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Shopping for a New Monitor?
Cecil asks: "Well, I've looked through the reviews and found several good displays. The problem is that quality can vary drastically from unit to unit. Just because the reviewer got a good screen doesn't mean you will. A lot of people say that it's a bad idea to buy a display device sight-unseen and from experience I have to agree. There are the big chain stores that will have monitors on display, but they will typically only have the 'value' models. So, what is your monitor buying process? What do you do to make sure you get the sort of high-quality display that'll last you through the next couple hardware upgrades?"
Ok, it might not be a good general solution, but that's where I saw the totally boss Samsung 171P, and thus that was the next monitor I bought.
And yes, I did just use the phrase "totally boss". Deal with it.
yeah, i recently bought a terrible accusync. never buy accusync
Well you didn't really mention your price range but if you're looking for a good monitor that will last, expect to pay atleast $250. I made the mistake of buying a monitor (KDS) from a major nationwide retailer (Wal-Mart) only to have it crap out on me 7 months later, one month after the warranty expired.
That brings me to another good point, make sure the monitor has a good warranty so that if something does happen to it, you can get it fixed for next to nothing.
Being a programmer I spend a lot of time staring at the screen. As a
result I spend a lot of time making sure I have the proper setup.
The monitor is typically the most expensive single component on any
computer setup I get. However it also has the most longevity, so
it's very imporant to get it right.
My favorite monitors are the View Sonic series. It's possible there
are better monitors out there, but I am incredibly hesitant to switch
from a brand that I know very well and trust implicitly. I now own
my seventh ViewSonic (multiple computers) and I've had a good
experience every time except once. On the most recent setup I have
two computers on a monitor switch, on one of the computers the
letters were slightly blurry. It was very apparent because the
letters were crisp on the other computer. Getting a new video card
fixed the problem.
In short here is my advice:
- Buy a brand well known for quality
- Buy from a store with a good reputation
- Go for good resolution and high refresh rate
- Pick a video card that is compatible with your monitor
- Talk extensively with people who have experience with the brand
you are considering.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
IIyama's are pretty good, imho. Pretty good value, too!
I do a lot of internet research first then I goto the store. Unfortunately, the store's don't do a good job of showing you the real quality of the monitors. My current monitor (Viewsonic VX900), which I bought sight-unseen, is incredible. The same one at stores doesnt look as good. Know your specs, read user reviews, and then goto the store.
and the first 2 i had no real choice about the other 2.. well, i just really read reviews, found a price/performance point that worked for me, shopped around online for the best deal, and dove in feet first.. as long as the company had a good return policy.. with the price difference between local and online being over 100$ for the 19" monitors i've had, it was worth taking the chance to save the extra money.. plus, these days, monitor technology's getting so much better and so much cheaper, it's not as much of a crapshoot to buy 19" and 21" displays as it was say, 3-5 years ago when i bought my first one...
--Less Thinkin', More Drinkin'...
I've found that, I hope, most manufacturers have a fairly stringent quality control process. (Not to say there arent a few bad ones out there.) I mean, a monitor is big and all, but as long as you get a new one with a warranty it shouldn't be a problem.
As long as you stick with a major manufacturer, you are probably safe. Of course, you still have to see the monitor in action, that is the most important part. However, I don't think you need to insist upon walking away with the display model. If the store one looks good, there is little chance the one in your box will look any worse.
If this really is a major investment, ask for a Satisfaction-Guaranteed sticker. That way, if it isn't perfect, you can still get your money back. I don't think this is an issue tho.
Recursive (adj.): see 'Recursive'
I shop at a local clone/junk store that sells tons of refurbished monitors. They are hooked up so you can look at them. Generally the large brand name (like NEC) monitors seem to hold up well.
Maybe not as sharp or flat as some newer monitors, but they seem to last forever and are relatively cheap (less than a new noname piece of junk).
It is still one of the best ways to shop for just about anything. I apply to this to computers and other products alike. Brose around the web and find real user testemonials, ask friends and co-workers, so on. Then once I narrow the choices down based on all of that I check it out in person.
My buddy has a flat panel that is huge (from Gateway) -- but the text/fonts look like an Atari 2600. Look for a wicked dot pitch, and if you're store shopping, crack open a word processor or command prompt, and look at the quality of the plain text fonts. With monitors, you always get what you pay for. And I agree -- you have to see it in person. And lastly, from this non-expert, I recommend that you look for dead pixels when you take it home. Download a shareware dead pixel detector, and look for those dead pixels on the LCD. (assuming you're picking up an LCD/flat-panel) If there are a lot, take it back for another.
Get a Trinitron. They're pricey, but you won't regret it. They're brighter than regular monitors, as sharp as LCD screens, have excellent color and long life. The new ones have a special screen that is externally flat, but internally concave. This reduces glare but prevents the annoying edge distortion of normal flat CRT monitors.
Sony has an interesting description of Trinitron technology here.
If you're not adverse to looking on eBay, you can find some good deals there. Remember that many Dell, Sun, IBM, and SGI monitors are actually relabelled Trinitrons, so don't forget to check on them as well.
These guys have been churning out great value for CRT and LCD monitors for many years now--why bother going elsewhere? They supply a vast range of sizes, prices and features, so you can easily pick the one that fits your (analog|DVI|flat|CRT|15|17|19|20|21) profile.
Since the monitor is what you stare at all day long, it is worth it to get spend good money to get quality.
A few months ago, I got a new 19 inch Samsung SyncMaster 957mb and have been more than happy with it. When I got it, I could not find any reviews of it, but I had previously purchased an older version (I think the 950) based on good reviews and was quite happy with that as well.
The things I looked for was size- 19 inches was right for my price range and a good overall size. Resolution- could it display the resolution I wanted AND at a refresh that was satisfactory, i.e. at least 80 Hz? Sharpness and vividness of colour are important to me, but unfortunately, you can't really ever get a good chance to inspect these before buying, which is why I pay attention to reviews from reputable and trustworthy sources.
The questioner is quite right in pointing out that quality can vary from unit to unit, that is why, no matter what monitor you get, buy it from a store that has a good return policy.
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
I can't even imagine shopping for a monitor--except attached to the mobile device I'm using. LCD's big (Toshiba) and small (Zaurus) are my fare. When I have to use a monitor it's only temporary and I hate it anyway. I bet there are more and more like me...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I used to be a big Viewsonic fan. One of the best for the money but I had to replace one recently and got what should have been the new model of my previous monitor which I loved. It's the A90f. The first one I brought home I assumed was defective. The bottom of the screen has a nasty upward curve on the sides, no way to adjust that on the monitor. The other annoying problem is the image drifts. At times the toolbar would completely disappears. I've had to shrink the size of the screen to allow for that. I returned the first one and found I had exactly the same problems on the new one. Personally the next time around I will go flat screen. The color depth is much better now and I would assume they are more problem free. Not sure who to recommend for CRT monitors. Seems like everyone got so obsessed with making them cheaper the quality has suffered.
For serious work with limited space you need the 3840x1000 resolution. At work I have a pair of Sony GDM-FW900 monitors. Great resolution, crisp imagines, easy on the eyes. Beautiful
Explain to the sales droid that LCD displays can have dead [or permanently alive] pixels. It probably won't know that knackered pixels are expected, but the vast majority of displays are perfect, so there's no harm in making sure you get a perfect one.
Unpack the display and plug it into a PC in the store. Now you need to check both a completely white screen and a completely black screen - because knackered pixels can be knackered either always on or always off.
To check always off, fire up Internet Explorer, go to "about:blank" and press F11 (full screen). This will give you a page full of white. Scan the page closely looking for "always off" dead pixels.
Then, to test for always on pixels, right click on the desktop and go to screen saver. Select "Blank" and then "Preview". Again, scan the blank screen and this time look for "always on" pixels - although these are much easier to spot!
I like to lick the front of each monitor I am considering and take careful notes. I then compare and contrast between the subtle and not so subtle taste variations. After wieghing the choices carefully I am confident in making the right choice.
- Manny Tor Tater
Keep in mind that stores often use a splitter of some kind to display the same image on many monitors from one computer. This just has the effect that they all look bad, and you can't tell much about any of them.
I buy sight unseen, but then I'm picky. If you can't buy from a local store that is easy to return to, then go with a brand that stands behind their quality claims. I currently own an NEC FE950+. The first one I got (via a web order) had bad geometry. NEC cross-shipped me a new monitor and sent me a voucher for the return shipment of the rejected unit. Pretty hard to beat that kind of service. Good luck!
Oh, I also love ViewSonic and was loathe to switch, just like an above poster. I thought the NEC would be better quality... I'm not disappointed with it -- it's a great monitor -- but it's no better, and was a bit pricier. Next time I will probably return to a ViewSonic.
I am not blind, partially because I spent far more than I could afford on the best monitor that money could buy about 8 years ago. The NEC XP21. High refresh rates, durability of a mule. The monitor is a little dim now, and falling out of focus, but it did pretty well for being on most of the time. I spent a good bit on a video card at the time, too. The refresh rate was worth the cost.
Don't go cheap on the monitor. You will look at it whenever your computer is on. Your computer might get tweaked, changed, upgraded, but your monitor will remain the same. Spend more on this component than the rest of your system put together.
If I were buying now? Probably the widescreen Mac display. I would prefer to wait for the next generation, but that Mac display is much cheaper than my XP21 was.
If you can't afford a good LCD, go for a nice Trinitron. Otherwise, Apple has the best displays I've seen. Even if you're not using a Mac you can get a converter to use it on a PC.
Look at Fatwallet's or Anandtech's Hot Deals Forums for LCD's...
I always find Screamin deals on LCD's there, I bought 3 Dell 1900FP's Just before X-mas for $1300, Dell was running a Buy 2 get one free deal, and I couldnt pass it up the LCD's are GREAT
moo.
Find out which monitors come bundled with penguin computers or Dells that come with Linux. Sony is a good brand that is well used.
http://saveie6.com/
I decide that I want a monitor, decide that I need it _NOW_, march to my local Bic Camera store, look for a 17" LCD in my price range, put it on my credit card, and carry it home. I am an unabashed impulse shopper; welcome to my life.
I track known Slashdot scumbags on my foes list!
Buy from a small local shop. Call around. Tell them that you're particular about monitors, particularly fuzzy ones, and you'll buy from them if they'll let you connect the very unit you want to buy to your computer and video card right in the store. All of the small shops will say "no problem."
Signed
--Also Very Picky About Monitors
I've bought only CRTs recently, all of them at a used monitor store. The store usually sends a rep to the local computer show (MarketPro being the one in my area). 17" monitors can be had for about $50-$60.
They tend to be bigger and draw slightly more power than a new model but it would take over two years of usage to make up for the difference in cost. You do get to see the display on the same monitor you'll be buying, so there's no danger of the display model being better than the boxed ones. What you see is what you'll get.
Try running the monitor at the resolution and scan rate that your card supports. A game may look wonderful at 800x600 but text may be absolutely crappy. The same for pictures. Lots of stores put some pretty pictures of flowers on the screen; they look very detailed but have very little contrast and brightness is difficult to gauge. Definitely try opening a word processing document or something that will highlight the contrasts.
Investors?
Both I and a coworker have kept an eye on devsdeals.com and waited for an opportunity to pick up a top-quality Dell LCD display for $500. You can get a 17" (1702FP) or 18.1" (1800FP) for about $480, both 1280x1024 with a 500:1 contrast on the 17" and 300:1 on the 18". DVI and VGA.
Thats where I get my 21" inch monitors. I tend to go with the cheap ones (sub $200), but they tend to develop problems after a couple of years. One of mine has a spot that tends to be redder than the rest of the monitor and the other stopped doing 800x600 resolution but works fine in other video modes. I'm thinking of spending $350-$400 for the next monitor and having it last a while because I need higher than 1600x1200 resolution anyway. My friends who shell out that kind of money for a monitor tend not to have problems. Of course its easy for me to live with crappy off color monitors cause I mostly need them for slashdot, which looks ugly regardless of monitor, and coding. Every once in a while I'll get into playing doom lan games, but even with all the High res and open GL mods for it its still pretty ugly.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
I'm using a 20" Silicon Graphics GDM-20E21 monitor that I resurected from beside a dumpster where I live. Granted, it didn't work when I scavanged it... but 80$ woth of ic's later and I had a totally boss monitor for basically free. Also note that upon opening it up I realized that it really was just a sony monitor underneath. _Exactly_ the same schematic as the sony GDM-20.
Personally I strongly believe that Sony monitors are one of the best/affordable monitors on the market. They have had their trinitron series out and about since Noah floated his ark. They are tried and true. If one should break (they rarely do) they are _very_ servicable. I'm the IT geek for a pro A/V systems house. My company uses sony monitors almost exclusively. They really are the most reliable monitors I have had the pleasure of working with. Take a look around at really old televisions. If they are older than 15 years (and they are not dead) they are probably built around a trinitron tube.
I don't believe in sigs.
I'm sorry you seem to have stumbled across a geek site rather than the brain dead "I live in a real fancy trailer hyuck hyuck" site you were looking for.
Funnily enough we are geeks and tech questions, whether they are about the latest and greatest or simple things like whats the best way to source a good cheap monitor.
Please hand in your pocket protector on your way out.
Their quality control is excellent in this department. We have two Apple stores here in Minneapolis, each with two or three of these big displays out for evaluation. One was rather dim, but noticed that the mac it was attached to had an older, feebler graphics card in it, why, I do not know. Compound that with the Apple drones saying horrific things like "well, it is about a year old..." promting heavy internet research on my part before purchase. Happily enough, I found enough anecdotal evidence to support my buying decision/technolust. The display is the best thing I could have done for myself at this point in time, and I went and did it. I know the ADC-to-outside-world-adapter does cost another small hunk of cash, but I would highly recommend this display to anyone on any platform.
Should mention that I tortured the Apple sales guy for at least an hour comparing and contrasting merits of the 20" vs. the 23". I did find the 20" to be brighter, but maybe, think about it, too bright! Contrast was higher too, adding a bit more detail in the 20". In the end, I'm glad I bought the extra pixels.
How many of your mates and relatives who know nothing about computers have been sat infront of their monitor that is perfectly capable of 75Hz non-interlaced; but instead, it is configured at 56Hz interlaced!!!!
Agggghhhhh I've lost count. Even worse is the number of tech support people who don't as a matter of course configure a monitor for its optimum refresh rate.
It's not so much a problem now because the latest Plug'n'Pray systems means everything is set-up correctly, but with Windows 95 I came across it all the time.
I work in a computer shop - as a result, I've seen monitors come through by the truckload (typically 100-200 at a time).. we test them all before we send them out, and we handle defective returns (even if it's just to ship it back to the manufacturer), so I see what comes in..
Some advice:
Don't buy something cheap. You get what you pay for. If you're on a budget, you can get a decent monitor from a small manufacturer, but check (at least) for ISO-9002.. Most manufacturers will have a "low-end" and a "high-end" model for each display size... never buy their "low-end" model, always go for the good one (usually, the "low-end" models are the high-end ones that didn't pass QA.)
That being said, my monitor manufacturer of choice is Hansol... We don't sell them any more (due to politics) but their "professional" models are great quality, and reasonably cheap.. I have a 701P (not made anymore) and NEC multisync XV17, and the display on the Hansol is much sharper..
Return rate on them is extremely low as well (less than 1%)
Doing CAD work I was used to shadow mask monitors (supposedly better for detail work), but I'm more than happy with my current monitors even though I do notice the horizontal lines every now and then.
Buy the highest refresh rate you can afford, and consider a dual screen setup if your video card can handle it. Two seventeen-inchers are better than one 21".
