Computer Monitors..???

I did not find much here on a search so maybe a direct question would help me better. I have been looking for a new monitor lately and searching the internet all I really see is hundreds of choices for LCD widescreen versions.

I tried one of the cheaper Acer versions and yes it was very thin and indeed flat but the widescreen just looks odd to me. It seems as if it stretches the images and I have also noticed that I really do not like very widescreen angles on home TVs either. Maybe it is just me but I would rather have a thin screen monitor with just a plain old square screen. It seems I see much more of the image when comparing this new widescreen version to my old Dell monitor (E771A).

So can anyone tell me what I should search for as I have tried "regular screen monitors" and everything else in between. Is everything offered these days simply a widescreen version? 200 dollars is about good for me as I am simply trying to upgrade to a better (bigger) monitor without the widescreen option. I do like the thinner monitors offered now as this old Dell monitor looks like a microwave on my desk....it is huge.

Try Newegg. Here is the page of standard screen monitors. I'm not a fan of widescreen either as you lose height compared to a standard screen for any given monitor size. For example, to get the same height as my 19" standard screen I would need a 22" widescreen costing twice as much.

If you're in the $200 area then 19" is about the biggest size you'll be able to get.

Excellent and thank you for the link.....I am thinking about checking some local stores however do not know what to ask for. When you say standard screen is this typically what the normal screens are known as? If I am shopping around and ask for a "standard" screen monitor should most employees know what I am wanting?

It seems we are in the minority as almost everything I tried to type in my search returned several widescreen choices.....kind of like the standard screens are not very popular anymore.

I find it very annoying to watch a DVD that is shown in widescreen format and will always zoom it or change the format so it fills the borders of the screen. It really does look to me like I am missing out on much of the picture when viewing widescreen. I feel the same about the computer monitor. I thought the new and improved fancy monitor I bought would surely best my old dinosaur Dell. Holy smoke was I wrong as it made everything look so much smaller.

Robocop said:

Excellent and thank you for the link.....I am thinking about checking some local stores however do not know what to ask for. When you say standard screen is this typically what the normal screens are known as? If I am shopping around and ask for a "standard" screen monitor should most employees know what I am wanting?

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Given the level of competence of the average store employee I'd say either non-widescreen or standard screen or square screen would be what to ask for. If they don't know what you're talking about then they probably don't have it. In all honestly, I don't expect many of the brick and mortar stores to have standard monitors these days as it seems to be a niche item. From what I understand yield is better so the LCD manufacturers prefer to make widescreens. PC manufacturers sell them on the theory everyone wants to watch HD movies on their PC. Unfortunately, those who prefer a standard monitor are left with fewer choices, and have no choice at all if they want a screen larger than 21". About the only widescreen I could probably get along with would be 24" or larger and 1200x1920 resolution, but we're talking at least $400 here.

When you say the monitor felt "stretched", it probably WAS

If you don't change your screen resolution to match the new size ratio, it stretches the picture to fit - for instance, instead of 1024x768, you would look at 1600x900

The old standard was a 4x3 ratio, where the standard for wide screens is 16x9 - the thing is, you can adjust (or it will auto adjust) to fit the signal, therefeor stretching the screen

ALL LCD screens have a "native" resolution - for instance, this monitor here at work is 1280x1024 (yes, a 4x3 monitor). Displaying your video signal at any "non native" resolution will give you a degraded picture

When you look at LCD screens, compare them at their own native resolutions

agree with KC, wide screen Monitors should never look stretched or distorted at native res.

19" is a great generic size to go for with "square monitors".


Personally I prefer windscreen. 16:10, 1600 pixels in height.

Robocop said:

Excellent and thank you for the link.....I am thinking about checking some local stores however do not know what to ask for. When you say standard screen is this typically what the normal screens are known as? If I am shopping around and ask for a "standard" screen monitor should most employees know what I am wanting?

It seems we are in the minority as almost everything I tried to type in my search returned several widescreen choices.....kind of like the standard screens are not very popular anymore.

