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

Will · #1 January 25th, 2006, 01:22 AM

Apple Cinema Display... they're puuuurrrdy.

I got a no-name Taiwainese LCD three years ago. It's served me pretty well, only issues are due to not handling it very well during transport (thumbprint sized dark spot, where the screen is a little darder, little scratches, etc). If you can find one that promises zero dead pixels, take it. Most will only take back an LCD if there are 8+ dead pixels. Also, I have yet to find any LCD that handles dark video well. Doom3 is already hard enough with a CRT, but in some places, the varying levels of darkness are imperceptable on an LCD. At times, something that's supposed to be absolutely black will be brighter than something that's supposed to be a color like navy blue. Just some things to consider...

PvK · #2 January 25th, 2006, 02:23 PM

I noticed an LCD monitor on retail display that looked fairly good (I'm an LCD skeptic), but then I noticed that it had a very wide aspect ratio. Since LCD's don't seem to do very well at other than their native resolution, this sort of had me wondering how that was supposed to work with things other than wide-screen movies and desktop applications. In SE4, for example, I guess you'd just have a lot of black to the side(s) of the application... hopefully it wouldn't stretch everything.

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...), and like an LCD the display was dark unless viewed from just the right direction (which gets harder for a huge screen), and the resolution really doesn't impress me, especially with so much video these days being compressed digital for cable or DVD instead of analog, so more resolution gives a better view of how crappy the encoding and format are, with jaggy lines, pixelated movement, rectangular compression artifacts... crap, just give me a CRT.

PvK

Combat Wombat · #3 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 · #4 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

Renegade 13 · #5 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 · #6 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 · #7 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.

TurinTurambar · #8 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~

Fyron · #9 January 27th, 2006, 08:10 PM

I've seen a number of newer LCDs. The affordable ones aren't worth the money to me, since I do not like low resolutions. I can spend under $60 on a 19 inch CRT and comfortably run it at 1600x1200 or higher (maybe $80-100 for 21 inch CRT), or ~$300 on a low resolution 17 inch LCD. The $200 or so models are pretty crappy, not worth considering.

Captain Kwok · #10 January 27th, 2006, 08:28 PM

I'm starting to really want to get an LCD panel as well. My eyes are starting to bug more and more when working on computers with CRT monitors, and I could really use the space on my desk at home. One of the computer labs at school just underwent a renovation and is now nicely loaded with widescreen panels that I think are really good, which is no good considering I don't really have $ to spend at this time. Ugh.