21.3" LCD Monitor Reviewed

SLDave wrote in to plug his review of the 21" NEC MultiSync LCD 2110, the monster LCD that lists for a scant $3800. The largest Apple screen is cheaper, and I'm not sure how I would feel about being forced into 1600x1200 all the time. And at the price of a decent used car? Update: 05/01 18:31 GMT by T : ARP has another idea, writing: "Here is a review of Samsung's 210T which is another 21.3" LCD. Not only is this cheaper than the NEC, but it also has DVI as well as RCA and S-video inputs that turn into a high-definition multimedia display."

Comments

"Useful for debugging Windows"?

[Wakko Warner]

So, you're the guy who does that?

Get back to work!! Stop posting on slashdot!! I hope they hire an assistant for you soon.

- A.P.

Re:Oooh!

[roca]

Sounds like you want an IBM T221. For only $8000 you get a 22" monitor with --- most importantly --- 200dpi resolution (overall 3840x2400 pixels). I've seen it running GNOME and there's nothing like it. The main problem is that the mouse cursor is a wee bit small, and so are the fonts in a lot of poorly written applications.

Dead pixels

[wowbagger]

In the article, the author complains about dead pixels (though not loudly) and expresses a wish that NEC ship monitors without dead pixels.

It won't happen. Almost all lCD monitors have dead pixels.

An LCD monitor is, in effect, an IC that is several inches square. One flaw == 1 dead transistor == 1 dead pixel. Most LCD manufacturers will quote some number of dead pixels as "acceptable" - if your display has less than that many dead pixels they won't accept it back as bad.

The only way around this is to increase the number of transistors on the display, and design some redundancy - if one transistor dies, the others for that pixel will take up the load. However, since a transistor can die on or off, it gets to be very difficult to design the circuit such that no matter how the transistor dies, the circuit works.

Re:Dead pixels

[jeffehobbs]

As a point of reference, Apple's official pixel tolerance count for the new 15" LCD iMac screen is six -- you need to have six (6) dead pixels before Apple will replace the screen. That's why I always suggest to my friends who are interested in LCD monitors (or new iMacs) that they go to a store and check one out before purchase. LCD monitors are expensive enough that any decent salesperson wouldn't blink an eye if you said you wanted to unpack the merchandise and hook up the screen before plunking down your hard earned cash. If it were me, I'd even bring a burned CD with one of those LCD checking utilities that cycle through the RGB colors (then white and black) to give it the once over. Dead pixels are annoying.

~jeff

Spend $500 more and get a 1920x1200 24" Samsung

[FreeUser]

NEC MultiSync LCD 2110, the monster LCD that lists for a scant $3800. The largest Apple screen is cheaper, and I'm not sure how I would feel about being forced into 1600x1200 all the time. And at the price of a decent used car?

I just bought a 24" 1920x1200 resolution Samsung SyncMaster 240T for $4200 (literally, I just got it yesterday).

If you are spending $3800 on a big monitor, for goodness sake spend the extra $500 and get an extra 3 inches in size and the ability to support true 1080i HD resolution up front. I work on 1600x1024 monitors during the day, and let me tell you, the added space 1920x1200 gets you is worth the price difference alone. The extra size (21" vs. 24") is also well worth the price difference.
And unlike the Apple monitor, it has standard video interfaces (analog VGA, DVI-D, s-video and RCA video, though the latter two are IMHO unimportant) without a troublesome dongle.

Driving 1920x1200 through a DVI-D port from an NVidia card under XFree 4.2 on a gentoo GNU/Linux makes watching those old Babylon 5 divx's a real treat (even if the increased size makes some of the artifacts visible :).