Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Group Testing Widescreen LCD Monitors

Posted by Zonk on Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:04 AM
from the tough-day-at-the-office dept.
Displays
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."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Group Testing Widescreen LCD Monitors 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by voice_of_all_reason (926702) on Friday March 31 2006, @11:10AM (#15034389)
    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 :)
    • I made $55k, which grants me significant free funds for someone still living at home with his parents.


      Get an apartment slacker!

      Its ok to mod me down ;)
    • I have an elderly 17" CRT monitor I'm going to replace when it dies. (Please die soon!) I've been watching the LCD prices drop and drop, now I'm thinking 21" if it dies now.

      That's nearly as big as my TV, so maybe it makes sense for me to spend double my monitor budget and replace my TV at the same time. I could mainly use a small part of the screen sitting at my desk (to avoid too much neck motion) and sitting back on my couch use it as a TV.

      • If you can sit back a little bit, a 1080p TV might do the trick. Both Sceptre and Westinghouse Digital offer 37" 1080p TVs. They work fine with Windows and Mac, probably Linux with at most a mode line change, and they are pixel-for-pixel capable on DVI input, something that isn't so common with LCD TVs. That gets you a sizable HD-ready TV that also works as a high resolution monitor. You'd want to sit farther back though for desktop work.
        • That is an interesting suggestion. Instead of using my monitor as a TV I could use my TV as a monitor. That's the kind of thinking this country needs!

          It would work pretty well I think. It could sit at the back edge of my huge desk, about 5' from my eyes. My couch could be 5' further back from my desk. If I keep my desk cleaner it'd be a nice setup.

    • Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)

      by zenslug (542549) *
      I've got a friend whose dad runs a branch of an LCD manufacturing tools company (ie, they supply the tools to the people who actually make the LCDs), and I asked him about the future prices of LCD TVs. He says that by Christmas of 2006 a ~37" TV will cost under $1000 and by Christmas 2007 a 47" will cost under $1000.

      Granted, he's talking about TVs and not monitors, but since the tech is basically the same, we should expect the prices on monitors to drop at about the same rate.
  • Toms Hardware constantly is doing reviews of monitors and such, and just released a new review of 19 monitors [tomshardware.com] the other day

  • Leaves out two most popular models (Score:4, Interesting)

    by n0mad6 (668307) on Friday March 31 2006, @11:14AM (#15034427)
    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.
    • Yeah, I picked up the Dell and a desktop (e510 with a pentium D 2.8ghz and a gig of ram) for $750 a couple of weeks ago. The desktop itself ebays for around $500 so I figure I walked away with the monitor for around $250. I've seen it by itself from dell consistently for ~$400. The article seems way off (but I suppose it might really be that way in Europe).
    • 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, somet
      • I've got the same, for 600 euro's (which, believe it or not, is cheap here in Europe) - although that included shipping and the sound bar. It's major drawback is that of most TFT's: significant light leakage. It's pretty uniform though, although the corners leak slightly more light. As you said: no stuck pixels, great ergonomics, good value. Lovely for text oriented stuff such as programming and reading slashdot. At least this site is not stuck on 800 x 600 as some sites are. Shame of the 1650 x 1050 pixels
    • If they're not in the range they didn't "Leave them out", they weren't eligable.

      I'm sure you can pick up a 30" widescreen off the back of a truck in Hong Kong for £300 - £400 too but that doesn't count either.
      • 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 Sh

  • Dude... get a Dell (Score:5, Informative)

    by utexaspunk (527541) on Friday March 31 2006, @11:28AM (#15034526)
    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.
    • I have to agree, Dell does good LCD panels. Not sure who their suppliers are, but when I got a Dell Notebook 5 years ago, regardless of how much of a piece of junk it is now, I wish I could rip off the screen and use it as my monitor. It's a 15" LCD with 1400 * 1080 resolution and it was bright and crisp and had good contrast. Even by today's standards, you can't find a Desktop LCD screen at 15" with more then 1024 x 768 resolution. I have rarely seen PC notebooks with such good quality screens, and I w
    • I have two of those monitors side by side on my desk right now and I have never seen anything sweeter. The best monitor I have ever used, by FAR and hands down. I love being able to use two vertical tab groups in Visual Studio without having to cut off half of each file - it makes browsing/referencing code so much easier.

      Also it has all of those nice inputs for my xbox360 dev kit.

    • I've both both the 20" and 24" Dells [aquamods.com], and I can testify that they're both excellent panels. The 24" is definately superior all-around but the 20" panel is excellent as well. Best yet, I only paid $1200 for the pair of them, thanks to Dell's frequent sales. Most single 24" displays sell for over that. I'd never buy another Dell computer, but their panels are second to none.
    • 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 s
      • I use mine mostly as my media center and thus usually use it from 4-5 feet away on the couch, so I suppose this is why it doesn't bother me. Are you not able to adjust the brightess through your video card?