(According to my ex-girlfriend)
Step one: Remove cover from moniter
Step two: take a wrench that has no rubber handles on it (IE all metal)
step three: put it on the glass tube
Step four: While firmly holding the wrench to the
tube turn on the power
Repeat steps as nessecary
if(statement!=funny)
karma=dumb
"Peace is a cry for those who can not defend themselfs" Unknown
Pretty much anything with a sony trinitron tube is gonna kick ass.
TODO: Something witty here...
and it's been annoying. Sticking with the reliable manufacturers, Samsung and Sony, my biggest complaint is that each has a long list of monitors of widely-varying price but unclear distinctions between the actual product. There'll be a $17'' monitor for $260 and one for $399 and comparing the specs I can't see a meaningful difference. I've looked at hardware review sites, but had little success. I've found no comprehensive information which has enabled me to make informed monitor decisions.
Since then I've run into several other people who have had early deaths of MAG monitors, one good friend lost three before he learned. He did send in two for rapairs, paid more than they were worth for shipping, and still ended up with dead monitors shortly after the end of the warranty period.
I switched to Viewsonic and haven't regretted it.
You can't judge quality just by how much you pay.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I recommend the Viewsonic VG191b (to b or not b)
They rock, I have 2 at home as a dual display on my redhat box, and we just bought 10 more for the office, including one for out mame machine, you need the pivot for that...
Very nice.
It can be tough. I usually read *plenty* of reviews and then try to find the smaller resellers so that I can see them in person. Sometimes helps to call the vendor and find out what resellers exist in your area for the higher-end brands / models. Those resellers will likely be more expensive, but they are more likely to have what you want. Occassionally I've found decent monitors at a chain (Microcenter, CompUSA, etc). They usually don't have many or for long, but I've found a few good Hitachi 19" and 21" tubes and some good Samsung flat-panels that way. Gotta be careful sense a vendor may carry a cheap, crappy model from a vendor next to a higher-end unit of the same brand. Good Luck!
i think using a monitor is very personal. i got a 19" AOC after reading many 'real' comments on newsgroups.
since then (luckily) i have heard people complaining about it, like it reports 84.9Hz V instead of the standard 85Hz, the screen area is never straight no matter how you adjust it, etc etc....
to me, at US$180, i wouldn't worry too much about the above mentioned 'problems'. i'm using it to do some works, play some games, and none of those 'problems' really affect my usage.
so it really depends what your tolerance-level is.
This is ironic, because I just bought a Sony Trinitron 19" moniter from Best Buy for twenty dollars because some idiot tinted it and the film bubbled. The other idiots at Best Buy didn't know what the hell was wrong with the moniter, so I just picked it up and said "$20?". The manager said yes, so I took it home and pulled the film off. I saved over $500! This is the way to buy a high quality moniter!
We're only gonna die from our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time...
The only way to purchase a monitor:
1) Find a store that has a policy that will allow you to bring it back.
2) Pick up what you're salivating over in the store.
3) Take home: word process, hack, frag, or whatever floats your boat.
4) Repeat as necessary for n - 5 days (where n is the length of time you have to return it). I say minus five since I always miss the date by a day or two.
5) If you are in love with the monitor, keep it. Otherwise, take it back, chose another monitor.
6) Lather, rinse, repeat.
I did that at Fry's when I was looking for a new LCD monitor. I purchased something that looked great (and the salesperson said rocked) at the store, but when I brought it home- ugh.
I took it back and picked up a 16" Sony LCD. Zero defective pixels. Excellent res and definition. Zero regrets.
Anyone has experience with the new 20" IBM
flat panel ? Does it have true black ?
Step 1: Do your homework.
Read reviews. Lots of them. Go to the store yourself and look at some models.
Step 2: Take the test.
Find one you like. Buy it, try it. If it doesn't work the way you want, exchange it for the same model. If that one doesn't work, it's a piece of crap; exchange it for something different, or return it and pay the restocking fee.
evil adrian
I bought an IIyama 17" monitor back in 1998 that I am still completely happy with. It runs high refresh rates and gives great colors. IIyama is found in lots of CAD magazines, etc. and can be found on the internet. I bought it sight unseen and love it. They were teamed with Sony and Mitsubishi to create the Trinitron in Japan. It was expensive at the time but well worth it since I am very sensitive to refresh rates.
And no, I don't work for them in any way.
I read a review of 19" crt's at Tom's hardware.com and looked around for a deal. Provantage never shows up on pricewatch but I stumbled on to them somewhere. Got a Viewsonic P95f+ for $263.00 dropped on the front porch. UPS delivered it so they must have dropped it. A top of the line Professional series for $100.00 less than my 15" Graphics series of 5 years ago. Battlefield 1942 at 1600 x 1200 @ 85hz is amazing.The Viewsonic was rated by Tom's as just below the Iyama for a bunch less. I thought it was a good deal.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
PRAY.
This is not directly related but I recently had to wait a week and a half to exchange my gameboy advance sp which had a huge piece of dust in the screen. Only to get one with 3 smaller pieces of dust in the screen. There's really nothing to do but shop at places with conveniant return policies and hopefully enough stock for you to exchange until you find the least defective one.
I love fixed frequency monitors. These old workstation monitors tend to be very good quality, and are nearly free. It took me nearly a month to get mine working with games of course, but both X and Windows worked beautifully right off the bat.
Me, Walk into a computer store and they had a entire wall of computer monitors displaying the same screensaver program. I mean thousands and thousand of them . This store was huge. One was sticking out for the rest. Like it looked like 3d, really sharp and blew the other ones away in picture quality. I walked up to it to see who made it.
Viewsonic...
Been my monitor make ever since. Excellent monitors. This one I have now is the 3rd one I own. I do a lot of graphics and this does the job perfectly.
P220
I have bought several monitors of various brands. The best two I have are both NEC's: the MultiSync FE1250 which is a 22" monitor capable of 1920x1440, and a newish LCD (I don't have it in front of me so I can't give the details.
I have always known that the monitor is the longest-lasting, least-depreciating, most visible part of any computer system so feel free to spend big. When I got my 22 incher almost three years ago, I spent C$1300 on it which was half the cost of my total system. It did have a problem in-warrenty but NEC conveniently shipped me a new one to replace it (I had to return the old one).
I've also used VeiwSonic monitors and they seem to be pretty good too.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
as I work for Best Buy... *puts on flame retardent suit* but get the Product service plan when you buy it. it's cheap (compared to a new one) and if ya don't like the coverage, you can bring the plan back for a refund.
Just bought a new Mitsubishi DiamondPoint NXM76LCD display. 17" & 1280x1024. This is a great monitor...very clear and much better for general business use than a CRT display. Graphic artists looking for exceptional color reproduction, though, it just can't be had on an LCD, you're stuck with CRT.
I had a Radeon 7000, so I hooked up the display VGA. It was very good, but it was missing something...DVI. I had been drooling over an AIW Radeon for a while, so I bought one, hooked the LCD up using DVI, and the rest is history. Exceptionally clear, bright, display with no dead pixels...and WOW, a DVI connected LCD rules in comparison to a VGA connected CRT display!
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
If you're like me and don't spend as much time playing games, but more time looking at text and video, a recent LCD monitor is quite good.
Me, I just purchased an NEC MultiSync LCD1760V - cost me not much more than $600 for a 17". It's bright (damned thing is set at 3% brightness...), and the nicest thing of all, 16ms full-cycle response time (12ms Tr, 4ms Tf, IIRC).
It's analog only, but it's one of the few monitors I've used that seem to lock bang on using "Auto" mode so I don't have to mess with fine adjustments. Does a decent job at non-optimal resolutions (it stretches the image out and does *some* antialiasing). Quite happy with it, really...
I know I wanted a 20" one that can do 1600x1200, but considering the price differential (costs $133 more than a 15", but gives more pixels, a 19" at 1280x1024 costs 50% more, and a 20" costs 200-300% more), it's in the sweet spot, and by the time I replace this, OLED displays will hopefully be out.
And hey, it's one less heat-generator in my room (instant-on and instant-off is very nice as well).
For me, anything lower than 17" is a no-go. Ideally I'll get a nice 17" monitor for $150-200 CDN, but I'll pay up to $250.
As fas as quality is concerned, all I care about is that it lasts for a long time and that it displays things correctly.
I am a filthy pirate.
Two choices (in my opinion):
1) Buy a decent monitor from http://www.monitoroutlet.com
2) Buy a decent monitor from http://www.monitorsdirect.com (I love my Cornerstone LCD!)
Both of these places stock lots of monitors. Don't buy the cheap consumer crap at CompUSA, shell out a few hundred extra for a top of the line model.
wrong.
Sorry man.. but you've obviously never ran accross a seriously defective product line. Near 3 years ago I bought a KDS 19" Avitron (AV-195TF). This thing had a high-end Trinitron tube in it, and KDS's good name behind it (not to mention their 3 year warranty). It should have been fine and dandy, right? Nope. In the next 2.5 years I had to have it replaced EIGHT times!
The problems were incosistent. I used the monitors in three completely different computers while living in several different locations over that course of time (being a college student). In fact, the only things that were consistent in that 2.5 years were me & the model of monitor. And I never ran it out of spec.
My point is: The warranty is important, but finding a manufacturer that doesn't need the warranty is even more important! Better to ask around (whether it be your friends, colleagues, or public phorums) and find out which manufacturers and models are known for being rock-solid. Then double check and make sure it has a great warranty.
Currently, I'm running a NEC MultiSync FP2141-SB. I've only had it for 2 months... so I can't tell you much about long term reliability. I can tell you that this is one helluva monitor! And that so far I can recommend this to anyone looking for a high-end CRT.
/dev/random
Aren't those the ones with those massively annoying black lines across the picture? Advocates say you stop noticing the lines after a while, but this is definitely wrong if you deal a lot with small details or even single pixels, e.g. if you use Photoshop/Gimp, design web sites, or something like that. You keep noticing the lines, they get in your way and annoy you. Ironically, most of these applications really benefit from a superior sharpness, which Trinitron monitors allegedly have. In situations in which you'll really forget about the lines, like playing games or casual web browsing, cheaper solutions are just as acceptable.
Personally, I buy a little more expensive, higher-quality monitors (I need at least 1600x1200 pixels and stare at them 10 hours a day on average), and there are very nice non-Trinitron ones (I'm very happy with my Iiyama).
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
If you have a fairly reasonable monitor budget, the only monitor I could suggest getting is the Dell 2000FP 21" LCD (~$850 USD). Use it once, and you'll never want to go back to anything smaller. Ghosting is negligible, even with fast-paced FPS games (ie: Quake3, UT2K3, BF1942, etc).
If you're looking to get something smaller, the Dell 1900FP 19" LCD or even the Dell 1504FP 15" LCD are excellent.
After you goto LCD, I think you'd be very hard pressed to go back to looking at a CRT.
1. Find a video production studio.
2. Make sure they use relatively old SGI workstations.
3. Wait.
4. Go dumpster diving.
5. ??????
6. Four 23" SGI-branded trinitron monitors!
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
i got a hitachi.
i probably won't ever get a crt again, for space reasons, but hitachi has great quality for the money. some people seem to really want the frame rate of a bulky cathode ray.
Monitors are for people with weak memories.
I can't tell you what to buy, but I can tell you that I bought a Viewsonic PS775 about 3 years ago on advice from a friend who had good experiences with them, and I've been very happy with it. Another friend of mine got a similar model on my advice and was also very happy. Stick with a reputable brand and don't try to save $50 on a monitor you're going to use for the next three to five years. Get something you'll like looking at.
I'm an aging tech and the monitor I'd purchase from a Russian (he carried it two blocks to my car) at a computer show five years ago had finally gotten to the point where it had fallen below the threshold of my eyesight. I needed a really good monitor that was bright, sharp and cheap.
It was Christmas time and there were numerous deals on computer hardware, some extremely good.
I went to several of the local electronics and computer stores looking for a monitor but most were pathetic, poor brightness as I could not easily see them in the store. Many had such poor convergence for whatever reason that the corners showed three distinct characters in red, green, blue rather than the white character it was supposed to be. Even a quick degauss didn't effect them. Sony, the monitor of my dreams, didn't look as good as I remembered, at least the display ones looked poor. LCD's were out due to the prices at the time, despite the drool left on the floor in front of them.
So, I ripped apart my current monitor and tweaked a few controls, not really doing much good but at least eating up an hour or two of time.
Then I went to a local office supply store to buy some pens and saw a flat screen crt monitor in the size I wanted that was so bright, it hurt to look at. It beamed out obscuring all other contenders on the shelves. It was crystal clear and was cheap. The convergence error was below my naked eye ability to see any defect. So after rapidly ripping out payment and buying it, I took it home. I really missed that Russian salesman, my back hurt after lugging this large monitor around.
It is a Viewsonic Ultrabright A70F+, I have to run it with Ultrabright mode off and with the brightness and contrast turned down. It was 280.00 dollars in 2002.
I had not even considered Viewsonic in my search and had been condescending to a friend who had purchased one, even though I hadn't seen it.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The parent poster is right - look out for dead pixels. And before you buy - look out for the monitor with the right warranty.
Recently I bought 15" Philips 150B3T panel, with 3 yrs warranty. After I asked for this model, the shop assistant tried to peddle to me an Philips 150F4 or something like this, claiming the same technical parameters. Fortunately I refused and insisten on the one I have seen on display. At home it turned out that the one they wanted to sell me had a warrany that kicks in only if the monitor has at least 5 bright pixels or 10 black pixes. OTherwise it;s considered OK. On the other hand The one I got (for the same price) is guaranteed to have 0 bright pixels and less than 5 black ones (mine has 0/0, luckily).
I bought my current computer a long time ago. It's a Pentium 3 450 with a TNT2. I bought the TNT2 the day the TNT2 came out. I bought a Viewsonic GS771 monitor for two reasons. It was specially designed to have a 17" screen while having a 15" footprint. Not quite the space savings of LCD, but still significant. Also I like the birds.
I bought the monitor from www.buy.com. buy.com still has great deals on monitors and free shipping on lots of stuff. I would definitely buy from them because they sell monitors you can't get in a brick + mortar store at good prices and free shipping is possible.
At first it was just brand loyalty for Viewsonic. I actually thought that the Sony Trinitron was a better monitor. Then I went to CompUSA to buy my friend a monitor. They have a display with a bunch of monitors all running XP. One of them was obviously brighter and better than the others. It stuck out like a sore thumb. It was the Viewsonic! Apparently I picked the right company to be loyal to randomly. The birds did mean something! Viewsonic now makes really awesome Tablet PCs and wireless monitors. Oh holy crap.
The best thing is that I realized the other day that LCD monitors aren't all $1000. A high quality viewsonic 17" LCD monitor with DVI in and res of 1280x1024 can be gotten for $400-$500. In my opinion that's a steal.
My ideal setup would probably include two 19" Viewsonic Professional series monitors. However, the Graphics series (model numbers beginning with G) are the best value/performance deal.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Do LCD montiors age?
I know that sometimes one or a few pixels are dead when you get a new LCD; but I think that this is due to the production process. I also know that tube monitors do age, they get duller and duller. On the other hand, there is nothing that says that components have to age; for example LEDs do not.
If LCD screens do not age that has very important implications. You should invest in an expensive one and not switch when you get a new computer.
Tor
I couldn't find a lot of reviews on the 18.1" category of monitors that didn't seem super critical. Many were whinig about 'lag' while playin FPS like Unreal 2003 or Battlefield earth. I played around in various stores looking at them and never saw them.
The 1860 got a decent response time (25ns) so I said what the heck and bought it via the web without seeing it.
If there is ghosting, my ATI9700 and I don't see it. UT2003 at 1280x1024 is great, and so is everything else I play.
nice monitor. It was like $682 at CompUSA.com. Though I don't recommend ordering from them, their web prescense leads much to be desired.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I use my trusty old Sylvania F72 17" Monitor, and I have been for more than five years!
was get myself an LG Flatron 915FT Plus. It's a fantastic monitor. 19" flat CRT with an antiglare shield.
