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DVI Flat Panels?
David_Bloom asks: "I've been shopping for flat panels, and have found it very hard to find a good deal on an LCD with DVI. My best bet so far is probably the NEC MultiSync 1550XBK (I've heard good things about its picture quality, and I'm not a gamer, so update times are irrelevant to me), but I've noticed that for about the same cost (~$600), I could buy a 17" Samsung LCD with that TV and video input thingy, but it only has analog VGA input (no DVI). I really don't want to buy a flat screen without DVI to avoid the phasing problems (its a must for me). Any reccomendations on good, low cost DVI-compatible flat screens? Any idea why monitors with DVI support are more (it's digital, so in theory, it should cost less, because there's no need for a analog to digital conversion)?"
Tom's Hardware Guide just did a review of 17" LCD panels in its Display guide section. Jump to the conclusion page and you'll find a single 17" LCD that they looked at with the DVI input - the "Belinea 10 17 20". Unfortunately, it's not all that great; the brightness leaves a lot to be desired, and it has serious trailing issues. It does cost only around $650, though. At least solutions in that price range do exist, though they're lacking in quality. Good luck finding a good one.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
2 reasons:
1) Market dynamics. They sell far more VGA analog models (since there are so many people with VGA and so few with DVI) and so the economics make it much less expensive to manufacture and market those models. If they sold more DVI monitors, they would be cheaper (like the current trends for HDTVs).
2) Most people with DVI outputs are gamer and/or designer types who have spent alot more on video cards than the average user (who often spends nothing to get a VGA output since most motherboards have built-in video). They feel that if you're willing to pay for a DVI capable 3D accelerator, you would be willing to pay more to hook it up.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I recently bought myself a 18" flat panel with DVI-D support for $500 from harddriveoutlet.com. It's an off-brand discontinued model, so if you're worried excessively about support then it's a bad choice, but these things are *really* sweet, and they are actually under warranty for another year. I use Sun 18" flats at work and have coworkers with Dell 18" DVI flats - both are good - but the cheapo offbrand that harddriveoutlet is clearing out is better and cheaper (unless the pixels die in two months).
Disclaimer: I'm not in any way connected with harddriveoutlet, and I'm also going to say anything more than "sorry" if you buy one and it breaks...
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
Finding a 15" DVI LCD is even more difficult.
I was very happy with my Apple 17" Studio Display (although I did have one pixel get stuck last month) and was looking for a 15" LCD to work as my second monitor. I have a Radeon 7000 working as a second video card, so it supported DVI and VGA.
I searched forever for a reasonably priced 15" LCD that supported DVI. They were simply not to be found. I ended up going with the NEC 1550V LCD that only supports VGA. Getting a similar monitor with DVI (the NEC 1550X, for example) was going to run me at least $100-$150 more.
In a side-by-side comparison, the Apple monitor is much nicer. I am not sure if that is attributable to the ADC connection (Apple's all-digital connector) or just the quality of the Apple monitor (it is frequently ranked as one of the better 17" LCDs).
My only guess as to the mark-up of DVI monitors is demand (lack of it, and then where the demand is coming from).
Most of my reading/research also indicated that, at least for now, there is a little to be gained from a DVI connection. When LCDs get even better, though, LCDs will be better able to take advantage of the all-digital connection.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
You get what you pay for when it comes to LCD's.
I have at home an 18" Sun LCD and a 22" Apple Cinema Display. At work I have a 24" Sun LCD.
I'd take the Apple Cinema Display over the other two any day. Both Sun LCD's have both a VGA and DVI input (the 24" has c-video and s-video as well), but the Apple only has a single ADC (Apple display connector). The apple screen is the sharpest of the three.
Not to say the Sun 24" is bad, but the Apple one is just that little bit crisper. The 18" Sun LCD is crap -- the colors are all wrong, and it looks _awful_ on analog.
--NBVB
You're absolutely right. I'm looking at this on one of the Dell FP-2000s running off a VGA connection at 1600x1200 -- didn't even bother with DVI due to the max resolution. Even with a VGA connection though, it looks great. Like I said in another comment, I haven't tried it with anything graphics intensive like games, but for general office usage like code and document editing, I think it's the greatest thing since Roomba (forget the fact that the FP-2000 came first).
-"Zow"
"All LCD flat panels refresh at 60 Hz" is not precisely true. While the analog input may be running at 60Hz, the pixel refresh rate on an LCD monitor varies greatly, usually measured in milliseconds. This is the time it takes the pixel to change colors-- it's not quite the same as refresh on a CRT, where the rate is precisely controlled by the time it takes for the beam to scan back around to the same point.
Sorry I don't have time to dig you a link.