
was poorer than on a CRT. Finally I saw power savings from flat
screens were not as great as I thought. So I kept the CRT but now
it's time to move on!

Can you help me narrow down what sort of flat screen to get.

It's for home office use. Not used for games. I don't need
leading edge stuff.

Price is a major factor but I don't want to pay a low price and
get poor value (if you see what I mean).

I'll be replacing the system unit itself soon.

What size and type of screen are currently in the "sweet spot"
where price/performance is particularly good?

I'm in the UK so deals in the US are not available to me.

What sort of must-have specification should I be looking for?

The specs are relatively useless for determining what the product
looks like. If you go to a big box store, you can see some pretty
miserable looking products. If I need to avoid buying a new monitor,
just visiting a big box store, and seeing nothing but inferior
products, gets that idea out of my head pretty quickly.

You can try comparing an expensive one to a cheap one, and see
what you're getting.

*******

NEC Display Solutions LCD2490WUXi-BK-SV Black 24.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor $1280.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824002349

The customer comments says it uses an H-IPS panel (instead of the
garden variety TN panel). The wider viewing angle is a result.

Viewing Angle 178°(H) / 178°(V) <--- wide angle means no color shift
with head movement
Brightness 400 cd/m2 <--- You'll want to turn this down
Contrast Ratio 800:1 <--- Probably no dynamic contrast, so
consistent regardless of image source.
Backlighting is at constant levels.
Response Time 16ms, 8ms(GTG) <--- Slow. A function of panel type.
Resolution 1920 x 1200 <--- Need all the little Windows tricks to
make text big enough.

*******

LG W2353V-PF Black 23" HD 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor $210

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=24-005-125&Pagesize=100

The viewing angle hints at the panel type.
A low viewing angle is more likely to be TN.
All low end panels will be TN, and they squeeze everything else out of the market.
Everybody "buys on price", which is why TN wins.

Viewing Angle 170°(H) / 160°(V) <--- More color shift with head movement
Brightness 300 cd/m2 <--- Still need to turn it down
Contrast Ratio DC 50000:1 <--- Backlight level varies all the time, as
a function of source material. Turn
dynamic contrast off for Photoshop.
Response Time 2ms(GTG) <--- May be boosted with overdrive. Some
people may detect side effects from this.
Power 42W <--- Better than your CRT

*******

The NEC monitor has a few more pixels vertically, so may be a less
abrupt change than a transition to a 1920x1080 (1.77x) screen.

Since 86% of reviewers gave the LG a five star rating, you can't go wrong

For monitors with these high resolutions, you have to worry a bit about
how a Windows OS will behave, with respect to the monitor. Simply put, if
you want to guarantee the monitor will allow high resolution usage,
regardless of content, you want a DVI connector with HDCP feature.
HDCP is an encryption method, intended to prevent intercepting
the image as it travels over the monitor cable. A monitor with an
HDMI connector has that for sure (since HDCP is part of HDMI compliance).
On DVI it is optional, and it would be silly for the manufacturer
to not include, on a monitor with high resolution panel. (The technologies
in the following document are normally not visible to the user, but
occasionally a user will spot some misbehavior in their PC, which
may be related.)

http://web.archive.org/web/20050812...DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/output_protect.doc

The LG monitor has one each, of the connector types. It would have
HDCP, in order to support HDMI. They don't state HDCP in the advert.

D-Sub 1
DVI 1
HDMI 1

This Samsung doesn't have an HDMI connector, but the advert does
mention it has HDCP explicitly. So the DVI would allow working
at whatever the full resolution is. Res for this is 2048x1152,
which is quite high for a monitor this size.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001317

If you look at the table in this article, you can see this line.