Some people really go for a nice looking CPU case. I'd rather spend a little money on the part you're going to spend all your time looking at.
A pixel is 'turned off' (goes clear) and lets the white backlight through it to display white.
This is why LCD's are not as good at displaying black as CRT's. The backlight is always on, and the pixels can have varying degrees of opaqueness when turned on. This makes black more of an uneven very dark gray (well, uneven on my LCD anyway..newer ones might be better at it)
Also, they won't necessarily be black or white. I have some green dead pixels.
-
... if you like giving up half a square kilometer of desk space and the output of a small nuclear powerplant, the Mitsubisihi 2070U is just amazing, with the 2060U a close second.
I work with a lot of quality 21" monitors (newspaper , so we have layout staff) and the new mitsubishi monitors take the cake. Sony might compare (haven't worked with them) but Philips can't even touch them.
Our new machine is a G4/2x866 with a Mitsubishi 2060U - nice, too bad its an (os9) mac. My housemate liked the quality so much he went and bought a 2070U and a Radeon 9700 card - the results are incredible. I've never seen colour like it, and its so crisp its incredible. Almost matches a mid-range LCD for sharpness, but is better than the colour quality of the very best. BLACK IS BLACK WHEN WHITE IS WHITE. Wow.
Look for a long warranty. I purchased a pair of Sony Multiscan 500PS monitors and they come with a three-year warranty. Had to use that warranty shortly before the three-year period ran up. They sent me back a Multiscan G500 replacement. (The monitor electron guns would sometimes go wrong.) Warranty applies to both CRT and LCD.
Also, you do sort of get what you pay for. The graphic series of monitors are higher quality than the "regular" or professional series monitors. But they cost more. You'll get better control over your setup with a graphic series monitor.
Monitors I've recently purchased/used: Radius PrecisionColor 20 (Sony Trinitron), Apple 21" Color (Sony Trinitron), Sony Multiscan G500/500PS (Sony Trinitron), ViewSonic E790 (budget 19"), MAG 771-FS (temporary replacement). Best ones have of course been the Sony Trinitrons. The ViewSonic E790 is decent, but the MAG 771-FS was basically a cheapo that I wouldn't use for any real period of time.
I believe the patent on the Trinitron technology is up? So you can get them from Sony and similar technology from other companies for cheaper now.
Don't necessarily go for the "fake" flat screen monitors. My brother had a flat screen ViewSonic that was only flat because the glass in front was concave on the inside. It didn't look right, but I don't think he cared too much.
If you're not going to do professional graphics, LCDs are better for multiple monitor setups so you don't get interference. Right now, my two monitors constantly shake. I've gotten used to it; maybe my eyeballs constantly shake as well. I'm hoping to get a dual 970 Mac later on with a Cinema Display, and put that in-between my two CRTs. That'll remove the interference and also balance out my speakers, keyboards, and entertainment playback.
I used to own a giant Sony monitor, a GDM-1936. Heavy-as! 32kg according to the manual. Anyway, as it was the only monitor I owned at the time and I wanted to go to a LAN party I was carrying it down two flights of stairs. I got down the first flight ok and the second flight was just 3 little concrete stairs. I lost my balance, droppd the monitor and fell into it with my face. Cut up my mouth really bad, blood everywhere. I still wanted to go to the LAN though, so I got up, kicked the monitor, got in my car (the rest of my gear was already loaded), drove to the closest computer store, tried to explain what I was looking for but the blood was making it difficult to talk, so I pointed to some el-cheapo flat 17" thing (Velta was the brand name, no finer make than Velta!), bought it and carried on to the LAN. Still use that monitor and that was 4 years ago. Research, smeasearch. It turned out to be a pretty good monitor.
I've found that the recent Samsung monitors are excellent units.
If you want a CRT, get the SyncMaster 763MB 17" monitor. It's pretty reasonably priced, and its sharpness of text and graphics are just unbeatable for its price, thanks to its very tiny pixel size. The brightness quality of the 763MB is quite good, too.
If you want a LCD, get the SyncMaster 152T (15" with 1024x768 native resolution) or the SyncMaster 191T (19" with 1280x1024 native resolution). Both of these monitors have under 25 ms response times, excellent color saturation, excellent brightness and contrast, and very sharp graphics quality.
They are very important!!! Get quality cables.Get monitor cables with ferrite filters.Otherwise you might get a ghosty picture.
I'm sorry but you are worried about 800x600 on a 21" monitor?!
Nokia Monitor Test is the best free tool I have found for testing monitors.
Get it from Major Geeks
You are not going to find a high quality monitor in a chain store. Period. If you want to find a really good CRT start investigating Sony's professional models, Iiyamas, and Eizos. If you live near a city you should be able to find a dealer who sells them.
As far as LCDs go, get an Apple Cinema Display. There is no competition in that market.
I definitely agree with your opinion of ViewSonic. I went in to Best Buy and CompUSA to get a new monitor, and I looked at every single model in my price range on display at both stores. These were floor models that stay on all the time. I noticed something about most of the monitors, most of them either had a jiggly image or they were starting to fade out a bit. The only ones that didn't have any display problems were the ViewSonic, so I went ahead and got one, and I really like it.
If you get a LCD, make sure to get one with a DVI (or ADC for Mac) connection. The digital connection affords a much sharper image than what you'd get from an analog VGA cable.
In my experience, Apple's LCD's are clearly the best, though you have to buy a $150 converter to use 'em with a PC because of the proprietary ADC connector that carries power, video, and USB.
Dell's digital UltraSharp models are pretty good, too.
I find that the local "Ultimate Shocking Bargain World of Computers Shows" are actually good for this...
:-)
Cost you $5 to walk around and look at a BUNCH of different brand / kinds of monitors...
Plus where else can you get Xenix on 5 1/4 floppies...
I work at a place that goes through fairly regular hardware refreshes. I happen to work as a sysadmin in the publishing division, where they tend to have the highest quality monitors money can buy. They replace them every few years, and when they come off lease I can usually snag one for cheap. They auction them off, and since I'm familiar with them all, I know which ones to buy. Life is sweet, I wish I could buy everything like that.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I am always amused by the direct correlation between ignorance/stupidity and vocalness.
I was impressed enough with the look and reliability of the LCD monitor built into my laptop (CPU and bus speed just too slow for my needs) and elected to go LCD for the desktop. I was set on an NEC 1700 or some sort, but after reading a few reviews I switched to a Samsung SyncMaster 172t. I like it, although it's very very bright and that could be toned down a bit (current graphics card driver can do that for me, yay!) Since I spend a lot of time using the hardware I bought, I probably won't upgrade for a couple years (depending, of course, on the Hammer rollout, but even that may queue up after a few other priorities, like a new vehicle or new bicycle) I can run DV-I or Analog, so I'm pretty sure I've got compatibility covered. I figured I'd spend the money once on a new monitor, so choose your form factor as well as your supplier. This comes with a bracket to attach to the wall, too, which I might do later.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You might think 9 megapixel is overkill, but I find the visual quality more than adequate.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
It seems no one from a photography or graphic design background has posted yet.
This monitor is currently the second best there is as far as anyone knows. The first best is Sony's top of the line of the same size, but it's more than double the price. I own the NEC. 1600x1200 "wall-to-wall" perfection. Only the Sony is a few % better at reds and saturation, at more than double the price.
Anybody know any better please share.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I have a 19" Trinitron and have "issues" that I am trying to sort out with Sony's designated repair guys. There is a misconvergence in the part of the screen above the top dampening wire (those black lines) such that perfect letters below are blurry messes above. Adjust the top and the bottom is screwed. When I sent it in for repair, Sony repair software or whatever they use removed one of the settings (landing) and only recently have they released a new version - a couple of months after I discovered it.
Besides that, yes, great contrast. Yes, VERY sharp text. I hate the lines and tried to find a true flat CRT without them (ie without aperture grille tech), but couldn't find one.
CRT monitors are analogue devices. Just because yours is AEWSOEM!! may not mean someone else has an equal amount of awesomeness. VIEW the screen at the store if you can. Make sure that it is good. 19 inches of monitor is a pain to move about for repair.
Samsung.
Jeez, you might want to check what ISO-9002 is before you say that. It's a standard for documenting work processes and keeping that documentation up to date (if you change the process, you must update the docs) and nothing else. It doesn't mean jack about quality.
What you said is about as useful as saying "if you want a fine meal, make sure that the restaurant accepts VISA".
Well my little brother plays diable 2 on 800x600 mode. Also it was finiky in 640x480 with the graphic adapter. It would flicker constantly. I had to dig out a 14" monitor to install windows 2000 on it.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Here's why. I had a KDS monitor third hand. My dad bought it used from someone else, and later decided that 19" was too big, and gave it to me. (w00t!)
Anyway, it started acting funny in a scarey way. Screen occasionaly made a popping noise and flashed. I gave KDS a call. They had me read the serial number and determined it was still under warranty. In fact, it was only 2 months shy of going out of warranty. I explained that it was third hand. They said send it back and they'd replace it, or they could put a credit hold on my card, and I could send it back when I got the new one. Considering how untransferable some warranties are, I again explained that this was a third hand monitor. They said it didn't matter. I told them to ship it and put the credit hold on my card. Got the new monitor in a few days, and shipped the old one back. Cost me a total of $30 to replace a free 3rd hand 19" monitor. Screen looks good, and I've had no problems with it. Still looking at it right now, 2 years later, and looks as good as the day they sent it.
Yeah, I know this question is more about quality of the screen, but I've got to hand it to a company that actually stands by its products. My next monitor will probably be KDS too.
I might not notice a couple points of dot pitch, but I sure as hell notice damn good customer service. Personally, that's worth more to me anyway.
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
Trinitrons use the horid aperture grill instead of a shadow mask. The aperture grill causes the annoying lines that we just love to hate.
Here's the quick breakdown:
Shadow mask: The shadow mask in a CRT monitor is a metal screen filled with holes that sits just behind the phosphor layer. Red, green and blue electron guns each send a beam through a hole in the shadow mask to a single pixel triad of the tube's phosphor layer. Although this method keeps the image sharp, it diminishes the potential brightness of the screen.
Aperture grill: Instead of a metal screen, the aperture grill consists of tiny vertical wires. The pixels on the phosphor layer are arranged in vertical stripes instead of triangular groups. When the electron guns scan across a row, the wires isolate the pixels that the individual beams focus on. This approach has a couple of advantages over conventional shadow masking. First, the use of wires instead of a screen allows more of the energy from the electron gun through, which makes for a brighter image. Second, the potential vertical resolution of a display can be greater, since the aperture grill does not rely on the vertical spacing of pinholes as a shadow mask does.
Testing is fine...but the store uses flourescent lighting, and unless you intend to work there, right in the middle of isle 14, you'll find a big difference when you actually do get set up. Don't bother with any kind of testing, other than kicking the tires, unless you can take a shot at duplicating your home or office lighting.
I don't know if I agree completely. I did a fair amount of internet research and decided upon Viewsonic since they had a good reputation. I ordered (online ) a black P95f+ because it had good specs and reviews. Visually, I have no complaints, but it emits a quiet though obnoxious high frequency ticking or buzz as I have heard in other lower quality monitors. This ticking/buzz corresponds to the frequency of the monitor. I could have avoided this sound if I would have bought or at least examined one at a store, unless I just got a bad apple...
Word of wisdom: look at your candidates in person, at a store, and listen to them too.
there we go. a perfect example of someone who is up themselves. You look down upon other people don't you? You're an overpriviledged, overpaid techie type who thinks the rest of the world just fucks themself up, never realising that its your taxes that pay for the propping up of dictators around the world by your government and military (US or Euro). fuck you yuppie ass scum.
I love there monitors, most of my mates do to. at LAN partys round here philips outnumber the rest like 4 to 1.
I myself personally use a philips 107T4, which is the best Flat CRT ive used.
And the thing that tops it off, is the LightFrame feature:
"LightFrame is an exclusive Philips hardware/software technology for the brightest, highest contrast-ever on-demand display of photos and video on a monitor. It enhances the display quality of photos and videos in a selected window without impacting upon display of text-based applications."
another reason for me liking philips is they make compact monitors, okay a LCD is more smaller, but philips do make the shortest 17" in the world.
Si
'no i dont look at porn'..... "whats that stuff on the monitor then".. 'oh well'......."yes?"........ 'THE MONITOR MADE ME DO IT'
That's the way I bought mine. I bought a Mitsubishi DiamondTron 21" for $200 CDN. I brought my laptop to the store and hooked it up to about a dozen screens before finding the one I bought. The rest (a collection of Mitsubishis, NECs, Sonys, and ViewSonics) had screens that had unacceptable problems (uncorrectable pincusioning, variable colour, unstable pictures, etc.)
True, mine's not perfect (the lower left corner is slightly darker than the rest), but for the money it was one of the best purchases I ever made. Man, is it ever nice being able to use 1600x1200 resolution and still be able to easily read the type!
My computer desk is not too happy, though. The thing is HEAVY (77lbs, according to the specs), and the sag of the cheap particle board is quite noticible. (keeping fingers crossed I don't hear a crack/crash in the middle of the night)
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
I bought a used 21" Sun/Sony trinitron monitor from my .bomb when it went under. fully db15 compatible with pc/mac, and sony has drivers for it (it's the GDM 500PS with a Sun label).
I read a lot of reviews after I bought it, and no one seems to have trouble with them. I don't know what your budget or needs are since you don't mention them, but you can get this consistently excellent monitor starting around $200 online (used). I wouldn't let used scare you as they seem to be built really well. You can pay a bit more for one with a longer warranty on it if you choose.
If this one ever dies (doubtful), then I will get immediately online and buy another just like it. Everyone who spends time on their monitor should get the best picture they can. It's a lot less fatiguing.
Google for the model if you're interested. this place http://www.monitormania.com/itm00113.htm seems to have a good price, but I dont' know anything about them.
They are handmade, with a three year warranty and about as good as it gets. In my company we have hundreds of them and they never fail (both LCD & CRT).
A common refrain is to "trust your eyes," however your eyes can be very deceiving.
Every monitor displays colors differently. Even different monitors that are the same model! Color perception depends greatly on ambient lighting, the signal being put out by the video card, to say nothing of the monitor's controls. This is why the row of monitors at Fry's all look different--it has nothing to do with the actual quality of the monitor! Trusting your eyes may result in you buying an inferior model.
Spec out the monitor you want in terms of size and dot pitch, then go out and buy the model with those specs that also gives you fine-grained control over the color settings. Don't worry too much about what the display model looks like--it's almost guaranteed to be calibrated incorrectly.
Of course, the fun part is calibrating it when you get home. Use a utility such as Adobe ColorSync to do a quick-n-dirty calibration.
Unless you're working in graphic design, you probably won't do anything else with color management.
Nathan
I wouldn't go for less than 120 GB. Storage is cheap these days.
The only time I've ever seen an LCD with text that looks "like an Atari 2600" is if the LCD is not in the proper resolution.
Only? Not even when you run Stella, a VCS emulator?
Will I retire or break 10K?
It depends on the monitor and your own tastes. If you look around, you can find monitors that are ok on response time--definitely better than typical laptop displays. The monitor I mentioned has a 25ms response time, and there are already monitors that beat it. In practical terms, you can definitely tell the difference between this monitor and a good CRT, if you're looking for it. But I think my brain interprets the blur as a slight "motion blur", because when I'm in the midst of a game, I never notice it. :)
Additionally, the monitor is nice in a lot of other ways that I wouldn't want to give up for a CRT. Of course, you get what you pay for. Viewing angle, contrast, brightness, and response time vary wildly from the low end to the high end, so you have to shop around.
