OT: What to know before buying an LCD monitor?? - Page 2

Combat Wombat · #11 January 25th, 2006, 03:53 PM

Quote:

PvK said:
I had also just seen some modern expensive TV's on display and I have yet to be impressed by those, either. They _were_ stretching things to fit their aspect ratio, which looked awful (welcome to the WIDE Wide Wide Wide World of Sports...), PvK

hehe I have noticed this too, I go over to peoples houses and I am like this is all stretched out and then they are like "its widescreen". So I just shake my head and try not to care. No one has any idea how to even setup their own TV correctly anymore, its kinda sad

PvK · #12 January 25th, 2006, 05:14 PM

LOL! Ya, that can be an issue with DVD player settings too. No wonder some people "don't like letterbox"

Apparently, some retail stores also don't know how to set up their TV's.

PvK

Caduceus · #13 January 25th, 2006, 05:58 PM

We've bought two Samsungs in the last year, 930B and 940B. The only differences are cosmetic as far as I can tell. 930B has green LED with buttons on the bottom of the front of the screen. THe 940B has blue LED buttons on the front - which make the computer I built, but was completely unintentional.

The first monitor arrived with no problems from the store (Comp USA), the second I got from NewEgg, was DOA and had to have another one sent to me.

Renegade 13 · #14 January 25th, 2006, 10:20 PM

With some of the comments tending towards a negative impression of LCD's (I don't have any experience with them), I'm now wondering if it's worth spending a few hundred dollars to switch from 17" CRT to 17" LCD. Besides space considerations, is the image quality actually better, with the possibility of dead pixels, etc? I guess I'm asking; Is it worth it??

Fyron · #15 January 25th, 2006, 10:36 PM

Image quality is generally worse, unless you are buying newer $1000 LCDs. There is no flicker, if that is a concern of CRT to you, and they use about one third as much power, or less. And forget about high resolution...

NullAshton · #16 January 25th, 2006, 11:14 PM

My natural resolution is 1280x1024. I think that that's the perfect resolution. It's not too graphics-intensive, and it doesn't look blocky.

Will · #17 January 26th, 2006, 02:20 AM

Quote:

NullAshton said:
Also, there's programs avaliable to fix the colors on a LCD. I used the Monitor Calibration Wizard and the colors on my monitor are now a lot crisper. Stuff that's supposed to be absolute black are actually absolute black on my screen, after running that program.

Wow, that actually worked pretty good. It's easier to watch dark movies on mine now... Seems that the straight linear signal map was causing blues and reds to not become visible until around 10% brightness. Thanks for the link!

NullAshton · #18 January 26th, 2006, 09:18 AM

No problem. That's what you find when you're bored, and tired of how your monitor works... It works for all monitors too, so try it on your CRT screen if you have one.

rdouglass · #19 January 26th, 2006, 05:32 PM

I just bought 50 Acer AL1914 LCD displays for the company I work for and am very happy with them. Only spent $270 each for them (1 year ago they would have been more than $500 each for them). However, I suggest you don't spend any extra for an LCD without getting a decent video card for them. It does absolutely make a difference IMO.

TurinTurambar · #20 January 27th, 2006, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
Image quality is generally worse, unless you are buying newer $1000 LCDs. There is no flicker, if that is a concern of CRT to you, and they use about one third as much power, or less. And forget about high resolution...

I too was a skeptic, and for good reason, since early LCD's sucked ***. And I would assume, Fyron, that you don't have one.

I recently posted in another thread though, that both my CRT's crapped out ( I run a 2 monitor setup ) and I decided to do some research and "modernize." Fact: LCD's do have good resolution if you run them at their native resolution. Fact: They're nice and bright and use less power. Fact: With today's 8ms and 4ms refresh rates, the "ghosting factor" is becoming a non-issue.

I now have two Samsung 17" 740B's (black) with 0 dead pixels each. I spent less than 600 on the pair at Buy.com.
I'm happy with them and I have a crapload more room on my desk now.

T

EDIT: Just remembered about some news I heard concerning any LCD computer monitor over 17" not being a good idea. Something to do with the Native Resolution idea. I'll post a linky when I find it. ~T~