The LCD Buyers Guide

[Gorod]

24" is about as big as I'd ever put on my desk, and its a bit further back than my others so I don't get nauseous when playing

Seriously, it dwarfs my 22". You would think they would be close, but they aren't. I don't even want to know how big a 30" LCD really is in person.

Do you have the power to push 2560x1600?

Yeah i guess 24" is big enough , the thing is that i dont have TV (no space in my small room) and use my PC for watching movies so i thought 30" LCD would be cool to have About the power needed to run 2560x1600 thats a good point , you are right about that . Right now i am using 8800GTX SLI though , hope its enough for 2560x1600 @ AAx0/AFx16 (i dont use AA at all with 1600x1200 now and for sure wont use it with higher resolution like 2560x1600 ) .

One thing that bothers me is that HD DVD/Blue Ray use 1920 x 1200 resolution
right ? So wouldnt it mean that its better to use 24" screen with its native resoultion for that ? If so what BenQ Model do i get - FP241W or FP241WZ ?
90% of time it will be used for Gaming and rest for movies

Thx for all the help btw

[Soulburner]

FP241W. The WZ isn't worth the extra money.

If you are using a CRT now, and don't use AA @ 1600x1200, I guarantee you will with an LCD. Let me know if I end up being wrong on that

[berk]

Some very wise words wrote
24" is great for Gaming,dvd's,trailers and online media,but general browsing and 2D stuff its TOO BIG in my opinion.
Honest to god,it's frickin' huge,i'll get used to it,but for anything other than Gaming and Film, 20" widesceen would be enough.YMMV.
Good luck.

[Soulburner]

Which is why I use Opera's zoom feature. Brings everything into readable size quite nicely. Works excellent for forums and hardware reviews

[berk]

I'm on it!! Thanks dude.


LCDs.....

[psyconut713]

One thing that bothers me is that HD DVD/Blue Ray use 1920 x 1200 resolution
right ?

HD-DVD and Blu Ray use 1920 X 1080, or 1080p, and are 16:9 Aspect, the 24" inch screens, at 1920 X 1200 are 16:10, its cleaner for PC usage, fits 2 full sized 8.5" X 11" sheets of paper on the screen. So you will have black bars on the top and bottom of your HD-DVD's or Blu Ray movies, unless you stretch the film, which i wouldnt recommened

[Machinus]

These recommendations are great, but I don't want such a big monitor on my desk. Is there anything in the range of 21"-23" with the speed, gamut, and quality of an S-IPS?

[Soulburner]

The only panels like that are:

HP LP2065 20.1" (S-IPS)
NEC 20WMGX2 20.1" (AS-IPS)

Once you see the price though you probably will look past them.

[MaxxxRacer]

Souldburner,

I just ordered a 2407WFP-HC and Kohan and I are purchasing a Colorvision Spyder Pro 2. Should provide a great picture.

[Khanage]

hey guys, I been looking around for monitors (24" LCD's mostly) and i came across this baby... Samsung SyncMaster 245BW 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor

what do you guys think?

Heres some links for those who don't know about it:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...odid=MO-054-SA

http://www.overclockersonline.net/?p...um=1171&pnum=9

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SyncMa.../dp/B000P6MOG2

[L'enFer]

what do you guys think?

i think it's 24" version of 206BW...

[Soulburner]

AFAIK the "BW" use a cheaper panel than the "T" series.

Check the viewing angle...dead giveaway it "could" be a TN panel.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001234
vs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001222

[adamsleath]

mmm i thought it was a tn...but tft central lists a samsung 245T as an S-PVA

Samsung 245T 6ms G2G 24"WS Samsung S-PVA (LTM240M2)


oh yeah here it is...:
Samsung SM245BW 5ms 24"WS Samsung TN Film (LTM240CT01)
Samsung SM245B 5ms 24"WS Samsung TN Film (LTM240CT01)

a cheaper 24" with all the pros and cons of tn panels ....

[Machinus]

The only panels like that are:

HP LP2065 20.1" (S-IPS)
NEC 20WMGX2 20.1" (AS-IPS)

Once you see the price though you probably will look past them.

Those are less than 21"...

Are those the only ~IPS smaller than 24"?

[L'enFer]

btw, wanted to know: some S-IPS displays have a long response time (about 20 ms). for example NEC 1970NX has 18 ms. does it influence on quality of picture?

[Soulburner]

Not sure but be weary of specs. There is a big difference between advertised and actual response times. For example some monitors claim between 2-10ms when in real testing they are closer to 30ms, which most people still can't see.