Anantech reviewed a Hitatchi monitor that advertises 16ms response time, which should be quite excellent. Unfortunately, it sounds like the reviewer still noticed some blurring. The monitor sounds pretty nice in spite of that, though.
If you're thinking that LCD monitors won't be common at lan parties, it appears not to be the case. People have all sorts of equipment and computer accessories that you can peruse, some of it of a rather dubious quality. As it looks "cool", it gets purchased.
MAG monitors are horrible, in my experience... mine slowly "browned out" from day one, then finally went to hell... i bought a used IBM one to replace it, and its been better in every way to the MAG one, and its been awesome in comparison... this is just my own experience, though, and yours may vary...
I spent the buXX0rs for a 19" Hitachi 751 when they came out four-five years back, and haven't regretted it. I run it at 1600x1200 and have no problem working with it for 20 hours straight. If I was gainfully employed, I'd probably be shopping for another just to have a spare.
OTOH, I was given an old NEC MultiSync 17", and after I took some contact cleaner to the cables & connectors and tweaked the pots to clear up the focus, it rocks! My wife uses it, and complains that the monitor she has at work (some Dell-branded thing) isn't anywhere near as good.
Just junk food for thought...
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/A ppleStore.woa/70307/wo/TD58MlPDFJ4m32tXKB3gRy1rX2Z /0.3.0.3.27.39.3.3.1.1.0?133,48
I dont have one but is there any thing even close to it?
--I get all my accessories used at the local church thriftstore. They are only open a few days a week, I get there on opening morning once a week and just grab whatever looks cool and cheap even if I don't need it right then. Currently sitting in front of a dell 15 inch I got for seven dollars, works perfectly great, and online with a 50 cent USR sporster external modem, typing on my 2$ ibm model m clicker. What's not to like? I got tons of backup everythings now, doubt I have more than around 150 clams into the entire pile of stuff, multiple everythings basically, including spare boxes.
Last brand new monitor I had was a 14 inch sony, paid 280$ new for it in 97, it eventually just turned dark, wasn't worth repairing. No more new ones for me, I'll let the rich guys buy them for me. Thanks rich guys! Hey, start dumping them 21 inch displays will ya?
I purchased an old Hitachi/Intergraph 20" monitor a couple years ago. It must weigh 150lbs. The PLL gets a little cranky sometimes if you jump between the wrong two modes, and some modes will form a faint red vertical stripe.. but other than that it is an excellent display.
It can't do more than 1000 lines reasonably, but I got 2000x1000 out of it (yes that is a distorted aspect, it's quite amusing to use at that resolution). Of course, at this resolution the "standard vga" video cable starts showing its true colors (oooh, ripple on lines of sharp contrast!), and one of those seperate-channel RGB cables would help a lot...
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Research was the first step, so I checked out the stock at my local Fry's - pretty much everything was a flat panel, and what wasn't was garbage. I have a dual 21" setup at work, so I wanted at least 21" at home - plasma display was not an option for me. Local compter shops didn't have much better to offer - some Viewsonic or Optiquest models that I found were relatively inexpensive, and had good specs. Most of the monitors in the 21"+ range in my local shops were either too expensive or had crappy specs.
Out of all of my local research, I made a couple of brand decisions, and went to the net to get more info. I spent some time comparing between manufacturer's sites to get a good idea of what was 'state of the shelf' at that time. Using pricewatch, I was able to find a feature/price point. Then, I hit epinions.com and consumer reports online to get some further information on the brands.
At this point, I had found the monitor that I wanted - 22" NEC MultiSync FE1250+. I then began to shop around for the best price I could find. There were several retailers that were (relatively) highly rated on pricegrabber that had decent prices for this item. I picked one and followed their order process to see how much I would pay in shipping. The total seemed acceptable (~600USD) so I confirmed the order and moved into the buyer's guilt stage of the purchase.
Here's the big D'oh. As most people do, I went searching to see if I could find a better deal after the fact. I went to some of the larger computer retailers like Gateway and Dell, and wow! they had huge sales and free shipping deals. Not only that, but Dell's price on the same NEC monitor with no shipping charge was nearly 200USD cheaper than the retailer from pricegrabber. I promptly cancelled my order with the smaller retailer and placed an order with Dell. The next week I was bathing in the glow of my new 22" monitor!
So I guess the moral of the story is to research, research, research. Get info, then reinforce it with opinion and testimonials. You don't necessarily have to see it to get a good deal. Oh, and don't rule out the big guys - they often can beat out everyone else, even on stuff they don't normally sell individually!
I buy all of my monitors gov surplus. The low cost makes up for the high defect rate, and subsequent dump fees 8)
What? Are you buying laptops so often that this is your SOP?
net reviews, read lots of net reviews. That's what I did and eventually I sprang for the $650 sony instead of the $450 viewsonic. I'll reply-this when I actually get it.
This is just swell... not difinitave answers... but I will comment just like everyone else. I have this 91/2 year ols Samsung SyncMaster 4c I got with my 486 DX way back in the day. I works great other than it doesn't go above 1024x768 and the cable broke only to find out that the cable on the back of the monitor is an EGA Female plug, so now I have 2 adapters and a backwards VGA (switchbox) cable just to use the damn thing... been thinkin about a flat screen, but they are too damn slow... you see trails on any fast moving image.
I work at a university and we have numerous brands and models of LCDs and CRTs. From sheer volume I can tell you that the Apple brand monitors are the best out there. They have the crispest display, best white balancing, and longest life expectancy of anything we have. Our faculty, who use Dells, all request Apple LCDs. We use the 17" ones which run around 500 to 600. In a side by side comparison with the NEC monitors I have to say Apple shines once again.
...and they want their phrase back!
Buying a monitor.
.3 is thick, .26 is good, .25 is fine, clear, precise, and .24 beautiful, unavailable and expensive.)
If you're worried about unit to unit variance, discuss, and if you feel it's necessary, get in writing, that your shop will let you bring the unit back if you're not happy. Don't buy from the elcheapo that is on the TV, buy from somewhere you or your friends have done good business before.
I like the reviews (and the classifieds) from this magazine: australian pc magazine. They have good list of what to look for and why.
Benq TFT review
I bought a Sony 17" LCD SDM S71R. It has no speakers or usb port. Sony wanted nearly $1500 aus for it, my local pc shop wanted $1395 for it, but I got it at mates rates from the same people that supply most of my friends and my work for $1329. The shop I think likely to be most difficult with the returns would have been the sony shop, parking for starters, a complete nightmare, but they're also very inflexible, and couldn't budge on the price even though they were the most expensive.
Of course I found several other brands at better prices later, but not so sure about their specs. And the main pain is about a month after you buy, all better specs come out anyway.
Need to pay attention to the
refresh rate (the higher the better 75 and up...)
native resolution (on 17" should be able to do 1280 x 1024 and still be able to read it)
pixel pitch (this comes under a lot of different names, the smaller the better eg
Lots of LCDs on test
I also like Mitsubishi CRT monitors. My first one used to deguass by itself, but I got it replaced. My Mum has never had any problems with hers.
I like the LCDs better, because I don't need a crane to lift one and I can fit more on to the screen and my desk. The Sony unit is brilliant. I got it out of the box sight unseen (although I did look at one similar in the sony shop). Not a single dead pixel anywhere. The main problem was finding drivers to work it with win98 and my graphics card. But it is happy now.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I got in a car wreck and got this babe with some of my settlement money (hey when a punk kid rear ends you, and screws your back up so you have to give up ski racing - the sport you love... you get $$$)
.24 trinitron, you really gotta have a good video card to make it worth while. Nvidia just doesn't cut it - ATI or Matrox (though I can't stand Matrox, too slow!)
This thing is very nice, plenty sharp. Though I admit the cable that originally came with it was a bit low grade, tad blurry and had some ghosting. I replaced it with one from a viewsonic and the image quality came up to par, and the colors are a bit more consistent now too. I'm not sure if it was that way originally or not, since i just started having ghosting this year. Could just be the cable gone bad, its been moved a lot (and still works good).
But with a 21"
I opted for a very stable monitor as I spend 10 hours a day (typical) staring at the screen.
The IBM P260 monitor supports resolutions of up to 1920X1440 at 75Hz and has a crisp 0.24 dot pitch. At 70.6lb, the P260 is not the lightest monitor. A standard D-sub connector is provided, as is a digital DVI connector
Like many high-quality displays, the IBM P260 monitor is based on a CRT that uses FD Trinitron technology.
The IBM P260 monitor has a relatively small array of controls below the front bezel of the display. Here you'll find a reset button, an autosizing and centering button, an input switch (it supports two video import channels), two brightness buttons (up and down), a menu button, two contrast buttons (left and right), and a power switch and indicator. These most-used controls operate in conjunction with a very crisp and well-designed on-screen menu.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Get all the information you can before you buy. Look at it in a store. Look up the specs online. Find a friend who has it, or has experience with it and ask them about it. If you do enough research, you will usually find one or two that stand out among the rest. Unfortunately, you usually have to make sacrifices when buying a monitor. All the ones I've seen have had some sort of problem. I've had two Sony Trinitrons that have crapped out about a month after the warranty expired. My school buys nothing but Viewsonics, which are very cost-effective, but the picture isn't as good and the OSD sucks. My current monitor is a 19" Hitachi flat screen CRT. I've had it a few months, and I love it so far, but it has a minor problem with colors bleeding. It's not too noticable except with high contrast static images. (like a terminal) However the bright, sharp image, the excellend OSD, and the 5 year warranty more than make up for that. I would highly recommend that anyone looking for a new CRT take a look at this one.
NEC makes great monitors. I've never had any issues whatsoever with any NEC product. Top notch.
Just wanted to add that.
I might have bought one, except they have the ADC connector, and I needed VGA to use with my KVM so I could share my LCDs between my G4 and my PC. Coughing up mucho cash for an ADC-to-VGA converter box was not something I wanted to do.
One of my clients has a couple 17" Studio Displays, though, and they are amazing looking. The picture is so sharp you almost feel like you could reach in and pluck the icons off the dock with your fingers.
~Philly
I don't really know much about the company but I got it from my boyfriend more than 18months ago and never had aproblem. (It is a 15 inch LCD). I will never buy a crt for me again, LCD's are too bright, too crisp, and too cool (physically and metaphorically) to go back to CRT. Just make sure you have a low shift latency for the pixels (~35 ms or less I think) and you should have no ghosting at all.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Try pcworld's website. Has free reviews unlike other magazine websites. You do get what you pay for. Buy the big names and do research. Store must have return policy.
When shopping for anything electronic these days, I check reviews at places such as Amazon.com.
Generally, they're not very helpful in telling you what to buy (at least a few people are always impressed with anything new). Instead, look for the rationally-written negative comments -- if a common complaint starts to emerge for a given product, stay away from it.
...with high-end Sony CRTs. Other people may have a similar lifetime's worth of good experience with other specific technologies, but I've never been disappointed with a Sony Trinitron "professional" CRT. The GDM-520PS is highly recommended, and anything in that same family and range is certain to be top quality. Clear, sharp, fine, and bright. No problem with high scan rates. I won't even look at anything else, and I'll buy them site unseen so long as they're NIB. Just my $0.02.
I've got an Apple Cinema Display 23", and it is simply gorgeous.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you went to a LAN party and the best you saw was a Samsung... what did everyone else have? Sampo?
Previously I'd used a few shitty el-cheapo monitors and I must say that you really do get what you pay for when it comes to monitors.
My 1st was a Commodore 1084S for my C64 (it's still working and sitting next to me =] ) - it's got S-Video (before it was called that) and composite. It has a huge curve and is only 13 or 14" but works great as a TV or PlayStation display. Overall, excellent quality.
Next was another Commodore monitor - a PC one. 14" (long since buried at the dump) but still, very good image quality despite the enormous curve in the glass.
Next was a 15" KTX monitor - had good high-end image controls, but it had this habit of not working at 1 year intervals. The OSD chip or something kept frying. Fortunately, the 3-year warranty enabled me to get it replaced, then on the 4th year when it fritzed I ditched it.
LiteOn came next, 15" - acceptable curve but a very blurry display. I still use it for LAN-parties as crispness doesn't matter much when you're fragging. =]
For the last 16 months I've been using this wonderful Sony 21" FD Trinitron (CPD-G520). For the amount of time I spend in front of a computer, it was definately worth the $2000 I paid for it. It's got great colour, brightness, contrast, sharpness and geometry. In fact, I prefer it over a LCD screen. 2048x1536 @ 75Hz, dual inputs, colour matching and a USB hub - yeah baby!
But, here is the most important thing! A top-notch monitor like this doesn't count for squat unless you have a HIGH QUALITY cable and video card! I can't stress this point enough! Until last month I had been using a Matrox G400 with it and at this insane resolution the image was as crisp and sharp as a LCD. Unfortunately, I needed a 'better' (in terms of polygon-pushing power and features) video card, so in an interim upgrade I bought a Radeon 9000. One word... UGHH!!! Though I don't notice it AS MUCH now, the image suffers from poor colour definition and 'bleeding' on high contrast areas (like word processing) as well as just being generally blury. If I didn't need a more powerful 3D card I'd go back to the Matrox until I have more money for a better quality card (mmm... Parhelia).
Oh yeah... how did I come to my decision about buying the monitor? Well, I'm a stickler for quality, so like with everything I buy, I make sure I do my homework first. This usually involves looking for user reviews online, reading reviews both online and in print. Finally though, you have to decide for yourself. So when you've narrowed it down to a few models, go and demo them - any store that won't let you demo them if they have them in stock is definately not worth your custom. (I demo'd this one at Sony Central, which was the most expensive place to buy it - even with cash, then when I fell in love with it I hunted around for the best price.) =P
Samsung 900NF (2)
Viewsonic P95F+ (1)
Sony CPD-G420S (5?)
NEC FP912SB(2)
When I look at a monitor, I look at a white screen, run explorer and look for geometry/convergence problems, and look at the top and bottom of the screen. I belive that a high quality 19" monitor should have no trouble passing these tests.
It has been awhile since I had both the 900NF and the P95F+, but I can say that the focus of the 900NF was very very poor in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The P95F+ was just a nightmare. It looked as though the whole screen was out of focus.
The NEC FP912SB, for all intensive purposes, was mostly a great monitor. However, in the end, I felt that the SONY cpd-g420s had better overall focus over the screen and better colors. The NEC did have much better geometry though.
The SONY's have been a headache. I bought them from Dell. I must say that, for the most part, Dell has been a great company from which to buy a monitor. Long ago, I decided that the cpd-g420s had the best image (clarity, color, and brightness). However, the top and bottom of the screen bowed horribly on the first one. The next 3 had a combination of image bowing, messed up pixels(some phosphor missing or pixel exceptionally bright...and these are CRTs), or a "blemish" in the face of the glass. Currently, I have a sony cpd-g420s in front of me. This one does have fairly good top and bottom horizontal straightness, but towards the left of the screen it does bow "inward" toward the middle of the screen slightly. On the right hand bottom, the image does slightly bend away from the middle. In addition, there is a blemish in this screen as well, and a 'messed up pixel', although it is not entirely noticeable. The convergence in the upper left (mainly) is difficult to adjust, because when you make that great, it throws off the rest of the screen. Dell's response to the "blemish" and pixel was that the monitors are designed to allow a certain number of defects.
What I can't understand is why it is so difficult to get a good, quality monitor. I look at my friends older 19" sony (trinitron, not FD) and his image is square, crisp, and the convergence isn't funky. Sony's FD trinitron monitors are, for the most part, the most expensive CRT monitors (without going completely overboard!). Why is it that I can't seem to get one without any bowing, good convergence, and no blemishes or bad pixels? Honestly, I can't be the only one to whom this happens. Maybe I am, or maybe I expect too much.
