Which monitor should i get?

[saiyajin]

Hey guys so I'm in the market of getting a new monitor and have narrowed it down to these 3
I'm not too knowledgable about these things what with the Analog/Digital inputs and how LG has the crazy high contrast ratio compared to the other brands. However when I was MemEx the Sales person did show me an LG with 1400:1 ratio to another at 700:1 and I didn't notice much different at all.
The sales guy at MemoryExpress did recommend the Samsung out of the 3 but I was wondering if anyone of you guys can possibly shed more light on the other models.
Also if there are other places that I can get these at lower prices please let me know :thumbsup:


Samsung SyncMaster 205BW 20in Widescreen LCD w/ DVI, 6ms, 700:1 Contrast, Black
$409.95

http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=8410&SID=


LG Flatron L203WTX 20in Widescreen LCD w/ DVI, 8ms, 1400:1 Contrast, Silver-Black
$439.95

http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=8434&SID=


Viewsonic VX2025wm 20.1in Widescreen LCD w/ DVI, 8ms, 800:1 Contrast, Speakers, Black-Silver
$388.95

http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=7470&SID=


any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks :thumbsup:

[FiveFreshFish]

Have you considered a 24" widescreen?

[djayz]

im currently using the viewsonic and i love it...for the price there is nothing that can beat it

ive tried about 10 different monitors ranging from samsung to gateway to lg and the best value and best monitor i found was the viewsonic.

only thing it doesnt have that some other monitors have is video inputs which is no biggy because its a monitor not a tv...and the ability to swivel side to side...only has up and down tilt which is fine.

[saiyajin]

Originally posted by FiveFreshFish
Have you considered a 24" widescreen?

not really as I'm probably just going as high as 20 for now and the fact that dont really want to go over $500

[Vagabond142]

Just bought a VX2025wm, here's my review:

Pros:

-This mother is HUGE. Coming from a 19" crt, the viewing area is just so much larger. I can write my stuff whilst having the outline document open next to it without any problems, which is nice for a writer.
-For gaming, the monitor is beautiful, but this comes at a price (described in cons)
-Monitor is lightning fast with graphics (DVDs, movie files, etc)
-Monitor is bright, but not straining. Very easy on the eyes.
-Looks damned nice, is in a great price bracket for the looks too
-I had mine set up and running within 2 minutes of it out of the box. Put on desk, take off cable covers, put cables in, replace cable covers, plug in cables, done. It's that easy (there's also some software to install, but that's not included in the up-an-running timing)

Cons:

-This monitor does NOT auto-reres. What I mean by this is that if you're playing a game at 1024x768, instead of the monitor playing it in a box in the middle of the screen, it stretches the image to fit the whole screen. Most if not all new games (since like January 2004) have a widescreen aspect ratio option in the game options, but older games might have problems.
-This monitor has a native resolution of 1600x1050. Now, to play at that res in games (especially graphically intensive ones like HalfLife 2, GRAW, etc), you need some serious hardware. You can run this monitor fine on an older card as long as you have a DVI port, but you'll have to turn down some of the game settings to get it happy at 1600x1050
-Not height adjustable. You can tilt it up and down, but there is no height adjustment. If you need it higher on your desk... textbooks :)


Other than that, I am EXTREMELY impressed with this monitor. Apart from a slight x-pattern light bleed from the corners (all widescreen monitors have this, it's barely noticeable unless you REALLY look for it), I have to give this monitor a 9/10, losing points only for the non-height adjustability

[djayz]

^
good review i dont mind the non auto-res because for different games i use different resolutions.

height adjustability its fairly tall so even if you have it on a desk and tilt it up itll be fine i have mine about 4 inches off the top of the desk and i have to tilt it down a little.

and ghost recon is killer...monitor looks great at all resolutions but the higher ones just kill my video card which sucks...cant get the full potential out of this monitor

[Vagabond142]

^^^^^ :D :D :D :D

http://members.shaw.ca/vagabondreviews/IMG_0021.JPG

Warning: picture is 5 MP so about 1 mb in size

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter on the VX2025wm @ 1680x1050 (dunno why the wonky rez, but that's the highest it has), all AA, AF, HDR turned on. The game moves very crisply, no ghosting whatsoever (no pun intended), and, honestly, has less video lag and such than my old CRT (probably because the digital signal is about twice as fast as an analogue one). Running it on a Sapphire X1900XT 512, and it barely hiccups or burps, only during content loading, otherwise smooth as a baby's ass. Then again, I have a computer built to spec to be able to run the video card flat out with minimal bottlenecking.