I find it very annoying to watch a DVD that is shown in widescreen format and will always zoom it or change the format so it fills the borders of the screen. It really does look to me like I am missing out on much of the picture when viewing widescreen. I feel the same about the computer monitor. I thought the new and improved fancy monitor I bought would surely best my old dinosaur Dell. Holy smoke was I wrong as it made everything look so much smaller.

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:mecry:
Your killing me here...
Your looking for a 4:3 LCD Monitor, not very common, and now mostly up to 19" size.

Before you go get one, as mentioned, please set the resolution of the Acer you purchased to a proper 16:10 format.

Common resolutions are 1680x1050, 1440x900, 1280x800 (for ppl who like big text)

This will not stretch your image, it will give you a wider field of view. Now you can easily read 2 windows side by side. Ex work on a word doc and excel @ the same time.

As for watching movies, when you go to the movie theater, it is widescreen. Depending on the director and equipment used the ratio will vary. When you buy a DVD you have 2 options. 1. Pan & scan. This will fill a 4:3 screen, but the sides have been chopped off. The movies is not how the director meant you to see it, and details or facers, characters may be cut off or left off, depending on movie. Option 2 is as the movie was shot in some widescreen format. On your 4:3 tele you have blackbars top and bottom. But you see it as directed. With a widescreen the image will fit better, and you may still have a bit of black bars depending on the ratio of the movie.

If your zooming in with the zoom function on your tv your either stretching or cutting off part of the image and could be missing important details.

To me its like going up to a piece of art like the mona lisa, and cropping it to fit an art frame you had in you basement. Not exactly how it was meant to be viewed, but whatever floats your boat. :shakehead

I have 17 inch LG 4:3 aspect ratio LCDs at home and prefer them for what we do on our PCs.
We also have desk space issues and would be limited to 19 inch widescreen monitors.

The laptop they gave me at work is a widescreen model and I absolutely hate it. As a software developer I need the height of the monitor for designing graphical screens or editing code without having to scroll up and down excessively.

Anytime you see a stretched image on a widescreen monitor/screen of any kind, it means the aspect ratio/resolution is not properly set. An image will always keep it's proportions regardless of what it's being displayed on if the display is set up correctly.

Robo,

I would recommend the Dell Ultrasharp monitors. They have a 19 inch for just over 200, but it is a widescreen. The 20 inch, though, is not. It is, however, $400. In case you want to check out the link, here it is:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-4687

Keep in mind that all LCD panels are not created equal. There are various types: TN, PVA, IPS, etc. Google those terms along with LCD and you can find useful links. If you don't care about viewing angle and image stability, then it doesn't really matter. But if you do care about such things, and about color fidelity, then get an IPS panel. You won't regret it. A few months ago, I bought the 20" apple cinema display and I love it and am very happy with my purchase. It is head and shoulders above any other monitors I have seen. You can move your head all over the place on the ACD (IPS panel is why) and the colors and brightness and image are almost perfectly stable. Try that on an Acer or HP or Samsung and you'll see waves of dark and bright pass over the screen, and you'll get color shifts.

No big deal if you just sit in front of it to surf the web and email, but if you are a graphic artist or digital photographer, it does. Obviously, no need to spend the money if it doesn't matter, but if it does, you'll probably be happy you did.

StarHalo said:

Anytime you see a stretched image on a widescreen monitor/screen of any kind, it means the aspect ratio/resolution is not properly set. An image will always keep it's proportions regardless of what it's being displayed on if the display is set up correctly.

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+1

Got a Dell 2405FPW running at 1920 x 1200. I was the single biggest upgrade I have ever made in computing. Changed my whole user experience. I paid almost$1000 for it at the time(Dell just came out with it) and it's still the best money I have ever spent. For me personally, Spending more to get a larger screen is definitely worth it(considering your video card will support it).

tiktok 22 said:

Got a Dell 2405FPW running at 1920 x 1200. I was the single biggest upgrade I have ever made in computing. Changed my whole user experience. I paid almost$1000 for it at the time(Dell just came out with it) and it's still the best money I have ever spent. For me personally, Spending more to get a larger screen is definitely worth it(considering your video card will support it).