My advice? Talk to other people who have had the monitors you're considering, and you better buy from a reputable dealer with a liberal return policy. It's the only thing you may have on your side, should you decide that you don't like it.
I second that. The Dell trinitrons are quite good and can be had at a slight discount. Sometimes Dell is selling them off at their refurbished site as well.
They are usually black too, neat.
Wait until the local $megashop advertises the next larger size monitor from the one you have for $200.
Go to $megashop.
Buy $250 monitor because it has a 3-year warranty.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
Where I used to live there wasn't a store that sold high end monitors anywhere near by. I ended up buying a 21" Sony FD Trinitron direct from Sony. I paid quite a bit of cash for it at the time, and quite a bit on top of it for shipping (it weighs a ton), but I don't see myself giving it up anytime soon and it's already three years old or so.
The moral of the story, for me at least, is that if you can't see the exact (as in actual piece, not model) monitor you're going to buy, as long as you buy a high quality monitor from a reputable manufacturer you'll probably make out okay.
That said, if you have the luxury of being able to check out your exact monitor yourself beforehand, you'd probably be silly not to.
This changes a little bit with LCDs. When you start worrying about bad/stuck pixels, you'll definitely want to be able to look at the thing before you plunk down the large chunk of change you're probably spending. But even if you do end up with a LCD with a bad pixel or two, most manufacturers seem to be pretty good about replacing them without a lot of hassle nowadays.
Actually, It'd probably be easier trying to sort that out with the manufacturer than it would be to have to yell at some customer service drone in Best Buy for an hour. I'd probably still buy mail order from some reputable entity. You'd get a better price, too.
Game... blouses.
I'm not going to pretend I really know how this works, but I know it's a voltage issue. And it's one of the first things that gets skimped on when trying to make a monitor cheap.
Put up a black background, then open a white-backed window. now minimze, maximize, minimize. if you can see the geometry of the screen changing when you do this, do NOT buy the monitor, it will drive you crazy.
As per brands, every brand has their cheapy and good monitors. Earlier posts have mentioned trinitron tubes. I recommend them, and they come in many flavors. I've had them for years, they have outstanding picture quality, the lines are *not* an issue, and they don't seem to suffer from this problem.
vk.
To me the Eizo Nanao Corp. has always produced fine monitors
I also stay away fro
This sytem has worked wonders for me:
.30mm dot pitch 1280 x 1024 at 85 hz with unbelieavable color fidelity, then another nice 21" hitachi, and then about a month ago I upgraded to a Nokia 21" Multigraph 445Xpro. It's .22 mm dot pitch and looks beautiful at 1600 x 1200 at 85 hz. It has dual video inputs, brightness and contrast nobs, and a USB hub. It was $180 with no shipping, just a 20 minute drive.
.25 mm dot pitch. That was $50.
1. Search eBay by region for local 21" or greater CRT monitors
2. Read some reviews & look up the specs for the monitors you see that look good
3. Select some auctions that look good, and email the seller to ask if you could pick up the monitor if you win.
4. Bid away.
5. Sell the old one.
6. Wait two years.
7. GOTO step 1.
This has worked wonders for me. Every two years I get a newer 21" monitor for around $200 and sell the old one for about $100. I save about $60-100 on shipping and handling compared to most of the people I'm bidding against by shopping only in the nearest metropolitian area and picking it up there.
I've been doing this for 6 years. I first got a Hitachi RasterOps
I also keep a 17" for a dual monitor setup to hold my pallets & such. I've upgraded the 17" the same way, most recently getting a new Sony that runs 1280 x 1024 at 85 hz,
If you can, take a laptop with you and check out the monitor for burn in, etc. before you take it.
This sytem takes a little extra time, but it gives you a lot of monitor for your money.
I do professional photographic work and some programming, so having good monitors is crucial. This method works out great for me.
If you want your monitor to look great, get one with small dot pitch, high refresh rate, and have a good video card- the video card really does make a difference.
If you want accurate color prints, you have to use ICC profiles on your monitor and printer.
Good luck. -Phat Tony
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
The problem is that quality can vary drastically from unit to unit... What do you do to make sure you get the sort of high-quality display that'll last you through the next couple hardware upgrades?
You haven't exactly defined quality, so I'll assume you mean accurate color rendering.
In this case you want a monitor like a LaCie or Sony Artisan Series, both of which come with a calibration device.
Other monitors by NEC and Mitsubishi sometimes come with calibration color strips you can lay over your monitor while displaying preset colors from a software application.
Failing a device or software and strip, one can load a browser while using the monitor and head to EasyRGB where you can attempt to calibrate it. I've just calibrated my monitor by matching it to my office wall, which I recently painted in Benjamin Moore "Buckland Blue." (RGB values of 95 134 150)
I have a 21" NEC MultiSync that, while it has a few annoying but tolerable age-related illnesses, still has a very good picture quality once it warms up. I bought it 3 years ago for $400. It was made in 1995. :-)
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
this may be a backwards solution, but I usually buy used monitors from those one-off computer stores that tend to have 200-300 second-hand monitors in stock at any given time simply because I can get a perfectly good monitor (current one is a 17" IBM G76, flawless screen, barely seems to be used) for $50 instead of $190 new... that way if the piece of shit craps out, I can just go replace it with an equivalently non-used "second-hand" monitor 4 times before spending what I would have initially put out on a brand-new one. YMMV but 4 high quality used monitors tend to have a longer lifespan than 1 brand new monitor.
-Rylfaeth
I haven't looked into monitors for several years, but it used to be that Eizo Nanao made what some considered the best. Of the mass-market brands, Sony and NEC are better to my eyes than Viewsonic, but Viewsonic is probably the best price/performance.
-cbare
I've got an older 17" Sony Trinitron (Somewhere around either 93 or 96), and it's great. The Aperture Grille is great. I've got two moniters sitting side by side, the Trini and a fairly cheap 17" ViewSonic. I have the Trini set as my main, and the crispness is just great.
Now, for where to buy: Don't rule out the Used Computer stores. The older moniters have be gone through to weed out the ones that will go bad. Most of them should allow you a fairly decent return policy. Go for at least a week. Take it home for a few days, check it out, and don't be afraid to take it back if it doesn't work for you.
Sony does sell the Trinitron to other companies, who remark it and sell it under their own brand. Most of them should have a decent warranty. Some of the refurbished units even have a year warranty. I think some of the Dells do. I know they buy Trinitron tech, and remark it with Dell logos. They still have Trinitron label on them, but they're marked Dell instead of Sony.
In short, don't be afraid to hit the smaller stores in your town, especially if they sell used/refurbished. And try and get a trinitron if you can. They're great. I don't have an advice on LCDs, others have said enough.
Hello, my name is Doctor Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
One red (dead) pixel, 19 inches, dual inputs (analog for the KVM and digtal for the obligatory windows box), decent contrast, light weight (!), no heat problems, low energy usage. I freaking love it. And I can use LCDs for hours without eye strain, which was the most important thing for me.
I have never had a decent CRT after using LCDs; the eye fatigue from CRTs is amazingly noticeable once you don't use them anymore. I used to crank the refresh up to at least 85 Hz, higher if the monitor internal bandwidth could take it without getting fuzzy, to no avail. And I was one of those people who made fun of monitor snobs who told me they could "see" flicker at 85 Hz. Not anymore, no more CRTs for me.
Oh, plus, I move alot and the LCD weighs like 5-10 pounds, instead of 70-90 for a 19-21 inch monitor.
That's why I bought it, but I had pretty complicated and preissy requirements. Test before you buy is a good mantra, would have prevented one bad 19" purchase.
andy
I picked up a brand new, the biggest unit on the market, a 19" Hitachi 751 for $1049. Ya gotta love the bleeding edge. That's back when I bought bleeding edge. Ever spend $600 for a x1 cd-rom drive? $2000 for a 286? All I can do now is chuckle. Now I buy product thats a year or so old and it suits me just fine. But the monitor has been nothing less than spectacular. Buy a quality name at the end of the scale and you'll most likely have a product that was engineered to last.
Check the amount of flicker due to the refresh rate by grinding or chattering your teeth while staring at it. (See halfway down the page.) I'm not kidding.
I have a Cornea MP704 LCD, that works just fine for allmy gaming and home programming, I seem to get less eye strain than I do on my work 21" Sun monitor....and I only paid $500.
I brought my monitors sight unsees (holding my breath - as it was around £700 worth) and when they turned up both were in perfect condition with no dead pixels :o)
Just for reference they were GNR ones, with Samsung innards.
However, if roulette is not your game, try buying from CTX, Apple or IBM, all of whom will keep exchanging your TFTs until you get perfect ones - especially good is the Apple refurb store as you get the same gaurentee as a new one on a £600, 23" TFT. The gotcha is the fact that you will have to buy a £75 DVI-ADC converter which only Apple sell.
Beep beep.
23 inch Apple HD Cinema Display
But, Apple doesn't say what the response time is, leading me to guess that it is bad.
Remember that many Dell, Sun, IBM, and SGI monitors are actually relabelled Trinitrons, so don't forget to check on them as well.
I've always been a fan of Trinitron monitors - they are the *ahem* boss (glances sideways). I picked up a 19" Dell badged Trinitron monitor a few months ago, and it's been great. It's sharper and has better contrast than any other monitor I've seen (I'm currently at work on a Hitachi 19" box-o-crap).
For those in Australia, try Computer Disposals for cheap Dell gear.
Ladies, form queue here -->
have i seen Eizo mentionened in this thread, what kind of people are you?
if Eizo isnt the greatest of all monitormakers, then its, errr... the number two!
the refresh rates are just incredabel, the quality is splendid, ive had both an 23" CRT and a 19" crt and they worked great! i sold them though, didnt have enough desk space at home *regrets*.
if you find an store sellin Eizo screens, take a good look at them.
http://www.eizo.com/index.htm
I will disagree about KDS monitors. I've had a Visual Sensations 19SN for two years that I bought for $180. It has worked brilliantly, has crisp lettering, and looks good at high resolutions. I recommend to everyone that they check their options. Cheap doesn't mean shit.
Google for seasilver, buy some from your nearest retailer. Great all around liquid vitamin tonic stuff, best on the market. It will help your eyes and whatever else you have that needs helping. Takes a few weeks to really kick in. Best loot you'll drop on your health. I have several boomer and older friends, their personal anecdotals are amazing stories. One friend, older guy, retired cop and old vet, was at the point he couldn't walk up his stairs any longer, literally had to crawl and drag himself up to the bedroom, was going to have to sell his house and get a ranch or install an elevator or something, starts on the stuff, a few weeks later he's out on a ladder cleaning out his gutters and getting some branches off his roof after a small storm. Amazing stuff. Anyway, google will find you a ton of testimonials and sites no doubt. I'm posting anonymously, even though I have a friend who sells it, just want to turn people on to it.
does using the dvi input improve the color depth of TFT monitors over the vga connector?
Just make sure you have the right model number. Unless its a fairly low-end model, monitors should be consistent from unit to unit. I read good reviews for the Hitatchi CM771 w/ 19" flat-face CRT and .22 dot pitch. I've never been happier with a piece of computer hardware. IMHO, a display is something you should not be afraid to splurge on. Monitors, (at least CRT's) really do not improve at the rediculous rate of other hardware, so buying a nice one will last many years. Go ahead, live a little, you'll be happy you did. ;)
...when I said 'kicking the tires', the assumption is you'll at least turn the thing on, allowing it to warm up and stablize (15 ~ 30 minutes) and see if you can read text.....and it doesn't emit any offensive odors...no popping when it degausses...image mat is centered, level and not pinched in/out along the sides....buttons don't stick....viewing angle suits your needs....price and warranty match your plan. You do have a plan, right?
Just remember, next gen monitors, that don't have buttons or OS, and are built on the new 'monitor on a chip', will be here inside 3 years, so if you're thinking you can buy a monitor now, and ride a typical upgrade cycle, you may want to think again. You might want to spend less and upgrade sooner than normal.
Make sure it says "Sony" on it. I've worked in television and graphics design for years, and this is truly the golden rule. The brightness and sharpness achieved from a Trinitron tube is unmatched. My main graphics display is a 21" FD Trinitron manufactured by Sony for Sun. Their lowend models aren't bad, and their professionalgrade tubes will ensure headacheless, color-accurate and sharp computing.
Nortel used to have this program, before they blew up and disappeared off the face of the earth, where any employee could work from home and the company would provide the furniture and equipment (including coffee machine).
In all the time my uncle worked there he never once worked from home, yet they gave him thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment and essentially furnished his entire apartment.
In conclusion, ViewSonics are great monitors.
If you don't stop reading this right now you owe me $1,000. Send check or money order too...
Sorry for trolling, but is THIS supposed to be an interesting "Ask Slashdot"?
I have a Hitachi CM753 19" Invar CRT from 1998. It has seen at least 40 hours use a week for those five years and has only started to become slightly corner unsharp during the last month. It runs at 1600x1200 with a refresh rate of 85 updates per second, and yes the holes in the invar plate are really small enough and close enough together that there are roughly 1600x1200 of them.
The image quality of the good trinitron monitors I have experienced including 20"-21" ones rebranded as HP or SGI and 19" and 21" Sony Fxxx and similar quality level branded ones has started to detoriate after two years use at 40+ hours a week. They do not become unsharp as such, just really annoyingly tiresome in some strange way.
Unfortunately it is very hard to buy CRT monitors these days that are not of the trinitron type (wires for diffraction layer), only Hitachi and to some degree Philips markets the good quality Invar models (a thin sheet of the alloy invar with lots od holes as the diffraction layer) anymore and they are hard to find.
It would be nice to know for how long I can expect an LCD to last before its image quality detoriates enough to make me want to relocate it to server duty.
go get a Mitsubishi DiamondPro Monitor you'll be more than happy with either the 19" or 21" models
alternatively i have had excellent experiences with the samsung SyncMaster series, all the way from 17" to 21"
And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.
An 18.1 LCD monitor for a tad less than 400 including overnight shipping. Its all about the slick deals.
I also picked up the Logitech 5.1 THX certifed speaker system for $230 shipped overnight from the Dell store as well.
Buy an NEC Accusync 95F. It's a 19" display, and it goes for about $340 cdn. Between myself and my extended family we have five of them, all excellent. My cousin vouched for them initially; his work had been buying lots of large monitors, and this is one type that NEVER had a problem. The only irritating feature is that its only 75Hz at 1600x1200 - a little low. Its 100Hz at 1152x864. The display quality is excellent, and the colours are good.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I returned monitors for 3 years on the old p100 I bought from gateway years ago, finally gave up, then I got a notice that the warranty was extended a year because of a lawsuit, returned the 15" one last time, and got a great 17" in exchange that I am still using today.....
I bought a 19" Princeton down in AZ a couple of years ago, and hooked it onto one of their display computers before I would take it out of the store....
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
I have a Samsung 171P, which is beautiful, but one tip when buying one is to pick it up yourself. Here's why...
Since I live a long way from any decent computer shops, I ordered online. The delivery would be by UPS. I had it delivered to my workplace so I could be sure not to miss it. Also my office window is right above the front door, so I can always see the delivery vans arrive. They also usually park in such a way that I can see inside when they open the door, so I can watch as they collect together the parcels that are for us.
I had to wait for a week or so, every day checking the van when it arrived. I was already drooling. Then the big day came. The van parked, the guy slid open the door. I could see the appropriate sized box, with a picture of a monitor on it. That had to be mine.
I watched with some slight consternation as the guy collected four or five other large boxes, and stacked them up on top of my monitor, but figured they're well packed for that sort of thing, and then ran down to open the door for him, to make sure he didn't need to let go with one hand to ring the bell or anything.
Once he got inside, he put all the boxes down. Except, he didn't bend down to do this. He just, like, opened his arms! It must have been a meter drop, with my monitor at the bottom! I was speechless. I couldn't even scream, I just couldn't believe he'd done that. I ran over to check my new baby.
