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Group Testing Widescreen LCD Monitors

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tough-day-at-the-office dept.

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."

7 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is ~$600-$800 (US dollars) really a reasonable prince range for this audience, though?

    I made $55k, which grants me significant free funds for someone still living at home with his parents. Still, my co-workers aren't even looking at LCD monitors above three or four hundred. For that you can get an okay 21 incher if you're willing to risk your money on the internets.

    But twice that for just a PC monitor? That's easily as much as the rest of the system itself. You can watch DVDs on a regular big-screen TV. Granted, that will cost even more (several times, probably), but you can also use it for cable, and video games. I just can't see this stuff being in the range of the typical slashdotter.

    Feel free to prove me wrong if y'all are a bunch of Mr. Moneybags', though :)

  2. Re:hmmm by Psiren · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you're an American this article is worthless to you.

    Welcome to our world. I don't see why it should be worthless though, a review is a review nonetheless. I quite often have to resort to reading US reviews of equipment because decent UK ones are not easy to find, especially on really new equipment. Assuming the models are the same, the reviews can still be useful.

  3. Re:hmmm by OneSeventeen · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Maybe the story should have started with "If you live in Britain and...". If you're an American this article is worthless to you.

    That's the exact same reason I don't use Calculus, not being an Egyptian nor a Greek myself.

    --
    "Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
  4. The problem with LCD monitors. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Every mainstream LCD monitor I have seen has very subtle hue or brightness changes with even very small changes in horizontal head position. Because of this each eye actually sees a slightly differently looking picture, due to the slightly different horizontal position of each eye relative to the monitor. This leads to what could be described as a "glare" effect. It subjectively appears like a glare, becaue it is similar to how a shiny surface appears in the sun, with different amounts of reflected rays hitting each eye. Perhaps I am particularly sensitive this as no one else seems to mention it. Then again most people don't raise concerns about the visual effects of 60hz refresh rates on CRT either.

  5. Important part missing in summary by ubersonic · · Score: 4, Insightful
    None of the displays have HDMI connectors and none of them support HDCP. This means you're not going to get a digital connection to your HD-DVD movies, but there is currently very little on the market that will.
    So you're screwed in a year or two. Is this like easter-sale?
    --

    -- ubersonic Kfz Versicherung
    1. Re:Important part missing in summary by OverlordQ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      but there is currently very little on the market that will.

      Yea, but you're screwed with pretty much *anything* you buy.

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  6. LCD not for everyone, selling my 24" Dell. by guidryp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I just bought the 2405 and someone is coming to look at it soon as it is for sale and it is only days old. Beware that dell has a 15% restocking fee.

    Make sure you like LCDs before you buy. They are very different than CRT.

    I like a dim screen. The 2405 is very Bright, even at minimum settings. I tend to run my CRTs at minimum brightness so it hurts my eyes to use an LCD for long periods.

    Viewing angle issues bother me a fair bit. Dark tones shift when only 20 degrees off axis. If you sit close to a 24" wide screen you are going to be off axis somewhere on screen. All MVA/PVA panels do this and they are most of the market. IPS panels seem much superior in this regard, but good luck finding one.

    Some things you should try before you buy and this is one of them. 500cd brightness in a computer monitor is just insane. But it contributes to making that contrast number higher, but in no contributes to makeing a usable monitor.

    Overall though, most people love this monitor. And there is a lot to love. It looks amazingly sharp, colorfull, black is deep, and it has connectivity for everything. Human factor of greater eye fatigue rule it out for me.