[djayz]

^
damn im running mine at 1024x768 i tried full but it was laggy ...going to try to up it one and see how it goes was just trying out the game at 1024.

now i want a new video card haha...thought this sapphire radeon would do unfortunately not

[Vagabond142]

^^^^ my specs that allow me to run damned near anything at full tilt:

Athlon64 X2 3800+
2 GB DDR400 dual channel
Sapphire Radeon X1900XT 512 aVIVO
Asus A8N5X

Also, because the monitor is running off DVI, the video card doesn't have to convert the signal to analogue, meaning that there is a sizeable performance gain, both in load times and video card speed. Having 48 pixel engines on 16 pipelines on the card doesn't hurt either :D

But I am still MASSIVELY impressed with the gaming performance of this monitor. I'd even go so far as to say that if you have the system to handle it, this is one of the best gaming monitors I've ever used.

[Rav4Guy]

samsung syncmaster 215tw. :D when it drops in price a bit more, I'm going to pick another one up. going for a three screen setup... at least.. try.

[saiyajin]

Originally posted by Vagabond142
Just bought a VX2025wm, here's my review:

Pros:

-This mother is HUGE. Coming from a 19" crt, the viewing area is just so much larger. I can write my stuff whilst having the outline document open next to it without any problems, which is nice for a writer.
-For gaming, the monitor is beautiful, but this comes at a price (described in cons)
-Monitor is lightning fast with graphics (DVDs, movie files, etc)
-Monitor is bright, but not straining. Very easy on the eyes.
-Looks damned nice, is in a great price bracket for the looks too
-I had mine set up and running within 2 minutes of it out of the box. Put on desk, take off cable covers, put cables in, replace cable covers, plug in cables, done. It's that easy (there's also some software to install, but that's not included in the up-an-running timing)

Cons:

-This monitor does NOT auto-reres. What I mean by this is that if you're playing a game at 1024x768, instead of the monitor playing it in a box in the middle of the screen, it stretches the image to fit the whole screen. Most if not all new games (since like January 2004) have a widescreen aspect ratio option in the game options, but older games might have problems.
-This monitor has a native resolution of 1600x1050. Now, to play at that res in games (especially graphically intensive ones like HalfLife 2, GRAW, etc), you need some serious hardware. You can run this monitor fine on an older card as long as you have a DVI port, but you'll have to turn down some of the game settings to get it happy at 1600x1050
-Not height adjustable. You can tilt it up and down, but there is no height adjustment. If you need it higher on your desk... textbooks :)


Other than that, I am EXTREMELY impressed with this monitor. Apart from a slight x-pattern light bleed from the corners (all widescreen monitors have this, it's barely noticeable unless you REALLY look for it), I have to give this monitor a 9/10, losing points only for the non-height adjustability


thanks for the review :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

was wondering if the other 2 monitors have adjustable stands or not.
Now im more leaning towards the Viewsonic or the Samsung
decisions decisions :banghead:

[googe]

samsung are top of the line for monitors. most other manufacturers basically use rejected samsung panels.

[Vagabond142]

Viewsonic have their own monitors. BenQ and Acer use samsung manufacturing.

Honestly, if you're absolutely utterly anal about every pixel being as perfect as possible, get the Samsung. If you can live with a superb monitor that's about the same quality as the Samsung, just 2ms slower and a hell of a lot cheaper, get the Viewsonic. It's the best bang for the buck for widescreen monitors

[Ashkente]

Originally posted by Vagabond142
-This monitor does NOT auto-reres. What I mean by this is that if you're playing a game at 1024x768, instead of the monitor playing it in a box in the middle of the screen, it stretches the image to fit the whole screen. Most if not all new games (since like January 2004) have a widescreen aspect ratio option in the game options, but older games might have problems.
-This monitor has a native resolution of 1600x1050. Now, to play at that res in games (especially graphically intensive ones like HalfLife 2, GRAW, etc), you need some serious hardware. You can run this monitor fine on an older card as long as you have a DVI port, but you'll have to turn down some of the game settings to get it happy at 1600x1050


Scaling/not scaling is usually a video card option. I haven't seen any monitors that do it on their own. Problem is that on my machine with an 1800XT/1900XT the damn option to not scale doesn't do shit. So I kinda suspect ATI drivers...but I haven't tested it thoroughly. (Got sucked back into WoW...you know how it is :P)

1680x1050 because that's 16x10. All monitors are 16x10ws as opposed to 16x9 TVs. Dunno why, but I suspect it makes it easier to fit two pages on a screen.