Well, kudos to the packing designers, 'cos that lovely monitor survived, even the box was hardly dented. But UPS sure ain't getting my custom again.
And that monitor is absolutely gorgeous (did I mention that already). Hey, it says "designed by F.A.Porsche" on it, that's worth an extra $1000 right there. Before I show it to my friends, I have to warn them. "Prepare to want!", I say. "Prepare to want badly".
Skiing? Check out The Independant Skiers Portal
If you're going to spend most of your time viewing text (code, whatever) may I suggest any LCD over any CRT. In WindowsXP turn on ClearType, or in Linux, turn on subpixel rendering--you'll never go back.
I can work on my 15" Laptop display and it is more pleasant to read the text than on my 21" perfectly flat trinitron tube.
Just bought the Apple 23" HD Cinema, it does look sexy, and it works fine on PC! :-)
I'd say it's a pity it's sold only for Macs, as Windows (and possibly Linux, not tried it yet) uses the screen real estate much better, and doesn't make characters look fuzzy like MacOS X... Can't wait to try it with Windows XP, with the sub-pixel antialiasing, to make my Mac-owning colleague even greener with envy
The only problem is that the buttons on the front of the screen don't work, so I can't change the brightness; lucky the default brightness is fine!
Where I buy they set the monitor up, connect it to a PC and run a diagnostics tool and explain its output to you. Takes 15 minutes or so, but hey, if you buy a big one, you leave a lot of money there. You won't get that kind of support or expertise in all shops, but I don't mind paying a little more to get that.
Go for ViewSonic
They are a reputable company. This means that they value their reputation, it's how they sell monitors for 50% more than the competition, and stay in business.
They care about the consumer and the product is in use at most graphic design firms I've seen. Quality is second to none, and if you aren't happy, they aren't happy. I have a 'budget' model at home, which has been in use for four years, and I've never had a single problem, even with it being on for days at a time, and on almost every day for those three years.
The best advice is the same as with buying RAM, find the best monitor you can afford, and borrow a little to buy the next model up. With the new integration of TV and Internet, buy something really good and don't bother with a new TV.
No matter what anyone else says, stick with Samtron.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
Decide what size and resolution you want. I go for insane pixel counts (at least 1920x1440) and use Mozilla zoom and app font settings to make things visible, but if your apps are stuck at fixed pixel sizes and can't zoom (or you're too stupid to make the adjustments), it may be more trouble than it's worth and you'll be happier at 1024x768.
Then if you want higher res, figure out what refresh rate your video card can do at that resolution. Anything less than 72Hz is going to be miserable, and 85Hz is nicer. If you're willing to go with 16-bit color instead of 24-bit (thousands of colors instead of millions), you can get a higher refresh rate. Some video cards say they can do 2048x1536 at 85 Hz, but you find it's only in 8-bit color mode, which is useless these days.
Unless you have thousands to spend, your resolution quest takes you beyond LCD's, and you have to get a CRT.
All modern CRT monitors will claim they can do 2048x1536, but check the refresh rate as above. And then, check the dot pitch. Tiny pixels and big phosphor dots don't mix.
Buy your monitor, plug it in, screw in the cables to avoid interference, position your monitor away from stray electromagnetic fields. Go for the massive resolution, make sure you've got the plug'n'pray correctly identifying your monitor and letting you max out the refresh rate. Then spend quality time with all the setup controls. You need zone convergence to align the colors in each area of the screen, and full geometry controls to compensate for tilt, skew, barrel, etc. Displaymate has some nice test patterns, or you can create your own in a paint program.
Realize your video card is crap and at midnight unscrew a PHB's PC and swap your card with her 300+MHz RAMDAC 32MB model, then find you have to recalibrate all your settings.
Eventually give up on 2048x1536 because GIF images are just too damn tiny, and go for 1856x1392.
If you're going for high resolution, you have to go Sony GDM-F500R or the newer 520. To my knowledge nobody else has 0.22 mm dot pitch across the screen. I have that at work plus the GDM-F400 at home at 1600x1200. They're both fantastic and have been perfect for over three years. But again if you're happy at 1024x768 the extra money isn't worth it. The Sony E and G series are nearly as good and a lot less. You may find a PHB with a GDM series that's wasted running at 1024x768, so do the midnight monitor swap, she'll never notice. Yes occasionally the two wires on the Trinitron are right where you're looking, but it's not a big deal for me.
An LCD monitor with a DVI connection to your display card should let you bypass all the messing around with geometry and convergence, but you need to be careful. As I understand it, unless the DVI connector and your video card are engineered right with dual TMDS transmitters, you can't do super-high resolutions through the digital interface.
=S
Get an ATI card (accept no substitutes) with s-video output.
Voila! You now have a HUGE monitor for $0 (assuming you already own the television.)
(My 36' Proscan TV -- more scanlines than standard -- cost $1200, about 1 month of house payments. I've already used it over 20,000 hours, and I have seen no better TV-out.)
At that point, any $15 monitor you pick up at a yardsale will be enough for your "monitor", which will actually become secondary as a TV is good enough and has enough resolution for small text like that which I am typing right now [on my TV].
Plus, you can now play dvds, download tv shows, watch Flash videos, use your computer as a VCR using only freeware, etc, on your primary screen. A screen is a screen, it shoudln't matter wheather a computer or movie is on it. Convergence is the wave of the future.
HDTV-Out would be even better of course.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I have been using an Iiyama 17" for the last 5 years and it is still near perfect. It cost about twice as much as a 17" today but the quality has been unsurpassed. All my recommendations to friends have been Iiyama monitors and none of them have had problems.
At work, we recently replaced all our CRTs with LCD screens and I pushed for Iiyama. Now the 15 of us in our department are running AS4314UT 17" flat screens which are stunning.
The one thing to be careful about though is that the quality of the screen is often determined by the output of the graphics chip. If you have a Compaq/HP or Dell PC with onboard graphics, you can expect to get a nasty fuzz on the screen. We drive our laptops through external displays and I recently had the opportunity to use a Toshiba Satellite Celeron with a Trident CyberBlade XP or a faster Satellite Pro P4 with Nvidia GeForce on board. The fuzz from the GeForce was terrible and I opted for the lower spec model (I am running it at 1280x1024).
So get a decent monitor, but make sure you have a high quality graphics card (at home I am still using Matrox and don't plan on changing).
I used to work at Adobe, and the specced monitors were either a Diamond Pro, or Sony Viewsonic? I went with the Diamond Pro 2040u and have no regrets. Er, make sure that your video card is up to snuff, it needs quality circuitry to handle the higher resolutions with enough power. (Typically an nVidia problem as some of their oems go with cheap components).
I asked around on IRC for a couple of hours, ordered my 17" ViewSonic from an online store, got it in the post a couple of days later and never had a problem with it. *shrug*
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
My computer desk is not too happy, though. The thing is HEAVY (77lbs, according to the specs), and the sag of the cheap particle board is quite noticible. (keeping fingers crossed I don't hear a crack/crash in the middle of the night)
:P
measure the dimensions of the piece of misbehaving particle board, or trace it on some butcher's paper/carboard/duct taped together newspaper, go down to home depot and buy a piece of 8x4' 1/4" plywood (no more than $16), trace your pattern onto it, and have them saw the pattern drawn onto the board. replace the POS particle board with somthing that won't break or sag and protect your $200 investment. if you're picky, grab a 1 pint can of stain and a 30 cent 3M foam brush to color match the visible parts.
my circa 1991 17" NEC monitor weighs at least 75 lbs (but it does 1792x1344@ 60hz and cost me $75 second hand 5 years ago). i'd say 77lbs is light for a modern 21" monitor.
moox. for a new generation.
I buy it at eBay and if it's crap I sell it at eBay.. :)
After my good old Sony Trinitron died after years of service I decided it was time to upgrade my geek status and go for an LCD.
This completely eliminates the problem of the quality of your individual monitor. All LCDs from the same type and model are all the same. Except for dead pixels. So you shouldn't choose the cheapest you can get but some supplier who is known for cool customer service who will exchange your screen at the first sight of a dead (sub)pixel. And get one with loads of warranty. I would suggest at least 3, better 5 years. Nothing is more annoying than seeing dead pixels showing up after the warranty period has ended.
And the best advice: Monitors are those things in life where you get what you pay for. So don't get the cheapest you can get !
RedShirt
Microsft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !!!
Things to note:
m /index.htm
If you're into 3D action gaming and not just work/slower gaming you need a good switching speed which almost allways means CRT. There are some iiyama LCD panels that have fast switching and don't blur in fast 3D action (tested by powergamers too!), but they're still not common. Double check before buying.
If you're going to get a CRT instead of a LCD consider a high contrast, brilliant color 'Triniton' class. Be carefull though, those've got 2 thin horizontal lines between the 1st and second and 2nd and 3rd part of the screen (stabilization wires). Some find them extremely disturbing. You won't want that to be so! I personally am just sitting in Front of one (Sony E400 Triniton Flatscreen Tube) and I can see the wires if I look for them, but I've got used to it and find the benefits outway the wirelines.
Otherwise, if you're not into fast/3D gaming, it's easyer: Get an LCD!
iiyama have a good price for top range quality, otherwise I recommend Eizo if you want to be on the safe side. Both are good at CRT and LCD, Eizo being a tad pricier (and better, imho). Allthough the last time I checked (looong time ago), their LCDs where good but had a little yellowish touch to their background light.
BTW: You'll also want an digital conection for your brand new LCD screen - maybe consider a digital grafics output GFX adapter. Converting analog VGA back and forth degrades gfx quality in a noticable manner!
Here are the URLs:
http://www.iiyama.com/
http://www.eizo.co
Another advice: Do not buy cheap junk LCD! It's not just about broken pixels but also the background lighting on bad LCDs that can be unbalanced and screw up the best panel with uneven brightness or darker patches across the screen. Very anoying!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Yeah, it had a degaussing button that you could press, and the whole screen would go "Blung", lose the picture briefly and then come back. Perhaps it did this on power up too, I've never seen the new monitor (same model and brand) do it by itself.
But the old one used to do it, without pressing button, all by itself, every half an hour. It wasn't until I persuaded the fixit shop to plug it in somewhere and just leave it on that they saw the problem and replaced it since they couldn't figure out what caused it. My bet would have been a faulty capacitor or fuse like system somewhere but I'm not a monitor/display mechanic so I have no clue really. It was truly devastating if I was playing a game either against the computer or on the net, because I couldn't see what was on the screen for a couple of seconds, and that would be when the game/other players would get me. Mostly it was just annoying. But I couldn't just ignore it because it started at about once every two hours and was becoming progressively more frequent, over period of a couple of months. All the other mitsubishi monitors I've come across have been fine. I've never seen any other monitor do that either. Mostly they die of colour misalignment or one colour dies altogether.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Decide how large you want the screen, e.g. 19". Now see if the most expensive monitors in that size category are within your budget. If not, drop down a size. It is a very bad move to buy the cheapest available in a size range.
As for finding out which are the best in that area, check reviews. Here's mine: Iiyama make the best monitors. They don't have the fanciest casings or the most user-friendly OSD, but they give the best picture I've seen anywhere. I've bought 2 of their CRTs, a 17" and a 19" (I forget the 17" model number, but the 19" is a VM Pro 454.) They're both absolutely perfect and a pleasure to look at.
I spend up to 18 hours a day in front of my monitor, so I consider it absolutely essential to get the best possible display quality.
BTW, Iiyama use Mitsubishi tubes, so I would guess Mitsubishi-brand are good too.
Rik
"So, what is your monitor buying process?"
It fell off the truck, how many times must i say that.
I'd say TFTs are the way to go, now. (just). I recently bought a Hitachi CML176SXW (17" tft) and its lovely - really good on the eyes, only 16ms pixel lifetime so games don't 'bleed' around the screen - managed to watch a DVD on it comfortably too.
However I'd recommend the NEC one that uses the same screen (forgotten the serial); as its cheaper and I think NEC have a better policy on dead pixel replacement. Take a look at Tom's Hardware's (www.tomshardware.com) display section.
Dig in dumpsters until I find a monitor that somewhat works, and dosent have coffee grounds on it. Us this one until I spill beer on it. Repeat process.
I deleted my sig years ago.
Flash up a spreadsheet/wordprocessor, flick between select all and select none, to make the screen flash black/white. If the power supply regulation is good then bumping up and down the beam current in this way wont cause the vertical size of the raster to change by more than about a mm, if the raster stretches by more than +- 3->5mm, pick another monitor.
I've bought myself a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 17" (750SB)Monitor fairly recently after seeing a friends screen. It is the BEST CRT display I have ever owned or seen (short of the 21" we have at work on the SGI's.
So in answer to the original poster: I look around at what friends, colleagues &c have got. Find one I like. Buy it mailorder/online. If I don't like it, use my 'cooling off' period to return it no questions asked.
Just my GBP 0.02.. Kev
-- These views are my own and do not represent those of my employer in any way.
My last big monitor purchase was 4 years ago. I did not see the monitors I bought before purchasing them. I went on reputation of the monitor series (and manufacturer), customer reviews of the monitor (available at countless sites), and quality ratings... which I gathered from reviews, specs, price, and so on. Everyone's definition of quality differs; YMMV. I'm not nearly as price conscious when purchasing monitor(s) compared to other hardware purchases, as the monitor will outlast all others in longevity and value if you buy the right one for yourself.
In my case, I do a lot of development work, and a fair bit of gaming. I wanted dual head, and a lot of space. I ended up going with two IBM P260's. As I said, that was four years ago - they have lasted through 2 upgrades since the original PC components I bought them with. Great monitors; probably a bit dated now - I don't know as I haven't looked at any recently.
I fail to see how a piece of 1/4" plywood would hold up a 77Lb monitor. Perhaps a sheet of 3/4" or 1" plywood would be a better idea.
To maintain harmony, I will assume that was a typo, and insert this as a correction and not an attack.
They don't kick you off slashdot for being nice anymore, do they?
The emperor is naked.
A high resolution/high lumen projection LCD is so much better than any traditional monitor it will stun you.
My screen is 6' by 5' but only takes up the volume of a toaster and can be carried around with one finger.
This is not your old-fashioned dim projector either; I project on an off-color wall but the brightness is as high as a CRT.
Yes, it is more expensive; but this is not a minor quality difference--it's shock and awe.
The monitor isn't the only factor in display quality. I bought a Sony E400 (19" crt) for about IE£ 450 3 years ago. Through that time, it's probably been on 4 different graphics cards. The monitor itself is exceptional, there is no question of that...
I had a cheap but fast Geforece 2 GTS from Asus at the time, which was pretty poor. The card handled 1280x1024@85Hz without a problem. The image was ever so slightly blurry. Since then I've had a GF3 ti200 from Asus which was visibly better at the same resolution and refresh. I've also owned an MSI gf4 ti4200, which was equally good.
So make a note of the serial number on the RAMDAC if you find a good card, and try and buy something using the same chip next time.
Ok, I agree that Sony monitors have outstanding image quality. However, here's my anecdotal evidence that they need some better quality control when it comes to the rest of the parts (not just for monitors)...
1. My first color monitor was a 15" Trinitron purchased back in "87. Had to replace the power supply twice within four years.
2. My 27" Trinitron TV wouldn't lock onto a TV channel after just one year of use. Fortunately, I'm able to use the tuner on my VCR so I don't have to throw in the towel on this one yet.
3. I've owned two high end Sony VCRs...both crapped out within two years...neither was used more often than a couple times per week.
4. Sony Walkman...dead after just 4 months.
It may have just been my bad luck, but I won't be buying any more Sony products in the near future.