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I have the same screen. I got it for about $675 when it came out, by getting lucky and stacking some coupons. It's probably the most noticeable upgrade my computer ever got, and worth every last penny. It's still a great monitor, and the cheaper but 2 years newer 24" LCD that one of my friends got, still doesn't hold a candle to the Dell's image quality.

That, plus proper vector-rendered fonts (using Ubuntu OS), as opposed to Windows' raster garbage, make it very easy to use the screen for extended periods of time.

I have a Dell 2007WFP myself. I love it. It's a 20" widescreen which is almost the same width/height as the old 17" CRT Sony Trinitron monitor I had!

No dead pixels (non working) upon arrival, but like 3 pixels that I have noticed that are stuck (always the same color). They are red in color but it's so faint you can't see them unless that area is all white.

Unless I missed it no one has mentioned the possibility of LCDs coming out of the box with stuck and dead pixels yet. Something you can't avoid really.

Some real good deals on monitors going on, some at brick and mortar stores. I would bet you could get a decent 22" wide screen for $200 now or very close to it. There ain't no deals on 4:3 formats these days as they aren't very popular. I can say that I was a 4:3 diehard and is what I still have at home but I got used to the wide screen at work so sometime I see a 24" wide screen for my home use. As mentioned there are different types of panels but at the consumer lower price level, there all going to be a form of TFT/TN.

I tried the troubleshooting section for the newer monitor and it advised to try the auto function for adjustment. I did use that feature and while it improved the image quality the pages viewed seemed to be much thinner vertically and way too wide. My computer is a custom made one bought maybe 4 years back from a local store....not sure about the specs but it is very fast and seems pretty modern to me. The internal hardware management section showed the new monitor to be working correctly but again it just looked weird to my eyes......there were also several words on each page that were hard to read almost like the pixels were not working in certain places.

My searching showed most like the widescreen for office type use as it allows two pages to be viewed side by side however for my usage it would not be the best. I mostly search the net for lights and other websites and of course use it for my fun at CPF. I just want basically a flat screen version of the size monitor I have now with the images filling the entire screen rather than having those borders of the wide screen.

I also thought I was going crazy as I had to hold my head at just the right angle to clearly see the screen correctly. If I moved to the side of up a little the screen seemed to gradually fade to darker tones.....I now see from above posts that this color shift is normal on many flat screens. I maybe could live with a widescreen if it were big enough vertically however that color shifting stuff would drive me mad.....I just dont see how these negatives would be considered as an improvement over whaat I already have but again for HD movies and stuff I guess it could be better.

Thanks for the help on this and I plan to shop around this weekend....maybe I will be a little better informed now of what to look for.

I just picked up a cheap 22" model the other day. Brief review in another thread here:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2719407&postcount=20

I picked up a 22" (21.5 really) because it works a lot better with my video card for games than a 24+" model. New games look a lot better widescreen than on my old Sony tube monitor. Pix not as nice though.

Hopefully better IPS and PVA models will be out next year for graphics.

+1 you'd probably like the Apple monitors.

Robocop said:

. . .

I also thought I was going crazy as I had to hold my head at just the right angle to clearly see the screen correctly. If I moved to the side of up a little the screen seemed to gradually fade to darker tones.....I now see from above posts that this color shift is normal on many flat screens. I maybe could live with a widescreen if it were big enough vertically however that color shifting stuff would drive me mad.....I just dont see how these negatives would be considered as an improvement over whaat I already have but again for HD movies and stuff I guess it could be better.

Thanks for the help on this and I plan to shop around this weekend....maybe I will be a little better informed now of what to look for.

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Robo,

If you get a good IPS monitor, you won't have these problems. The 4:3 Dell monitor I posted a link for above wouldn't have these problems, for example.

But, ALL 22" LCD monitors will have this problem, as they are ALL TN panels. Avoid them like the plague if brightness and color stability are important to you. That said, they are a lot less expensive!

Have you looked at CC? I bought a Samsung 2443BWX 24" two Black Fridays ago for $250. It looks good to me but I don't do graphics or games. I think it has a TFT screen.

TFT doesn't narrow it down as to type, unfortunately, as it is too general a description, just meaning "thin film transistor".