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

"WUXGA (1920 × 1200) @ 60 Hz with CVT-RB blanking (154 MHz)"

That is close to the max resolution over DVI, on a single link DVI connector.
1920x1200= 2304000. 2048x1152= 2359296 or about 2.4% more pixels.
Since the cable can run at up to 165MHz, there is still a bit
more room. 154 * 1.024 = 158MHz, still within the 165MHz spec.
It is hard to say whether the monitor actually has a dual link
connector, and the ability to use either dual link mode or
single link mode or not. Not all video cards have dual link DVI
output. The last several generations of ATI do. But if
your video card is old enough, you may want to do more
research. Some older cards (like my collection of FX5200's),
may not actually support all the way to 165MHz, and that
would be yet another problem (can't even do 1920x1200 over
DVI).

This isn't a very good article, because it doesn't compare
technical attributes in a good table form. But it does give
some idea how many panel types there are. Even though the vast
majority of models will be TN type.

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

I haven't shown any LED backlit models, and I'm not sure
if they've dropped low enough in price, to be affordable.
They can have a larger color gamut, and the ability to
express more colors than a CCFL based monitor.

OK, here is a cheap one with LED backlight, but there is one
complaint of an afterimage effect when viewing text. And why
the companies use bad stands for their LCDs, is a continuing
mystery.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16824005134

Check "box contents" info when buying - cabling for things
like DVI may be missing.

It's complicated, but the customer reviews may warn you of
potential issues.

Have fun,
Paul

 

[Jan Alter]

The specs are relatively useless for determining what the product
looks like. If you go to a big box store, you can see some pretty
miserable looking products. If I need to avoid buying a new monitor,
just visiting a big box store, and seeing nothing but inferior
products, gets that idea out of my head pretty quickly.

You can try comparing an expensive one to a cheap one, and see
what you're getting.

*******

NEC Display Solutions LCD2490WUXi-BK-SV Black 24.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor
$1280.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824002349

The customer comments says it uses an H-IPS panel (instead of the
garden variety TN panel). The wider viewing angle is a result.

Viewing Angle 178°(H) / 178°(V) <--- wide angle means no color shift
with head movement
Brightness 400 cd/m2 <--- You'll want to turn this down
Contrast Ratio 800:1 <--- Probably no dynamic contrast, so
consistent regardless of image
source.
Backlighting is at constant
levels.
Response Time 16ms, 8ms(GTG) <--- Slow. A function of panel type.
Resolution 1920 x 1200 <--- Need all the little Windows tricks to
make text big enough.

*******

LG W2353V-PF Black 23" HD 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor $210

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=24-005-125&Pagesize=100

The viewing angle hints at the panel type.
A low viewing angle is more likely to be TN.
All low end panels will be TN, and they squeeze everything else out of the
market.
Everybody "buys on price", which is why TN wins.

Viewing Angle 170°(H) / 160°(V) <--- More color shift with head
movement
Brightness 300 cd/m2 <--- Still need to turn it down
Contrast Ratio DC 50000:1 <--- Backlight level varies all the
time, as
a function of source material.
Turn
dynamic contrast off for
Photoshop.
Response Time 2ms(GTG) <--- May be boosted with overdrive.
Some
people may detect side effects
from this.
Power 42W <--- Better than your CRT

*******

The NEC monitor has a few more pixels vertically, so may be a less
abrupt change than a transition to a 1920x1080 (1.77x) screen.

Since 86% of reviewers gave the LG a five star rating, you can't go wrong


For monitors with these high resolutions, you have to worry a bit about
how a Windows OS will behave, with respect to the monitor. Simply put, if
you want to guarantee the monitor will allow high resolution usage,
regardless of content, you want a DVI connector with HDCP feature.
HDCP is an encryption method, intended to prevent intercepting
the image as it travels over the monitor cable. A monitor with an
HDMI connector has that for sure (since HDCP is part of HDMI compliance).
On DVI it is optional, and it would be silly for the manufacturer
to not include, on a monitor with high resolution panel. (The technologies
in the following document are normally not visible to the user, but
occasionally a user will spot some misbehavior in their PC, which
may be related.)

http://web.archive.org/web/20050812...DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/output_protect.doc

The LG monitor has one each, of the connector types. It would have
HDCP, in order to support HDMI. They don't state HDCP in the advert.

