Buying a Monitor Need feedback!!!!

[lindaetterlee]

Ok, So my old CRT finally died. We are in the army and move wayyyyyy to much. So this being out 5th move in 2 years the old CRT just wouldn't start. The army is giving me funds for its worth but I am thinking of upgrading to a LCD. Now I want another monitor by Tuesday (everyone can guess why). I would like atleast 17 inch but I don't think more than 20. Any recommendations for brands/ model numbers and sites to buy at. I would like to spend under 250 unless it is just one hell of a monitor.

Linda

Edit:

I have looked at newegg, walmart, aafes, tigerdirect, Etc. Also I am still using Win xp. I have vista here but ugh not installing in anytime soon. Also i have 2 gb ram. ati x1950 512 mb video card.

HELP LOL

[jrd]

I'd go for any widescreen LCD monitor. If you are planning on watching HDDVD/Blueray on your PC in the future, go for a HD monitor (not HD ready) with a native resolution of 1920:1080 (HD1080)

Otherwise, go for a 1600:900 (16:9) or 1680:1050 (16:10) monitor.

Make sure your monitor's response time is below 5ms (the lower, the better).

Brand shouldn't matter, but try to favour known brands over unknowns. Typically they use the same materials anyway, but "brand" monitors tend to have better testing and support.

[KittKitt]

I just moved from a 19" CRT to my Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW 22" Widescreen LCD.  Absolutely love it thus far, though in fairness I've not even been on it a week yet.

3000:1 contrast ratio, 2ms delay, and wide 170 degree view angles coupled with a best buy sticker price of about $320 US convinced me.

They also offered me the exact same monitor in a 19" Widescreen version, which if I remember right was just over $200 US, but the difference wasn't enough to sway me from this nice big screen. 

Basically though, you want a combination of high contrast ratio and low delay in addition to whatever other features you're focused on.  The wider the view angle for example means the screen doesn't "wash out" as you move side to side from center and so forth.  Compare brands you trust and find one with a good set of specifications offering good bang for the buck would be my best recommendation.

I've been told Samsung is currently the best in the LCD monitor market, but I certainly won't swear to that based on my (thus far) limited, albeit very satisfied experience.

-Kitt

[lindaetterlee]

I really don't watch movies on my comp just play Sims lol. So I am unsure if the HD thing would be worth it. What is the life expectancy on LCD monitors?


I planned on going with the Widescreen. I will keep looking. Here at the base the options are EXTREMELY limited. So I am forced to buy online as the only "BIG" store is Wal-Mart lol.

[lindaetterlee]

Ok here some of those I am looking at Any advice welcome

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005096


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005097

[lindaetterlee]

Ok a few more questions then I'm going to the liquor store.

What is the highest res that the Sims can be played in? The last monitor that was listed the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005097 (LG) has a Maximum Resolution 1680 x 1050
Recommended Resolution 1680 x 1050.

How will this affect my game?

[jrd]

By default, the highest resolution of TS2 is 1600:1200

With a small text edit, this can be changed to any resolution. I play in 1680:1050 myself, my monitor's native res.

TS2 stretches easily to any res.

[lindaetterlee]

I just purchased the LG one. PLEASE TELL ME I made a good decision lol. Also could you please tell me how to edit the file so that it will run right?

Linda

[jrd]

From the specs -- the LG one is a good monitor.

The file you want to edit is Graphics Rules.sgr. See this post.

[lindaetterlee]

Jordi I bow down and kiss your feet. I am going to go break the news to my hubby about the large price tag but first I bought booze lol.

[ScoobyDoo]

Jordi, you've got widescreen correct?  Have you managed to make the CAS appear correctly?  On mine the properties tab (the right side panel) is stuck right in the middle of the screen covering up nearly half of the sim.

[lindaetterlee]

Yes Please Share all your secrets.

[J. M. Pescado]

Nonstandard monitor resolutions are a source of grief waiting to happen. Older applications and those which do not support wonky resolutions will end up being either massively distorted, or black-barred. This would be the lesser of two evils, except that many drivers reportedly don't support this mode of display, so you just end up with distorted. Stick to a traditional 4:3 CRT. Also, LCDs look awful when displaying at anything that isn't evenly divisible with their native resolution and are extremely blurry. Anytime something moves, it dissolves into a blurry mass of poo until it stops. Not only that, they're more expensive. It is recommended that unless portability is an absolute must, and you are weak and feeble, that you stick with the classic CRTs.

[trancejeremy]

My old CRT monitor died about 2 months ago.  I reluctantly went with an LG brand (1440x900 19" widescreen) LCD montior because basically widescreen was all I could find in stores - the only option was a cheap-ish ($100) CRT like that one that only lasted me 8-10 months.

