Any LCD Monitor advice?

We got a few 15" LCD Dell monitors at work today, and I placed one on the main file server.
And,,, I fell in love with it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I have been wanting a LCD for a while now but just didnt want to pay the $.

I have a 19" and 17" CRT monitors running right now at home, and I want to add a third soon.
But, as you might imagine, the table space is getting rather cramped.

Something I noticed, was the the 15" LCD was alllllmost as large of viewing area as the 17" CRT.
Do any of you find this true also for 17" LCD vs. 19" CRT?
This got me thinking maybe just a 17" LCD would be enough.

Also. I noticed that even the larger 19" LCDs ussualy only go up to 1280 res, I am running my 19" CRT at 1280 right now, but I figured I would want to run a 19" LCD at 1600.

What do you think of the 1280 res with the 19"?

I am not sure what brands are on top right now, i know NEC has always been nice.
I was looking at the Dells today, they seemed to have about the same specs as most.
I dont need anything REAL nice, like those 800:1 contrast ones, they are way too pricey for me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
Most that I am seeing are 400 or 450:1.
Also, I know dot pitch from the CRT days, but I see some LCDs are rated in ... mm ? Whats this other rating?

Heres the 2 dells I was looking at, and to be honest, I was kinda drawn toward them for the fact that I can finance it. I never like doing that, for anything, but at least this is something that will last a long time, and still not be totally obsolete when its payed off, where as, if you financed a computer, it could be obsolete, BEFORE you pay it off. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Dell 17" LCD
Dell 19" LCD

Thanks for the help !

~John

I have a 15" and love it!!!
Go for the highest contrast ratio that you can afford...you will not regret it.

.

What you look for in an LCD is not dot pith, but native resolution. For example a 19 inch crt with .21 mm dot pitch has a 'native resolution) that is about 14 x 8 inches.
14 x 25.4/.21 x 8 x 25.4/.21, or about 1700 x 952.
However the dots are not drive 'discretely', the are in fact driven a electron gun, which will sort of splatter the pixels across several dots and the signal levels will be averaged out across the pixels by the phosphors.The individual phosphor dots are in general, not direct addressable.

LCD have each pixel drive discretely, there is no averaging, each is individually addressable, which is why LCD tend to look kind of crummy at anything other than some variation on native resolution.
Most quality 19 inch LCD have a native resolution of 1280 x 1024. you want your video card to be able to drive the display in the native resolution for the best image. If you go to 20-23 inch LCD's, most have a native resolution of 1600 x 1200, i.e. there are 1600 pixes that are controlled indvidually on each horizontal line, and there are 1200 horizontal lines. That makes a nice neat 1.92 million pixes on the display, each of which has at least 3 transistors....

When I got my HP 'puter I had a chance to look at a whole bunch of LCD monitors.

I fell in love with a Viewsonic 17", but couldn't EVEN afford it.

The lady that sold me my HP told me to wait a year on LCDs, as they will certainly come down in price.

Besides, my Viewsonic A75F CRT Monitor is only about 2 years old and works perfectly (I like it a LOT better than the Gateway 17" at the "office"!).

John- I have the 17" Dell LCD, and it's very nice. If you buy it from the Small Business side of Dell and apply coupon 28RSZ4RP6644DB to the order, you can get it for $209 through tomorrow (12/22). Just use you name as the business name, Dell couldn't care less.

Peter

What do you guys think of the font sizes on a 19" LCD running 1280 res?

I am afraid it will get too big.
I am running 1280 on my 19" CRT right now, and I would rather the text not be larger than it is now.

LCD is the only way to go for me. I use a 21 inch Trinitron at work but I prefer my 17 inch flat panel at home. Mine have digital and analog inputs. They cost more but they are good and allow me to switch my monitors between computers. Mine are Samsung 172t but I guess they don't make them any more.

[ QUOTE ]
DrJ said:
Once you go DVI on an LCD, you'll never want to go back to an analog interface...but you'll need Win XP for the ClearType feature...(or I believe XWindows has subpixel rendering features available too)...to really get the benefits of the DVI interface.


[/ QUOTE ]

Fully agreed. DVI is awesome. Sometimes, depending on how bad the signal from the card is, DVI can look clearer than analog VGA straight away even without XP. Since you're going all the way for high end LCDs, go DVI.

Laptops have always looked good because they have a digital signalling interface as well, LVDS.

Ditto: DVI if you can swing it. You might need a different video card tho. This becomes really apparent when you see fine contrasting patterns. Analog is fuzzy. DVI is not. For what it's worth, I read that many DVI video cards are out of spec. It seemed that ATI tends to get it right.

Ditto: Highest contrast ratio you can afford. I purchased my wife a Samsung 173P (17", 700:1) a while back and it ROCKS. Very bright. I don't think I'd consider anything less than 500:1.

