Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
Toms Hardware constantly is doing reviews of monitors and such, and just released a new review of 19 monitors the other day
Didn't you know that Great Britain and America make up 97% of the civilized world...(and 70% of the uncivilized world)
that are the Dell 2005FPW and the Apple Cinema Display. The Cinema Display may not fall in the £300-400 price range they're talking about but here in the US, you can certainly get the Dell for less than $500.
Everybody knows that widescreen monitors are primarily used for viewing pornography anyway. This is about as newsworthy as a new brand of warming lubricating pleasure gel.
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.
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.
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
Yes, I failed Introductory Calculus, I couldn't intergrate with the class.
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
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.
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.
-- ubersonic Kfz Versicherung
If you are using a HTPC. I'm actually using a Dell 2405FPW as a TV (Higher resolution and cheaper than the "TV" LCDs), so actually I am relying on the built in upscaling. Also, users whose systems lack the horsepower to drive games at full resolution, or players of games that don't support widescreen resolutions, will still be using the panels scaling capability.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
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!
At least for what I have been doing the widescreens suck.
Many games do not like them. C&C generals zero hour strecthes. Doom3 is slower in widescreen mode and older games simply hate them.
I instead took the monitor back and grabbed a pair of 19" AOC Lcd's for less money than the single Widescreen.
I also get much more realestate for video editing on the pair of 19" cheapies.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I've got a pair of widescreens, and I've got the dignity to not need to post as an AC. Widescreens are better suited to your eyes, and it's not just coincidence that the viewable area is roughly a golden rectangle.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Why is that? A 19" CRT typically gets you more pixels than a 17" CRT, so why isn't the same true for LCDs? I'm sure I could buy find a higher-resolution model somewhere if I looked hard enough, but I'm really wondering why that seems to be the exception rather than the norm.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Maybe the story should have started with "If you live in Britain and...". If you're an American this article is worthless to you.
But to some it was worth the 2 seconds of Schadenfreude from reading your post.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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.
Maximum detail is the keyword there.
I have a Dell 2005fpw ($397 to my door from Dell!) with a decent rig (AMD A64 3700+ (754), MSI K8n Neo Platinum, 1 gig Crucial Ram, 7200 RPM Segate SATA, Sapphire X850XTPE (AGP), on board sound, and everything OCed a bit.
I haven't bought a game since F.E.A.R. and Quake 4, and even with those I was still playing BF2 all day long so I can speak about that better.
I ran the game at (shortcut hack) 1680x1050 which was really 1600x1200 stretched. I ran everything high except Shadows (which I didn't care for) and texture (which at medium I couldn't see a difference), sound was also kept at medium quality.
In the bigger fight seens, mainly a large fight (10+ people) and artillery coming down I would slow down to 20 or so FPS, but I was usually around 45FPS. I am not a pro-player, nor am I a FPS whore so I was happy with that. I gave up shadows and textures and facny pants sound (I am on 2.1)
That system cost (including monitor and keyboard & mouse) around $2300 a little over a year ago. If your in the market for a $400+ monitor I think your computer will be adequate (mine or similar) and you will be able to play well enough. Going ahead I think I need to upgrade (which sucks with AGP and 754) in order to run future games at 1680x1050 (native on the 2001fpw).