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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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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Careful there! You've just disturbed the cheap monitor racket!
Buy monitor, tint poorly, return, have a friend buy it, sell on black market, buy guns and drugs. I'd watch my back if I were you.
...
HAH! The fact you mentioned the gimp shows you know naught of which you speak. I assure you, all graphic designers who work professionally as a designer, use trinitron screens. A few these days might use the really high end sony lcds, but they're mainly for DTP, not design, as even the top of the line mac screens are still not as good as a crt for colour matching.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
because of the proprietary ADC connector
:)
Actually its not propreitary, Apple just happens to be the only company that uses them.
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.
I think the key is to ignore them from the start. Else you'll notice them everytime your eye scans by them, and you'll go insane and turn into a laughing maniac.
BTW. The lines are very thin. Much thinner that a pixel. And they're only noticable on a plain, non-dark background.
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
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 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.
The lines are much smaller than a pixel, and you will not notice them after the first day. (Well, except when someone who has never used a Trinitron for more than a day posts a stupid comment about them on slashdot, and you look for them.)
You notice them when you're dealing with single pixel details? So you're saying that when you're dealing with single-pixel details in Photoshop, running your monitor at resolutions Trinitron users are likely to, you don't ZOOM IN? Right. 10 hours a day. Right. Do you expect to go blind from eyestrain this week or next?
Trinitrons rock. They have the sharpest, flatest screens in the business. Some people don't seem to care about flat. Non-flat drives me buggy. YMMV.
I don't do fine detail, I do text. But I like things sharp, and I like lot's of screen real-estate.
For years when my non-techie friends asked me for computer buying advice, I had only 1 rule*: Spend some extra dough on the monitor, it will improve your computing experience more there than anywhere else, and chances are in 5 years the only thing you'll still have is the monitor.
When I went to buy a new monitor, I looked at what my various graphic designer friends favored, and went with the unanimous choice: A nice big Trinitron.
*I've recently added a second piece of computer buying advice: Don't buy a Compaq. That's not really on-topic here, but I made a solemn vow to their phone "support" people that I'd mention it any time I discussed computer buying...
Exaggeration will not help you make a point.
Trinitron tubes have two thin horizontal wires across the screen, about a third of the way from the top and bottom. These wires are much thinner than a pixel, but do show up against bright graphics.
But they are not "massively annoying", because many people do manage to ignore them. The simple proof is that many people who didn't know about those lines don't even notice them until they are told.
I disagree. Games and web browsing are where the lines are most noticable. In graphics, the color accuracy, sharpness, brightness, and typically better pixel geometry of a Trinitron win out, and you can generally scroll the image around if you're dealing with a particular part that happens to fall under one of the guide wires.
I'm a big Trinitron fan personally, though my best friend and I have had heated arguments about which is better. It's clearly a very subjective thing. Some of us can't tune out the guide wires on a Trinitron, others (like me) have trouble tuning out the subtle pattern of the mask on shadow mask tubes. To each his own I guess.
Random and weird software I've written.
Yup, I'll add my vote for Viewsonic. They're not the best available, but seem to be at the sweet spot for quality/price. I'm using a pair of G90Fs right now (about $240 on Pricewatch, or $10 more for the .21mm FB version) and am very happy with them.
Another tip: SparcStation IPCs make excellent monitor stands and cost less (mine were $5 or so each) than the flimsy plastic junk that is normally sold for that purpose.
What would Lemmy do?
here went my mod poinst - sighh...
Every monitor has a refresh rate where it whines. You can hardly help it. I am writing this on a professional Iiyama 19" CRT which is the only brand I have been buying for ages for both home and work. They all have the disgusting habit of humming if you are trying to run them at a refresh rate that is too low. You raise the refresh where it belongs and things come back to normal. Actually while on the subject Viewsonic is crap compared to Iiyama.It is not as crap as Philipps which has never learned to converge a color mask.
The best way to undestand what a monitor is worth is not Internet, store or luser reviews. All you need to run is X. That is just X, no managers, nothing. The ugly gray background in naked X immediately shows any unevenness in the color mask, blurr, anything. So until you have run X (without any apps and without tools to set it) and have played with the refresh rates to see how it looks you do not know what you are working on.
Ah... and do not buy monitors with built in speakers. Whatever the brand. Run X on them and see how the color convergence goes to hell near the speakers if you wander why.
If you cannot run X for technnical reasons find the same background and view it under one of those "other" OSes.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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
It's getting pretty stupid now, with the quarter-vga palmtop displays. I'm not sure why they don't just use the pixel resolution.
Anyway, here is the breakdown:
VGA 640x480
SVGA 800x600
XGA 1024x768
SXGA 1280x1024
UXGA 1600x1200
The physical dimensions of the screen allow a higher resolution to be usable. I'm using UXGA on a ~20" CRT. I also have some Dell 2000FP's, which are 20" LCDs whose native resolution is also UXGA. the LCDs are much nicer because they have much more visible screen area. They also don't flicker at all. They cost about a grand, though.