Just another day in Paradise
I have a trinitron CPD-e200 17" great monitor, unfortunatly it has developed screen defects (glass has several scratches in places, heck if i know what causes them) and has been retired from LAN parties due to the annoyance, it is on my workbox (one small one is center screen, others are upper left region :( ) so it runs my tuner card (great TV image). i am definatly getting another when i have the bones, along with a screen protector tote thingy, heh.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
erm, yes, 3/4" or better yet 1" would do the trick. sorry, i've been researching making dinghys out of 1/4" plywood for the past month... also depends on the span between the supports for the wood, although judging from what had been previously mentioned about the bend, it's a fairly signifigant distance, so 1" would be warranted.
moox. for a new generation.
I have a Cornerstone monitor. It's designed for professional imaging. It's the best monitor on the market. 21" monitor with crisp images, that I have ever seen. We use them with the IBM Image Plus system at work. DVI, RGB and VGA. Refresh rates in 150 to 200+. Anyone else have a Cornerstone monitor?
I couldn't agree more. I was thinking about upgrading several major parts of my system. Instead, I bought a 19-inch LCD (ViewSonic VG191). It was the best upgrade I have ever done. More than anything else, it has changed my mindset towards my system (went from "love" to "worship"). A good and large LCD monitor, coupled with a nice video card that does DVI, is beautiful and will enhance everything you do. My subsequent upgrade, going from an AMD T-bird 1200 to a XP 2100+ was disappointing when compared to the monitor.
P.S. Compaq sucks, too.
Ok since you seem to know a lot more than me about the way monitor-displays work, can I ask a stupid question:
What is the difference between XGA and UXGA and why is UXGA more common (hypothetically) in laptop TFT than desktop TFT?
And is this anything to do with the pixel pitch that I was talking about ie how close the pixels are together, and the native resolution of a TFT/LCD screen.
I suspect I may know but have been overtaken by the corporate jargon generator...
Sources of my confusion:
LCD price fixing thread
UXGA on laptop not the same as what you get on a desktop LCD monitor?
and specific post although I can't find the post that inspired this reply...
Huh? A 15" LCD isn't UXGA, it is XGA (1024x768).
[the rest of it was] I think 17" qualifies as UXGA (I think 1280x1024), which of course, can be had for $500. I am pretty sure one can get a laptop with 1400something x 1000 screen for $1000. Not exactly an apples comparison but the laptop has a better resolution screen than what you can find as a stand-alone monitor for $1000.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I bought a formerly leased 22" NEC FE1250 for under $400 after shipping was added in and have been happy with it so far. Make sure to look for a good company (check them out on resellerratings.com), and only buy stuff that's in A+ condition.
But it.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Get three, and a Parhelia.
6144 x 1536
True Love
i'm looking for a CRT with a *real* DVI interface (not DVI-A, the analogic kind..) to bypass the DAC-on-vid'card problem (my reasonning being that if the screen has a built-in DAC, there's a very good chance that this DAC has been chosen carefully and has been tuned for the tube and hence can offer a better picture ).
Some were announced as of a few years ago, but i could only find one, with a DVI-A (so, still analog). Guess i'll have to wait some more time..
i had a sig, once..
Why go elsewhere? I Install NEC monitors at banks day-in and day-out. One out of ten of the monitors we recieve are DOA and 40% that have been in service over two years are too dim or blurry for professional use. The client wants to keep them because they're so cheap (we get fe750 CRTs for about $120 each).
I personally like Hitachi and Sony monitors. I'd kill for a LaCie ElecronBlue CRT though.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
if it connects to a mac, it's more than likely a better monitor than just a PC monitor, in my experience. For example, my SONY Trinitron Multiscan 100ES. Very nice!
stuff |
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This does not directly answer the question, but it can make life a little easier. When you go shopping, go to your local computer store and play with the best stuff that they have on display. Buy the display there, and if there are problems, you can just return it to the local store. Cheap goods on ebay and PriceWatch seem like a good idea at the time, but when things go wrong, you have to deal with phone calls, email, and shipping to fix the problem, which is almost never worth the savings.
You should be able to fix it with some Jeweler's Rouge and a lot of rubbing. I don't know where the "right" place to buy it is, I usually get some from the same place I bought my eyeglasses.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
When I recently (within the last year) upgraded to a nice Samsung PerfectFlat 19"er, I went to several large discount stores to try to buy a good chunk of illuminated glass. Although I had read that buying a monitor is best in person, I have to offer this one caution -- know the limitations of the store's displays.
Why in the hades must stores insist on hooking up 55 monitors to the same damn video signal? The guy even admitted it was awful...static, etc. STATIC?!?!? On a monitor!? Incredible. Yet I picked my monitor out from all those and got lucky. I asked if I could pull some off the shelf and have them hooked up independently, but the guy conveniently pointed out the 20lb. log chain attached to each, and I gave up on it.
The point is: Put the displays through the best you can give them at the store. Ask if you can control the signalling computer. (I was able to do *anything* in one store, and I amused the staff and customers for awhile with my antics as a 10x10 monitor wall started doing my bidding. Most entertaining.) Give them the best shot, try to burn them out on site...give them refresh rates that would make your mother scream in pain.
But at the end of the day, it's a lot of luck. Good luck!
Blog,Twitter
go to ebay and buy a giant old workstation monitor that is for sale in your area that you won't have to pay shipping for.
Large Chain electronic shops (Future Shop here in Canada, for example) typically have an *excellent* return policy for the first 5 to 15 days. They should have a satisfaction guarantee or your money back return policy. Don't be shy to take advantage of it!
I still haven't made the move to LCD because the cost/quality isn't there for me. Friends of mine of have gone LCD absolutly swear by it though.
:-).
Anyway I can directly compare my NEC FE950+ and ViewSonic G90F and while the ViewSonic is a good monitor I would not hesitate to replace it with the NEC. The NEC is a Trinitron Tube and is far flatter than the 'True-Flat' ViewSonic. My sample size is two of each monitor.
I also have a used 21" Sony that was left on for a long time and it has shown significant fadeout so what ever monitor you choose, you should turn it off when you aren't using it
On a historical note I can also compare the Sony 17SE and the ViewSonic 17PS and the 17SE is also far flatter, looking at the ViewSonic these days reminds me of staring into a crystal ball.
I really like to have my resolutions at 1200x1600. The problem is that almost no monitors that are bigger then 20" display this very well. I went through two Viewsonics, and then settled for the highend Samsung 22". (I also tried other ones at work...) These monitors all displayed very nicely at lower resolutions, but at the higher resolutions, there where obvious deformations in straight lines, sometimes unstable sections of the screen, etc.
So be sure to preview your screen at the resolution/colour depth/frequency that you are intending to ultimately be stuck with.
I hate trinitrons. You always see thin black horizontal lines.
Eat at Joe's.
Speaking of monitors...
Can any of you out there recommend a 21+" monitor (less than $600) for CAD/CAM purposes?
Thanksblueorder
Your red spot might just be the mask bulging away from the front of the tube. Place it screen downwards for a few days and it might go away.
Cthulhu loves you.
I flat REFUSE to buy a monitor w/o cute little blue, purple, and yellow birds in the corner. That narrows my decision making down quite a bit. Other brands come and go on the top 5 list but ViewSonic is always there. I can only think of one monitor that arrived and was sent back due to a defect and that was easily solved by waiting for a new one to arrive. Besides, whenever I see their logo I think of little penguins... and that makes me happy!
---------
Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Wuh, I think so brain, but how are we going to get a monkey to use dental floss?
-- !!It IS as BAD as you think and they ARE out to get you!!
I saw a 446Xpro four years ago... with jaw-dropping image quality, so at work we decided to get the new model, 466pro. Two years later four out of five 446pro:s had the problems as you described. Two went white-ish, two yellow-ish and one was acceptable. We finally discovered a way to postpone the slow death of these Finnish masterpieces by entering the secret code that gets the monitor into service mode, where there are some special menus that can correct these color problems at least temporary... (I remember some setting called "G2"?) This way the monitors were usable for another year or so, but Nokia, never again! Kinda sad story. As for the secret code, I don't remember it right now... I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Good luck :)
You are wise in not purchasing a CRT through mail order, if only because of the variation in display quality (even from the most well-regarded manufacturers) and the cost of shipping a faulty unit back to them. But nowadays I would not hesitate to purchase a flat-panel monitor from a quality manufacturer, such as ViewSonic or Samsung (the maker of my current flat-panel monitor, a SyncMaster, which is well-designed and a joy to use).
It is fucking l337, and DVDs look AWESOME on it.. it IS a bit heavy tho.
I've got a 21" Sony Trinitron that I need to sell since I'm moving.
I don't have the box though, so unless you live in the Boston area, it probably isn't much help.
I do highly recommend the 21" Sony Trinitrons though if you are going with a CRT - they are quite nice.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
My computer desk is not too happy, though. The thing is HEAVY (77lbs, according to the specs), and the sag of the cheap particle board is quite noticible. (keeping fingers crossed I don't hear a crack/crash in the middle of the night)
Do I do, cut a piece of 2x4 to fit underneath the monitor between the particle board and the floor. My not be the prettiest solution, but it will fix the sag and won't break.
Reviews, yes.
Store, no.
A lot of stores just don't know how to set up their monitors, or they have a whole bunch hooked up to a splitter, as others have pointed out. Walk around Best Buy and half the monitors are like strobe lights because of the 60hz default refresh rate. I went to Microcenter and they were all like that.
I bought my monitor, a Samsung 900NF, based on reviews. My criteria: 19", aperture grille, high refresh rates at high resolutions. It was worth every cent of the $400+ I paid for it a couple of years ago.
I know it's CRT and not LCD, but i can never get enough screen real estate and this monitor makes development so much easier on the eyes with the wide wide 24" display.
Big Ass Monitor
Interesting... my experience has been exactly the opposite. I'm using a MAG XJ700T that I bought about 4 years ago, and have absolutely no problems with.
On the other hand, my company has been deploying 21" ViewSonics (over 150 in the past year) and is seeing a failure rate of about 30%, including units DOA.
Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
-- Cicero
Given the brightness level and resolution of some of the newer (and pricier) projectors, I'm half tempted to dump the monitor altogether on my next computer purchase and go with a ceiling mounted projector and a good reflective screen for the wall.
You think I could watch movies with this too maybe?
Five years ago, I read the reviews, and bought an iiyama 17" Monitor (around $700, then) via mail order.
When I got it, the bottom of the screen was kind of fuzzy.
I called Iiyama (not the online place I bought it from). They sent me a pre-paid shipping box (FedEx) to send the old one back, and the new one arrived in about 2 weeks from the time I sent the old one back.
Alternatively, if I had given them a credit card number, they would have charged me for the new one and sent it, and refunded me when they received the old one.
Bottom line: Iiyama makes good monitors. I got a bad one, but they fixed it fast and free. I will probably buy from them again.
Buyer beware: This was 5 years ago -- check their current return policy.
When they toss out a monitor at work (even if it's under warranty) that has gome 'blurry', I take it home, open it up, turn the focus knob, and upgrade my current monitor.
Apparently, they went blurry quite often at one point in time. Must have been a bad batch they bought. I'm up to a 19" now and it didn't cost me a dime.
It's all the extra 15" monitors in my garage that need to go somewhere.
The Samsung SyncMaster 950p. 19 inches of CRT goodness, one of the cheapest priced on the market, and despite it's low price-point probably the best image I've seen out of any 19" monitor, ever. I'll be buying a second one soon enough for dual-head display, in fact.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
You're right. I won't deny that the Viewsonics are ok. They're not terrible which is the case for a majority of manufacturers out there. They're P-series are a great value.
BUT... the Conerstones are a notch better for about the same price. Usually the glass is just a stitch flatter, the resolution (my 19" CRT does 2048 where most will do 1600) is one step higher, the refresh rate is 5herts higher, the pitch is at the same of any other leading manufacturer, or a combination thereof for the same monitor. I don't know how much confidence you can purchase them with since
- Online purchase only
- I've only bought one (well thats a good sign if I'm still using it after 4 years with no complaint)
If you have a little extra to spend ($50-$100) and want a bit more quality for the same monitor though, I would have to recommend getting a Sony. There's just no arguing that one. Purchased 2 18" Flats in a dual setup for a friend in Graphics Design along with his Wildcat Card and they look sweet.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
I went to a couple stores and asked to see the View Sonic PF790. A lot of them wouldn't take them out of the box so I had to walk out of the store. They wanted to charge me a restocking fee just so that I could see if the picture quality was any good.
It just so happened that one of my friends purchased a PF790 on the same week so I headed over to his house to look at it.
It was good enough for me to buy, but it was a mistake. ViewSonic monitors are the cheapest pieces of crap compared to my old monitor (NEC Multisync from '86 - it lasted 14 years before dieing).
My friends PF790 had the contrast go on it. The screen on my PF790 started shaking (About half a pixel back and forth - very annoying to look at) and about a week after that started the monitor just went black.
I had to drive it to North York to their wearhouse and dropped it off at the back - they let me keep the cables (Yeah!) and 1 day later they had another PF790 delivered to my doorstep. This one has lasted about a year or so, but the pixels in the corner are going. I can see red blotches on the left and blue blotches on the right of the monitor.
So to recap ViewSonic - Good Service, Crappy Monitors.
Anyone know if a 19" LCD exists yet with a monitor switch on it (i.e. dual inputs controlled by a switch on the front)? That's my next acquisition goal...
We have a couple labs I used to take care of in part, we had a pile of IBM monitors and a lot of Viewsonics. The Veiwsonics are still crisp as ever, the IBMs however have had lots of em cracked to take care of blurriness issues, and a few have died entirely. The Viewsonics however have remained entirely stable, with little sign of wear in a high use enviroment. Wish I hadn't traded off mine :/
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
I bought that monitor a few months ago for $764 w/ shipping. It's an excellent monitor. Nice flat 22" CRT, bright, chrisp, good on-screen HUD, and this specific model has inputs for two monitors. Nice. You'll like it.
You have NOT seen a display until you use an Apple flatscreen. The thing is pure beauty and you will love it 100%. Anyone who sees mine is immediately insanely jealous.
because they suck.
well.. for what its worth I picked up a pair of the new 20" formacs last december. My process was: a) how much screen space do I need b) what physical monitor dimensions work (b more or less ruled out traditional CRTs, but even so I researched a few) c) what characteristics do I need it to have d) waht are non-traditional reviews saying (IE not PC mag or their ilk). So for me, I needed a lot of screen space, a smaller foot print as I'm already too close to the screens. That pushed me towards LCD. My needs are divergent - much time spent with generic text based stuff, but also a need for accurate color for photography stuff as well as speedy refresh for games (no ghosting!). I found CAD industry reviews helpful. Ended up with the formacs as they use a new technology that results in faster pixel refresh, and they are excellent at producing accurate color. Toss in the 2 dead pixel guaranty and it fit my needs.
I've made good use of these kinds of monitors. The 15" thing that came with my Dell was great and lasted for 10 years. My wife uses a NEC Multisync 3D that I bought for $75. It may not be considered good enough for CAD work these days, but it's a fine general purpose monitor. I have several monitors I pulled from the trash that are very useful for temporary set ups. A neighbor of mine threw out a 15" monitor when he moved. It displays 1078x768 very well and I used it temporarily as a second monitor while I learned how to set up printing on a Debian machine. It's relativly small and light, so when I'm finished it will not be a chore to put it up. I have a few from the trash that needed some minor adjustments, such as focus, and some that worked then died. Most of them can probably be fixed with minor repairs at a competent repair shop, so I'm hanging on to them in case someone I know needs it.