I have a Gateway 21ws. It does everything :D

[djayz]

^
the gateway also costs 2 times as much
the viewsonic is $100 dollars cheaper than what i bought it at 5 months ago just sitting at under 400 dollars...If i can come up with the cash i might just buy another one for my server comp at that price nothing beats it.

and yes all widescreen monitors are 16x10 so they can fit pages so when you watch a dvd movie you will have half and inch of black bars on the top and bottom but its no biggy because the blacks on this monitor are black and they just blend into the outside trim of the monitor.

samsung is great i bought a couple of their monitors to try out they were all good but at that time i was looking for widescreen and they didnt have anything so i went with viewsonic and im happy that i did.

[Alpine Autowerks]

try dumpster diving.... I got one of these
http://www.cprtec.com/P1110-description.htm

20 min to solder in a new resistor to repair a common fault


works great with GTR


con: weighs more than my 10 year old daughter :thumbsup:

[hampstor]

Originally posted by Vagabond142
Viewsonic have their own monitors. BenQ and Acer use samsung manufacturing.

Actually Viewsonic / BenQ / Acer obtain most of their panels from AU Optronics (AUO) not Samsung. keep in mind there is more to an LCD monitor then just the panel itself.

The largest panel manufacturers are Samsung, LG/Philips and AUO.

[frostyda9]

Samsung paired with nVidia :thumbsup:

[AJL]

Wow I had no idea that LCD's had come down in price this much.
I will definitly be picking up the Viewsonic or Samsung to pair up with my laptop.
Let us know what you decide on and how well you like it!

[Hakkola]

Originally posted by AJL
Wow I had no idea that LCD's had come down in price this much.
I will definitly be picking up the Viewsonic or Samsung to pair up with my laptop.
Let us know what you decide on and how well you like it!

:werd: I bought my LCD 2 years ago and it cost me over $800, still works great though, no dead pixels.

[saiyajin]

thanks for the inputs you guys

now i have a new choice
i have a deal of two 19inch dell monitors 700:1 and 8ms or just getting the Samsung 20inch wide

so which should i go for
the one 20inch wide or two 19s side by side

i know the purposes would be different, watching movies would be smaller on a 19 (slightly) but i could do more multi-tasking with two 19s like for example a word document opened on one screen and internet page on the other

anybody running two monitors have experience of the benefits or the negatives of going that route?

[FiveFreshFish]

Go for the widescreen.

What I don't like about 17" and 19" LCDs is the 5:4 aspect ratio. But works well in a side-by-side application.

[Impreza]

I use dual 19" monitors here at work and I think it is great for multi-tasking. If I had the extra funds, I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade to a dual display at home.

[Vagabond142]

Get the Viewsonic widescreen. I honestly believe of all the ones you've considered it is still the best bang for the buck.

[djayz]

get the widescreen you wont regret it...
if you do do alot of multitasking then a dual monitor setup is great but if its just regular use playing games watching movies using word etc the widescreen is great

i can fit to excel documents side by side on this monitor and still see everything on it so its almost like a dual monitor setup.

[AJL]

widescreen. Then in a few months buy another ;)

[saiyajin]

well the thing is i can get the two 19inch for less $ then the Samsung or Viewsonic widescreen.... :dunno: :dunno:

[mac_82]

get 2 of these:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=8409&SID=

[saiyajin]

Originally posted by mac_82
get 2 of these:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=8409&SID=


that adds up to more than the widescreen the only reason im considering the two 19s is cuz it will only come to $350 for both

[AJL]

Ive had really bad problems in the past with used, and demoed electronics.
For me its not worth it to buy used. I would rather have the piece of mind and go new.
But to each their own.