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Group Testing Widescreen LCD Monitors
An anonymous reader writes "If you're in the market for a new widescreen display, there's a group test of five models at the Bit-Tech site. The test focuses on real world gaming and DVD watching rather than artificial spec tests, and there's also discussion of design, ergonomics etc. An interesting read for those making the jump to wide." From the article: "Let's define the point of this test. We're going to make the assumption that you've got a half-decent graphics card, and you're looking for a new flat panel to connect to it. You want to watch movies on DVD and in hi-def (either as Apple trailers or via BitTorrent) and you want to play the latest games. The price range we're looking at is the £300-£400 range. Above that, you start to get into the territory of 24" screens from companies like Dell and Samsung. Below that, you're going into a range occupied mostly by 19" displays at 1280x1024."
Toms Hardware constantly is doing reviews of monitors and such, and just released a new review of 19 monitors the other day
I own one the Dell 24" display (2405FPW), and I have to say it is one of the best purchases I have made in a long time. The thing looks gorgeous, didn't have any stuck pixels or anything like that, has a nice thin bezel, it has DVI, VGA, RGB, Componenent and S-Video inputs, allows you to do PIP and side-by-side of 2 inputs. It functions as a USB hub and a memory card reader. The stand is well-made and adjusts smoothly with a wide range of motion (including being able to rotate it 90 degrees). It's also $500 cheaper than the 23" Apple cinema display. Dell's computers may be ugly pieces of crap, but I really feel like it is an unbelievably good buy.
We also found that DVD playback in general didn't scale particularly well; moving from 720 x 576 to 1680x1050 requires what is essentially a 100% upscale.
What are they talking about here? The monitor shouldn't be handling DVD upscaling, it's done in software.
Google converts the 300 to 400 pounds to 521.85 to 695.80 USD.
They do not review the Dell 24" in this story, but let me say I have been so pleased with mine. You can usually get up to 20-25% off from Dell if you do a google search for Dell coupons. You will not be sorry if you get that monitor and have a card that can support the native resolution (1920x1200). I have had no problems with games (BF2) or movies on it.
I recently purchased a Gateway FPD2185w 21" widescreen 1680x1050 monitor. It is AMAZING value. For about $500, I get a display with DVI-HDCP support, along with VGA, Component, S-video, and RCA inputs. Its got DCDi by Faroudja for flawless 1080i/480i deinterlacing, and top-notch scaling video processing with a 12ms response time. It looks fantastic with my PC via DVI, Xbox 360 via VGA, and Dish HD DVR via Component. Also, the customizable PiP options are very useful. Furthermore, when Vista comes out and the MPAA studios start implementing ICT on HD DVD/Blu-Ray discs, I won't have to buy a $300 Spatz HDCP stripper to view the full resolution 720p picture on my monitor.
Thread contribution - I have a 2005FPW that I love. I found a sale at Dell for $380 shipped, and they apparently repeat that periodically. It looks great and I love the integrated USB. I game on it a lot and I've never noticed any stuck pixels or ghosts.
Threadjack - Randomly and annoyingly it will just go blank. I power it off/on and it will come on for 3 seconds and go off again, like it's in a powersave mode. Sometimes unplugging AC power will fix it, sometimes not. Sometimes I have to reboot, sometimes not. Sometimes I power down and unplug everything...thats the most extreme and most annoying fix. The thing is, I may go a month without a problem then it will happen twice per day for a week. Video, display, XP, and Motherboard updates are current and the problem persists. AFAIK every power saving feature is shut off. Help!