Consider resolution as well as size. In order to have reasonable results, you need to run an LCD at it's native resolution. Most LCDs of a size class will offer the same resolution. For example, the 17" LCDs are typically 1280 x 1024. So, if that isn't enough resolution, you need a different size screen. The gotcha is most 19" screens have the same resolution as the 17"s, so you need to jump to 20ish". Ack. For what it's worth, I've looked around in this class and the Planar PL2010M is a nice 20" with 600:1 contrast ratio, digital input and very nice, bright picture. Also, a 20" LCD with 1600x1200 screen is quite the sight to behold. I used one of these for a few months and it was quite nice!

If you are into gaming there are speed considerations. If so, you should check out some sites like tomshardware.com.

Also, don't shop by brand name. When I researched the 20" LCD, our purchasing agent was just going to go out any buy a Sony. It turns out the Sony had very lackluster reviews and was top dollar. The Planar turned out to be a much better deal. Better quality picture, lower price. Research feedback on the models you are considering.

Also, one thing that you know intellectually, but don't quite grasp, is how much space they save. When I replaced my wife's 17" CRT with a 17" LCD, the space savings was astonishing.

-john

I think the size thing is gonna whack me upside the head when I go to set up in the new house.

Right now, my rather sizeable desk is side on to a wall. There are a good 6" of monitor haging over the back!

Up there the desk is to be in front of and slightly offset from a window. And I can't have the monitor 6" closer... that just won't do!

I may be taking the LCD plunge sooner than I thought!

I'm not sure what to make of all this DVI stuff. My buddy has what I believe to be a 17" Dell LCD on his home machine and it is really nice to look at! I seriously doubt that it is a high end monitor with a wicked video card. That's just not his thing.

We'll see.

Actually I thought that these things were TFT and NOT LCD! Am I wrong?

Yeah it's TFT, whatever that means.

For instance:
the Samsung 710t says: a-si TFT/TN LCD
the Samsung 173t says: a-si TFT/PVA

I don't know what the hell it means though.

I think the TN type have a fast refresh and so the gamers like them. The PVA type are apparently better otherwise, and non-gamers may prefer these.

As far as digital (DVI) goes, I'm sure those that say digital is better are correct.

Personally though, I can't see the difference. Maybe its my eyesight, or maybe its my rather uncommon Matrox video card. They both look great to me.

I recently purchased a DVI interfaced LG "Flatron" 17" that I adore. I use it as a secondary monitor for my laptop. Sony also has some new technology that increases the contrast some large amount that looks really nice too, but they are considerably more expensive again.

Since switching to LCD monitors I have none of the headaches or eye strain problems that I used to have when working with crappy crt monitors.

Which brings up another question. Why do all office work PC's default to low resolution and 60hz refresh rate? Is it some conspiracy by IT departments to make you hate your life? They budget money for nice monitors and then lock you out of the control panel so that you could actually use the features of the nice monitor.

But then, having worked in IT departments, they are one of my pet peeves /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[ QUOTE ]
eluminator said:
As far as digital (DVI) goes, I'm sure those that say digital is better are correct.

Personally though, I can't see the difference. Maybe its my eyesight, or maybe its my rather uncommon Matrox video card. They both look great to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is more apparent when you get the right (or wrong) pattern.

Try setting your background to a cross-hatch pattern like this and then view with DVI and then with analog:

xoxoxo
oxoxox
xoxoxo

-john

[ QUOTE ]
James S said:
Which brings up another question. Why do all office work PC's default to low resolution and 60hz refresh rate? Is it some conspiracy by IT departments to make you hate your life? They budget money for nice monitors and then lock you out of the control panel so that you could actually use the features of the nice monitor.

But then, having worked in IT departments, they are one of my pet peeves /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

While it doesn't help you with your root issue, MANY of the LCDs ONLY support 60Hz or thereabouts. Hopefully the resolution is set to the native resolution of the LCD.

-john

This is a great site for finding LCD bargains and other tech bargains.

Techbargains.com

[ QUOTE ]
John N said:
[It is more apparent when you get the right (or wrong) pattern.

Try setting your background to a cross-hatch pattern like this and then view with DVI and then with analog:

xoxoxo
oxoxox
xoxoxo

-john

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by crosshatch pattern. I'm staring at pixels from 5 inches away. I can do that because I'm nearsighted without my glasses. Try as I might, I can't convince myself that one is better than the other.

I do think the video card is important. My Matrox g550 isn't a gamers card but its supposed to produce sharper text, etc. I don't necessarily recommend it. I think the software that came with it is a bit on the shaky side. I use it because the BIOS will use the digital monitor at startup. The analog monitor isn't used until the OS is running. My Radeon 9000 works the opposite way.

Oh by the way, every Linux distribution has a bad driver for it. Trust me, I can tell you all about it. The VESA driver works though, although I lose the dual-head.

[ QUOTE ]
jtice said:
What do you guys think of the font sizes on a 19" LCD running 1280 res?

I am afraid it will get too big.
I am running 1280 on my 19" CRT right now, and I would rather the text not be larger than it is now.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you can make the size be anything you want. Go to the window where you set the screen resolution. Click Advanced. Change the DPI setting. Actually the font size, and the size of everything else, is too small on a 17 inch LCD unless you change the DPI setting, in my experience.