New monitors

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I'm looking to upgrade mine and little Snook's monitor. I'm planning on the big move to LCDs. Does anyone have any advice on models to consider. I'm thinking 19" for me and 17" for my son.

On my machine I'm concerned about video playback as I will watch a lot of movies on it. Games are important, but I don't think CRPGs require to much.

My son's machine is strictly for games.

 

Just go for two 17" LCDs; their native resolution is 1280x and that is probably more than enough (equal to 19" CRT). Trust me, 17" is enough for gaming and regular video playback (especially when the source format isn't that high-quality), but -of course- the best option for that would be a 24" LCD TV. 5000 bucks, thankee.

But if you absolutely must have a "bigger" monitor, consider 18.1" too.

 

Keep an eye on www.slickdeals.net to check for Dell Specials. Two of my friends and myself got the 20.1" viewable Dell fp2001 and it is awesome. We were able to get it for under 400 with shipping and everything. It has a 4 USB's built in and can rotate and adjust about any way you can think of. It has a 16 millisecond refresh so it is great for gaming and anything else. It also has s-video and component vid inputs so you can use it as a tv if you so desire. A great LCD.

 

I've just bought a LG 1730 (p or b) as a replacement for a 19 inch Sony CRT. It does everything well - but the key issue for LCDs is the response time.
Mine is supposedly 12ms - this is the time it takes the screen to go from black to white and back to black again. Apparently under 16ms is a must. There are some reasonably priced ones out there that do 8ms. If you want a resolution above 1280*1024 then you need to go up to a 21 inch - this will be expensive. I would consider LG, Samsung and Benq as competitivly priced monitors. There are others but these are the ones I've seen good reviews for recently.

 

I'm also kind of in the market for a 19" LCD. Let's see....

Here's a good article to read, first. Pretty much just tells you that not all monitors are the same, and manufacturers rely on astrology to get the numbers for their specification sheets. A 16ms monitor might actually range as high as 35ms on green pixels, down to 17ms on white pixels, with an average of 25ms over the whole color range.

The absolute slowest you want is 35ms. If the monitor climbs above 35ms (which is right around 30 frames per second), no matter what color range, you're going to see ghosting in certain parts of a game. 19" monitors are considerable worse about fast response than are smaller monitors.

And then here's another good article, directly applicable to your needs.


Personally, I've been considering:

The acer AL1914smd Black/Silver 19" 12ms LCD, which looks nice enough and saves my wallet a bit.
The BenQ FP931 Silver BLACK&Silver 19" 16ms LCD.
The BenQ FP937s 2-Tone 19" 12ms LCD.

 

EJ,

Now that is what I'm looking for. I am also an advocate of tom's hardware. My problem is that I don't think they spit out the reviews fast enough. What scared me about the second article is that I watch a lot of video and they didn't seem that impressed with the video quality.

I did like the three you are looking at. The newegg reviewers seem very pleased.

 

So which one did you actually get?

 

I'm glad you asked. I got the Viewsonic VP-191b

 

Wow. Nice monitor, Snook. Viewsonic makes good stuff. I've used one of their 19" flat screen CRTs for the last 6 years and have been very happy with it. Next year I have been promised a black 22", to match my black Tsunami case. But I'll stick with a CRT.

[ June 17, 2005, 07:17: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

I just hooked it up yesterday. It is awesome. I feel like I am at the movie theatre. So far I'm very impressed. Older games are tough as they can't rev up to 1280 x 1040, but they still look O.K. NWN I think maxed out at 1280 x 9something and it looks fantastic. DVDs look crisp. Some downloaded movies look fantastic, I think it depends on who did the ripping.

 

Simply adjust the scaled area to a bit smaller if you want the quality to be sharp, or if that isn't so important you can always full-screen it. Older games should look decend when windowed.

 

I've been looking for a LCD 19" monitor as well but sadly I have zero knowledge about the subject. Currently I have a 19" CRT monitor which is getting old.

what are the major differences between the two?

I still play pretty old games from time to time (games like BG1, heroes II, diablo, from that era) so does that have any consequences.

For the future it has to play the elderscrolls 4: Oblivion.

I found this one on the dutch dell site: Dell

I dont know if it's any good, just below is a pdf file with english aspects of the monitor. Seemingly it has 16ms or something.

Please advice.

 

The major problem with LCD screens is that they only want to work in their native resolution. If you are playing something that has to be in a different resolution it has to be forced to fit. This can cause things to blur. That being said I haven't had any problems with the monitor I chose. I play a lot of Diablo 2 LOD and Master of Orion 2 on it and I love it. NWN is looking fantastic. I also haven't had any problems watching DVDs or downloaded movies. They are very enjoyable to watch on it. For office applications it takes a while to get used to the hugeness of the screen, but now I can barely look at my old 17" CRT that I have dualed next to it.