        I also haven't been bothered by the viewing angle problem. In fact, the viewable area seems pretty good compared to a lot of other flat panels I've used.

        To each his own, I guess...
        • I use it for everything. It is great as a media center. At 5-6 ft it no longer too bright and the angle of view is a non issue.

          But sitting close enought to touch it and doing serious work. White fonts on dark backgrounds are searing bright. I get unwelcome brightness shifts in darker games. Yeah it can be further dimmed in the grapics card panel, but this has mixed results.

          Anyway it is mostly me that has the problem, this is a widely loved monitor.

    • What about gaming? I looked at their site and I don't see a response time listed for the monitor which is usually not a good thing. These big buggers then to be on the slower side when it comes to response times. Also, will it support 1600x1200 without streching (meaning, just have two black bars left and right of the screen)?
      • The VGA input on mine works fine. I have my desktop connected via DVI and frequently connect my laptop via VGA and the video quality is indistinguishable. Perhaps you have a problem with your video card?

        The component and s-video inputs are quite useful if you own an X-box or PS2, or if you have a cable box that you want to hook up to it. Just because you can't think of a good use for something doesn't mean there aren't lots of people who can.

        I have had no difficulty with the stand or the controls on the d
      • I'd hook up one device with the DVI input and one with the VGA. I do that with my desktop and laptop, and it works great. I have the base for my logitech wireless desktop plugged into the USB port on the side of the monitor so that I can easily pull it out and plug it into the laptop. I don't see any reason why a KVM wouldn't work fine with the VGA input, though...

  • Dell 24" (Score:3, Informative)

    by flynt (248848) on Friday March 31 2006, @11:38AM (#15034591)
    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.
    • Question:

      What kind of resolution do you run the games at? If native, are you running any FPS games?

      That's my only holdback about a monitor of this type. It may be nice, but if I can't get 50+ frames per second on UT2004, there's no point for me.

      Oh yea, I'm only running a 6600GT at that, so I'm sure I couldn't run this monitor native and play ut.
      • Well, I don't play many games to be honest. I can tell you my experience with Battlefield 2, a relatively newer game that is fairly taxing on systems as far as I can tell. The problem is, some games don't support widescreen resolutions, and some do it in an odd manner. For BF2, if you run in a widescreen resolution, it crops the top off of the display, so you're actually seeing *less* than in a 4:3 resolution. Not all games are like this, and I'm sure newer games and games of the future will have true w

  • The problem with LCD monitors. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 hit

  • Important part missing in summary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ubersonic (943362) * on Friday March 31 2006, @11:39AM (#15034598) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • Vista-ready LCD (Score:4, Informative)

    by pin0chet (963774) on Friday March 31 2006, @11:44AM (#15034632)
    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.

  • no thanks (Score:3)

    by Lumpy (12016) on Friday March 31 2006, @11:52AM (#15034695) Homepage
    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.
  • I have a 17" LCD monitor that does 1280x1024. I'd like to upgrade to a 19" monitor, but the only ones I've seen locally are also 1280x1024. In other words, the only difference between a 17" and 19" monitor are a couple hundred dollars and sitting a little closer to the screen.

    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.

  • It's amazing how many people don't get the difference between DVI and VGA - firstly the image quality difference, of course, but secondly the conceptual difference between digital addressability and analog reprocessing. For instance, DVI enables subpixel rendering of text (as supported by OS X, Linux and even WinXP). I can't imagine using a screen that can't support that.

    Nobody today should be buying LCDs without DVI (unless price is the only factor). Your eyes will thank you. (Don't have a DVI card yet?

  • I just ordered one of these babys from Newegg for $415, free 3-day shipping too.

    Now I can get rid of my big old wood-burning monitor and get me some desktop space back.

    Just had to share. Widescreen baby!

    • Re:hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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.
      • 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.

        • It's no coincidence that 16x9 is closer to the human eyes' viewing area. While our natural field of vision is not a rectangle nor is it consistent from one person to another, in general, we see the world in wide"screen".

    • Re:hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Psiren (6145)
      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.
    • 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.

      • I don't use Calculus for different(ial) reasons...

        Yes, I failed Introductory Calculus, I couldn't intergrate with the class.

      • And I don't use an abacus because I'm not Namibian. ;)

        Egyptian? WTF? Newton was English, and Leibniz was German. Wrong continent and wrong millenium.
    • 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.
    • The monitor shouldn't be handling DVD upscaling, it's done in software.

      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.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.