D-Sub 1
DVI 1
HDMI 1

This Samsung doesn't have an HDMI connector, but the advert does
mention it has HDCP explicitly. So the DVI would allow working
at whatever the full resolution is. Res for this is 2048x1152,
which is quite high for a monitor this size.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001317

If you look at the table in this article, you can see this line.

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

"WUXGA (1920 × 1200) @ 60 Hz with CVT-RB blanking (154 MHz)"

That is close to the max resolution over DVI, on a single link DVI
connector.
1920x1200= 2304000. 2048x1152= 2359296 or about 2.4% more pixels.
Since the cable can run at up to 165MHz, there is still a bit
more room. 154 * 1.024 = 158MHz, still within the 165MHz spec.
It is hard to say whether the monitor actually has a dual link
connector, and the ability to use either dual link mode or
single link mode or not. Not all video cards have dual link DVI
output. The last several generations of ATI do. But if
your video card is old enough, you may want to do more
research. Some older cards (like my collection of FX5200's),
may not actually support all the way to 165MHz, and that
would be yet another problem (can't even do 1920x1200 over
DVI).

This isn't a very good article, because it doesn't compare
technical attributes in a good table form. But it does give
some idea how many panel types there are. Even though the vast
majority of models will be TN type.

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

I haven't shown any LED backlit models, and I'm not sure
if they've dropped low enough in price, to be affordable.
They can have a larger color gamut, and the ability to
express more colors than a CCFL based monitor.

OK, here is a cheap one with LED backlight, but there is one
complaint of an afterimage effect when viewing text. And why
the companies use bad stands for their LCDs, is a continuing
mystery.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16824005134

Check "box contents" info when buying - cabling for things
like DVI may be missing.

It's complicated, but the customer reviews may warn you of
potential issues.

Have fun,
Paul

Over the past 5 years I've bought probably a dozen Acer monitors for my
school and home ranging from 17" - 23" models. They have good contrast, fast
response time, and easy viewing, which is probably the most important
factor. In the U.S. they come with a 3 year warranty for parts and labor,
and are on the low end when it comes to price. For my use, using Photoshop,
browsing, writing letters, watching movies, sharing with my wife, etc, and
money they appear to be an excellent value. If the warranty is similar in
Europe I would consider them among others that show up on your list of
possiblities.

 

[Jon Danniken]

Can you specialists help me choose a monitor please.

It's time to replace my glass tube CRT. I use a really old 17
inch monitor made by DEC back in 1999! To its credit it was
noticeably better than average for its day as it was made for
commerical office use. I have it set to 1152 x 864 at 72 Hz.

A few years ago I looked at getting a flat screen. I got put off
because I saw some 17 inch flat screen monitors had punchy
contrast and brightness but seemed to have a coarse screen
resolution. Then I read how colour rendering on some flat screens
was poorer than on a CRT. Finally I saw power savings from flat
screens were not as great as I thought. So I kept the CRT but now
it's time to move on!

Can you help me narrow down what sort of flat screen to get.

It's for home office use. Not used for games. I don't need
leading edge stuff.

Price is a major factor but I don't want to pay a low price and
get poor value (if you see what I mean).

I'll be replacing the system unit itself soon.

What size and type of screen are currently in the "sweet spot"
where price/performance is particularly good?

I'm in the UK so deals in the US are not available to me.

What sort of must-have specification should I be looking for?

I don't know what price range you want to spend within, but I've been using
this one for a year now, and I'm very happy with it:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/r/2452t

Jon

 

[JD]

I don't know what price range you want to spend within, but I've been using
this one for a year now, and I'm very happy with it:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/r/2452t

Jon

I have been buying monitors since 1985. Many of them were very poor - 3
lasted a little more than the guarantee period of a year - they
gradually went fuzzy. Some lasted about 3 years and then either fuzzy or
died.

The best one by far that I have bought is a 17" Sony LCD and I have had
it for 3 years. It has given no problems and is as sharp as when I
bought it. For many years now I have also bought Sony products like
floppy drives, CD burners, etc. I have never regretted a single Sony
purchase. Having written all that, I assure you that I have no
connection with the company.