[L'enFer]

actually, i've already got Samsung 206BW. design is very nice, but i still didn't have an opportunity to play games/watch films on it. i hope it will not disappoint me.

[ozz]

is there anyone on here using an LCD TV as a primary computer monitor? i'm thinking about buying a 32" HD TV and also using it as my computer monitor. i can't afford buying a 30" monitor and a 32" tv so i'm hoping to kill two birds with $1300. i have a couple of concerns though.

since i'm going to use it as my primary monitor, i'll be doing a lot of lab writing, coding, and other school stuff on it. how will it look? will it be distorted or anything? i also play a lot of games so are we looking at any quality reduction or anything?

if there's no real downside to buying an hd tv and using it as a monitor, then why aren't more people doing it? is it because of the lower resolution? is it that significant a difference?

[Soulburner]

You will have to get a 1080p capable screen. That will get you 1920x1080 resolution. It should work ok, but do not accept any lower than that for a screen of that size for PC use.

The main thing you will run into is no games are made to work with 16:9 ratios, only 4:3, 5:4 and 16:10 PC screen sizes so some custom work may need done. Check the widescreengamingforum for info on how to make your games work at the proper resolution.

[Tibu]

I just found about a new model from Viewsonic: VX2835WM It's a 28" LCd with a 3MS response time and has HDCP/HDMI. I'm guessing it's a TN panel but I didn't know they were making the panels that big now. I might just upgrade my VX924 to this one when the price comes down a bit. But it really sucks that it doesn't come a normal DVI port, only has DSUB, component,svideo and HDMI. Not sure if there's an dvi--->HDMI adapter out there.

[undefeatedone]

Great thread, I headed over to tftcentral and caught up on the rest. I'm trying to find a new widescreen LCD to replace this baby: Hyundai L90D+ which was all the craze about this time 2 years ago. I picked it up for a hefty (not so expensive for LCDs at that time) $337, and I want to spend that amount or less for my next LCD's final price.

So I looked at a bunch on newegg based on viewing angles (angle >= 170), response times (8ms or under), resolution (1680x1050 or greater) and size (bigger than 20"). I came up with a bunch, and I was curious if anyone had any experience with these before, or if anyone knew for sure if any of these were panels other than TN, and if they recommended any of these OR other ones for $350 or under? I took a good look at that NEC 20WMGX2 with the AS-IPS panel and sweet response time across the color spectrum (unlike the TN panels) and it amazed me. I want something like this, but I doubt a little over $300 is going to get me that far. I'm really looking for a good-looking make that I can trust similar to this, with the fastest speed possible, since this panel blows away all other TNs with its spectrum-consistent responsiveness (I am VERY sensitive to ghosting while playing FPS, specifically Counter-Strike: Source).

Anyways, here's the list I've already sorted through, if you can find one here that's not a TN panel that you recommend other than the first one (which I know is P-MVA and is my first choice if all the other ones turn out bad), please give me a heads up, or please make me another suggestion!

P-MVA: Acer AL2051W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009105

Unknowns I need advice on:
Hanns-G HG-216DP0 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824254024

LG L204WT-SF http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824005085

Sceptre SW20C-Gamer http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824112003

X2Gen MW22R http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824222030

Hanns·G HW-223DPB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824254020

AOC Monitor 212Va-1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824160006

AOC Monitor 22LVWk http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824160005

PLANAR PX2210MW http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824016083


Dream Monitors (out of my pricerange): NEC 20WMGX2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824002320

DoubleSight DS-240WB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824185004

[Soulburner]

All 22" panels are TN.

You need to go to 24" to get away from them, I'm afraid. And even then, now they are starting to use them there as well. The viewing angle is always a dead giveaway, as the 178* panels won't be made from TN tech.

The upside to TN is that they are very high performers, but the odd viewing angles annoy a lot of users. I'm not just talking side to side, its actually up and down that is the problem.

[undefeatedone]

Soulburner, do you think high-performance P-MVA or IPS based widescreen 20"+ widescreen LCDs will become more common in the near future, or should I expect TN domination with advances in TN tech? That Acer AL2051W P-MVA panel for under $200 makes me wonder if there are any other upcoming 20-23" non-TN panels in the $200-350 pricerange. I'd pick it up in a second if it was a 6ms MVA or IPS panel.

[Soulburner]

I would hope so, but it is hard to say. That would be a sweet spot in the market IMO, that needs to be filled.

[MaxxxRacer]

Just go my 2407WFP-HC and calibrated it with the Spyder 2. I must say that this thing is absolutley amazing... Awesome monitor...