Monitors from CompUSA have been a mixed bag. I used and enjoyed a nice big cheap monitor for about two years, then it joined the pile of not working monitors. When I bought it for around $200 I thought it was a good deal. When it burnt I was not so sure, but bought another one anyway.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I haven't bought a display in about 5 years, up until a couple of weeks ago when it finally gave up. I'm here to report great success with this simple strategy: I went up to the sales guy and said "I'm looking for the best deal I can find on the best flatpanel I can find." He asked me if a just-discontinued model was OK and I wound up paying just over 400 USD for an 18.1" NEC flatpanel with dual input. I'm very please with the results and I'll be trying that more often in the future.
I'm waiting for the day someone tells me that my monitor has been fooling me for years. I'm happy with my wife too. =:>
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
My wife just got a new Dell computer for digital image work and whatnot. We found a refurbished 21" Nokia monitor at overstock.com for around $200, and shipping was only $2.95. The screen is beautiful, crisp, and just what she was looking for.
How can those lines be massively annoying? They are a fraction of a pixel high, even at 1600x1200. I just pointed those lines out to a co-worker who had been using dual trinitron monitors for two years. He'd never seen them.
You can't beat the contrast and colourrichness of a trinitron. Add to that the amazing life of trinitron screens (they stay colorful and high contrast for decades), and you've got a winner.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
My best advice is too find anything with a Sony Trinitron screen. I myself found a Dell Labeled 21" Sony Trinitron for NIB for about half what the same Sony Labeled Trinitron goes for.
Go to Tikrit - wait a day or two - then there will be plenty to loot^H^H^H^Hacquire. Shipping costs and bomb avoidance might be a problem.
To Gateway's credit, they shipped out replacement monitors (at their cost) very quickly. I heard somewhere that Sony was having trouble with some of their monitors that came from other companies that had been contracted to produce them, but I don't know whether there's any truth to that.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Princeton Graphics yet. I've had an AGF900 for about four years now, and it's about the nicest piece of glass I've ever used. I've played with a Viewsonic G-series 21", and I just didn't like it as much as my 19" Princeton. Yes, you'll pay for it, but wow, is it beautiful. I use it for Photoshop and Quake III, mostly, and even after four years (and five changes of location, and several months in storage, and...) it still looks as good as the day I bought it. On top of that, it supports sync-on-green, so I can use it with SGIs, Suns, and other expensive workstations; certainly beats the crappy monitors SGI sells (I had an O2 on my desk a few years ago with a 21" SGI monitor, and all I thought about, all day long, was how much I wanted my Princeton).
Anyhow, there's my two cents: buy a Princeton and be happy.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Its all about the mags! All the programemrs here have mags, all the artists have ... trinitrons or viewsonics.
;)
As most engineers tend to be paid more, that must mean that Mags are better.. right..?
>2. I would avoid buying an LCD unless you're short on space. More expensive, usually has a mediocre refresh rate.
Come on chief. I can make a believer of you in about 2 minutes. Go to any store that has computers and monitors on display. Helps if you have CRTs next to LCDs in the same isle.
Step back about 10 feet.
Bring up the same screen of text (black text on a white background) on both screens.
Look at the CRT. With your eyes open, chomp your teeth a couple of times. The screen image jumps all over the place. Get closer to the screen. Look at one side of the monitor and quickly dart your eyes all around the screen, back and forth. It jumps all around.
Repeat this with the LCD. Rock solid image.
As for refresh rates, all LCDs will do 60Hz or higher.
If you meant response time, that is pretty much crap. I have a low end Envision 5100e with a 50ms response time and it is plenty fast for FPS games (Q3A, UT2003, etc.) The current generation of screens are running in the 30ms - 25ms range. If the human eye can't discern anything faster than 30Hz anyways, anything faster than that is simply review magazine puffery.
-
I also have a ViewSonic E70f on the same desk as my other gear and I like it. It is getting replaced as soon as my Dell 1800fp arrives, however, because I want to do code at 1280x1024 and this monitor gets a little fuzzy at that resolution. Not a lot, just a little. The extra 2" of screen space will be nice too.
I'm not bagging on you, I honestly want to help you. Go to Best Buy and play a FPS on a nice LCD. You will be amazed, and eager to get one.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
--I try to snag anything that is still useful for normal joe user or small office computing. Some I fix and give away, the rest I am stashing up, eventually I'd like to have a local business and sell them,with pre installed linux. there's no one around here really doing this now and new prices at the local shops are in-sane. I can't work out of where I live right now-various reasons- or I'd be already doing it. Biggest problem is all the old boxes just need a lot more ram (huge variable there of course on species of ram) or larger hard drives to be practical. Well, that and most of them have winmodems also. Probably have more than a dozen near complete "spare" systems now, pcs and macs, beyond my own personal ones I want to keep.
The fact of the matter is that your eyes are more important than your wallet.
I lost my 20/20 vision staring at a Sony trinitron for 12 hours a day. My glasses and doctor's appointment cost me $400.
That same $400 will buy an 18" LCD, 1280x1024 at WalMart.
But the WalMart LCD. It's crisp, clear, and good for your eyes.
I agree especially with the last part. Most stores put some pretty pictures of flowers or have some movie playing on the screen. All of the monitors can display that well so it's hardly much of a test. The last time I went monitor shopping, the guy in the department that sold monitors tried to push the biggest, most expensive monitor on me. All the monitors were hooked up to the same source so I asked him to turn off the DVD player and set it up so the monitors all displayed the same Windows desktop. I then opened a Word document and selected the smallest possible font size - I believe it was 8 - and typed out a bit of text. Amazing how so many of the high priced monitors were not displaying the text as sharp as a cheaper priced Futura that I ended up buying. I'm not saying anyone should get a Futura - it just displayed the text better than all the other types of monitors they happened to have there. Anyhow, I spend much more time reading text than playing the latest FPS or watching DVDs on my computer so this was a very important criteria in a monitor for me. As always, YMMV.
HTTP header ad space for rent! Advertise to thousands of server log readers - only $50 a week per header! 1-800-SURFALOT
WTF?!!!!
Ok I read through all the resonses on my ViewSonic 70f 17" CRT and they were all good. As I was finishing the UPS guy rang the bell and dropped off the Dell 1800fp UltraSharp 18" LCD I ordered yesterday. Lucky me.
:
After considering all that I have seen here, I have the following suggestions
1. You are going to use your monitor for a very long time, probably keeping it when you toss your computer for a new one.
2. With the exception of how fast things actually happen, the monitor, keyboard and mouse ARE your computer. You can go from 256M to 1G of RAM and triple the CPU but in effect you are still looking at the same computer (things just happen a little faster.)
OT. Damn this thing is bright. I have only been using the 1800fp for about 10 minutes and I am already getting raster burn.
3. I have this sneaking feeling that LCDs are going to last a LOT longer than CRTs. Maybe I am dreaming, but I am expecting to get between 5 and 10 years of use from this thing. Turn on a laptop that has TFT and is older than 4 or 5 years for a good example of this.
4. Ever move your computer around? CRTs are heavy, LCDs are light.
5. Going from a 17" CRT to an 18" LCD increases your screen size (square inches) by about 1/4th. Remember that a 17" CRT means 16" viewable.
6. A good 19" CRT is going to run you about $200 delivered. Note - I didn't say a crap 19", I said a good one. The 1800fp I ordered yesterday cost $382 plus tax. The difference is only about $200.
7. You can wall mount your LCD with a $30 adapter and some screws. Zero footprint on your desk.
8. If you run three or four machines in the same room, four 19" CRTs are going to take up a LOT of real estate, generate a LOT of heat. Piss on the electricity savings claims, I am more concerned with keeping my office under 80 degrees during the day.
If you are going to be buying a new monitor anyways I imagine you were already looking at $200 shipped for a 19". Kick in another $200 and find an 18" LCD on sale for $400. Same display size. Killer display that you will use for a very long time.
The only downside to LCDs is that 15" LCDs peak at 1024x768 and I like to crank up the resolution when I am coding, see more code on the screen at one time.
You only pay for it once, but you have to use it for the rest of your life (or close enough.)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
...after only five short years, so I went to Discount Electronics here in Austin to check the 19" refurbished Dell (Trinitron) monitors. They look rather nice. Took one home and I've been loving it. The 30 day warranty is about up. I hope it last another five years but it last two, I will still be happy with Discount Electronics (who I do not work for). Thanks, guys!
Now, once I get a job and maybe out of debt (QUIT LAUGHING - IT COULD HAPPEN), I just might get either an 18" LCD or a 24" inch Triniton wide screen. We will see. If this refurbished monitor DOES last two years or more, I maybe never buy a new one again.
I didn't mind spending over $600 per monitor, either. They are worth every penny.
Bottom line : don't go with a cheap monitor. With monitors, you get what you pay for and you don't get what you don't pay for. Do yourself a favor and drop the bucks on a nice one. Count on the monitor being the most expensive part of any system, by far. Your eyes will thank you.
Also, if you're going to be playing any high refresh-rate games, go with a CRT. LCDs are getting better all the time, but they still have much slower transition times, per pixel, then CRTs do.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
>I'm using a 20" Silicon Graphics GDM-20E21 monitor that I resurected from beside a dumpster where I live.
You didn't buy it, you boosted it. This is only funny because sitting on the sidewalk outside of Circuit City yesterday was a used NEC 5fg (or something) 17 incher. Looked old, used, lots of finger grime and dirt on the power switch but it was intact.
I mentioned it to the sales drone inside, thinking that maybe they better go get it before somebody walked off with it. He replied 'you want it? take it.' Heh. Appropriate here, I guess. It may still be there for all I know.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Plugged in the 2000FP on analog, and it can't lock on to text-mode Linux. The top line is off the top, and the bottom line is off the bottom. Auto-adjust doesn't fix it. You can pan with the onscreen menu, or zoom in, but not resize in any way to shrink the screen. It's a shame -- the other LCD I tried (KDS Rad-9) had no such problem, and has full resize capability in the menu in any case.
You had to keep some button on the front pressed while turning on the monitor to be able to enter the secret code. It might have been the "menu" button? Also, the code was something like "5455". Not sure of the numbers though. A colleague of mine found the code on some Swedish computer price discussion forum... Can't seem to find it now though.
must be more complicated, although some of the websites I looked up suggested same as Carnivore.
For instance I can make my 14" TFT screen on the laptop display at UXGA/1600x1200 but I can't read it because the pixel pitch or pixels per inch isn't dense enough. Ie its a bit like when you make a jpg and compress too much and then the picture is too fuzzy to read/recognise people or places. Ie the display software uses some sort of interpolation to map the 1600x1200 onto its native resolution.
But depending what software I use, if I try to display 1600x1200 on 800x600, mostly I have to scroll to see the whole picture.
Ie I'd be really pissed off if I bought a screen which the manufacturer/sales guy told me was UXGA, when it really was only XVGA in native resolution.
I know CRTs follow different rules, but on the LCD/TFT, they are limited by the actual native pixel count.
Right now I have cool set up, which allows me to plug the desktop monitor into the laptop and use both screens at once, so I have the realestate from both screens at once. That's only limited by the memory and software available to the graphics card. I love having two monitors though, cos I can open the help doco/debug/test window on one monitor and the code window in another
It seems that native uxga seems to be available on the 20" LCD desktops (ie screen is larger cos they can't fit the pixels closer together for a marketable price) although I've seen it advertised for 15" laptop screens, so I wonder if the higher density pixel LCDs come out for laptops/notebooks/palms before they are available for Desktop monitors.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I just go into the store, set the store's computer to 1600x1200 resolution at at least 72Hz, and, using a magnifying glass, look for the monitor that has no fuzziness on the dots of the colon in the time in the corner. I've found that many monitors claim 1600x1200 resolution, but very few pass this test (and thus, as far as I'm concerned they are lying about their resolution). It seems that the horizontal dot pitch has to be about 0.22 or below to pass. Apparently, the resolution specification is based on the electronics, not the mask.
When the monitor passes this test, I find working my normal 12 hour days at 1600x1200 in small fonts is not tiring to the eyes. The sharpness of the text is far more important than the size. Fuzzy text at just about any size is tiring.
The very same monitors tend to play 3D games very nicely at 2048x1536. Games don't require the sharpness that text does and in fact, I think they benefit some from some fuzziness (probably in the same way that photographs benefit from printing with dye sublimation instead of inkjets).
Look at Sun/SGI branded Sony 21" GDM monitors. I got one a year old (thanks for dumping hundreds of them Nortel!) for $500 CDN out the door. It utterly rawks. They're about 3X that new. I found it locally, on eBay.
These aren't the consumer monitors, the GDM line is a bit nicer than that; you'll need to research the models a bit as there's lots and the older ones are not what you want.
Need Mercedes parts ?
1) Buy a big name brand such as Sony, NEC, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Iiyama, Samsung, etc. (note Viewsonic and MAG don't count) In my personal experience monitors with Sony tubes hold up really well.
2) Buy the most expensive from the brand you select in the size you want. These tend to be the monitors intended for professional graphics arts or CAD use so they will hold up well.
While this will cost more than getting the cheapest 22" monitor WalMart has you will end up with something you can still stand to look at after 7 years of daily use.
Specific reccomendation? Sony GDM-F520
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
How much is a 27" color TV ?
Now, how much you gotta fork out for a 27" CRT ?
Why the huge price difference ?
As far as I know, over 99% of the parts that are used to make a TV are also being used to make the CRT.
Why then that 1% makes such a HUGE difference in price ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Stuffed if I know what is funny about the parent, but I'll take what I can get.
Maybe this moderator got the wheel mouse, like when you pick a mod and forget to click off the mod box before trying to scroll down with a wheel mouse. That's how to go instantly from interesting to troll.
Which might explain why my informative posts get modded troll, my insightful ones get modded funny, and my funny ones get modded interesting. Viva diversity of humour (or shoot the guys who made dumb and dumber).
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Get the biggest monitor you can afford with the lowest dot pitch. I.E. my monitor is a 19" flat CRT with a .20 dot pitch. This thing is so clear, I'd swear it's clearer than real life. Don't be fooled by stripe pitch either. You'd have to get a .17 stripe pitch to have the clarity of a .20 dot pitch.
As far as I know, over 99% of the parts that are used to make a TV are also being used to make the CRT.
Then you don't know much. The reason is that CRTs have insanely better resolution, accept digital input, and have incredibly insanely better resolution! Compare the resolution on an HDTV and then the resolution of a cheap no-brand 15" CRT. Yeah...I'd take the 15" CRT, too.
Two Words: Diamond Pro
Mitsubishi all the way
and save money. That's what I normally do for major components. For example, a bit of digging showed me that my Envision 19" CRT has the same guts and the same specs as the ViewSonic AF90... at half the retail price.
C|N>K
I became a Sony Nazi years and years ago with my first Sony 17" Trinitron (For $1005!). Since then I've decided it's all I really want to look at. My wife and I have twin Sony 21" (one HP branded, one Dell), and they both rock. These monitors can be found on the cheap from dying DotComs, or from model retirement. I picked up the HP branded one for $350, brand new in the box from a local retailer who bought two entire skids of 'em when HP changed the bezel or something.
Both of these monsters do 2048x1536 @70hz (one does 75 I think), so you don't go flicker-blind, assuming you have a video card that can support this (ahem, not NVIDIA, they only do 16-bit color @60hz at that rez, all of them).
At work, I'm stuck with 17" Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 72's, and they've got similar quality to the Sony. I probably wouldn't hesitate in buying one of the larger models of Misubishi.
I do believe my next purchase will be a Sony W900 24" widescreen, my wife had one at one of her jobs and it's great for DVD's, since these are bigger than our TV anyway, and it allows you to have two pages open side by side in Quark.
I like music
I bough myself this hitachi LCD monitor and can wouch for it's low latency. Screen is perfect (not single dead pixel or subpixel)
;> )
Also my friends who play more those quake/unreal kind of games played several hours on it and said it's usable to games. It also has better contrast than 21" dell I have sitting next to it.
Safe to say I won't ever buy CRT screen anymore.(now I just need to replace the dell with 240T