If you get a low response time (mine is 2ms), there's no blurriness, though some people are more sensitive to it than others. And if it has a decent scaler built in (which the LGs do), non-native resolutions aren't that big a deal, either.

But the trouble I've had with it is the viewing angle.  The colors change color slightly as you change your viewing angle. In something with textures of different colors, you don't notice it so much, but if you have a solid color on the desktop, the edges are slightly different colors. It doesn't bother me in games, but I when I'm doing other stuff, or writing, it drives me crazy.  It's also supposedly got a 170 degree viewing angle, so I would hate to see any one that is worse. It's not so much the side to side angle, but the vertical angle - you have to have your head above the monitor and look down. So I can't slouch any more.

Also it's very weird getting used to the brightness of the whites on it. On my CRT, white was actually  sort of blue-ish. I had to change my desktop colors, because staring at a bright white background like in applications started to hurt my eyes.

[KittKitt]

I just purchased the LG one. PLEASE TELL ME I made a good decision lol. Also could you please tell me how to edit the file so that it will run right?

Linda

Looking over the specifications of that one, it compares almost identically to my Samsung.  From what little experience I've personally had with the LG brand, they seem pretty solid, so I'd suspect you'll be pretty happy with it. 

Nonstandard monitor resolutions are a source of grief waiting to happen. Older applications and those which do not support wonky resolutions will end up being either massively distorted, or black-barred. This would be the lesser of two evils, except that many drivers reportedly don't support this mode of display, so you just end up with distorted. Stick to a traditional 4:3 CRT. Also, LCDs look awful when displaying at anything that isn't evenly divisible with their native resolution and are extremely blurry. Anytime something moves, it dissolves into a blurry mass of poo until it stops. Not only that, they're more expensive. It is recommended that unless portability is an absolute must, and you are weak and feeble, that you stick with the classic CRTs.

Don't listen to Pes.  If he had his way, we'd all just keep slave armies of cavemen on hand to chisel out each frame in sequence on big stone tablets. 

Seriously, his concerns are true, but also somewhat exaggerated.  The motion blur is negligible with today's faster LCDs (I can see it with extremely fast video sequences, but only barely.  It's nowhere near what it was back when the standard delay was a fair bit higher), and if you've every bought a good CRT, you're already aware that the cost of LCDs has come down to where it's not really much more money.  In fact, once you're above the 19" mark, most quality CRTs will actually cost more than a widescreen LCD of similar proportions. 

This leaves the whole distortion issue, which is a valid concern, but again, not nearly as much as it once was.  For starters, the vast majority of applications are able to run in resolutions which will look just splendid, and in the case that something will not, almost all LCD drivers now support "window boxes", which is merely black bands on the sides of the screen to keep the aspect ratio correct.  It's the same effect as if you've ever watched a widescreen DVD on a standard (square) television, only on the sides rather than top and bottom. 

While setting up my new system in fact, being I'm very into many classic game titles that most of the world has long since forgotten, I set up and tested a few using DosBox.  Thus far, all of them look just great, and I've no complaints (at least not as of yet).

But the trouble I've had with it is the viewing angle.  The colors change color slightly as you change your viewing angle. In something with textures of different colors, you don't notice it so much, but if you have a solid color on the desktop, the edges are slightly different colors. It doesn't bother me in games, but I when I'm doing other stuff, or writing, it drives me crazy.  It's also supposedly got a 170 degree viewing angle, so I would hate to see any one that is worse. It's not so much the side to side angle, but the vertical angle - you have to have your head above the monitor and look down. So I can't slouch any more.

Also it's very weird getting used to the brightness of the whites on it. On my CRT, white was actually  sort of blue-ish. I had to change my desktop colors, because staring at a bright white background like in applications started to hurt my eyes.

These are also valid.  The view angle doesn't apply to up/down, only side to side.  Moving your viewing angle up or down will very probably make the colors change and appear washed-out, but that's also why most LCDs come with a stand which allows you to tilt them.  Once you get it in the right spot, it's not too bad unless you change the height of your eyes quite a bit during a given viewing session.

The whites can be quite stark by default, but there's a lot of ways to "fix" this, either right from the monitor's own color controls or by changing the display colors of windows.  Personally, now that I'm starting to get used to it, I actually find it looks much more sharp and clean than any CRT I've owned, and I seem to experience less eye strain from extended text reading than I used to as well.

-Kitt

[jrd]

ScoobyDoo: CAS! looks okay to me. Mind that I have my desktop also on 1680:1050 as it is the native resolution, and have configured my videocard to do the scaling (not that it applies here, but in general software scaling is better than hardware scaling [done by the monitor itself]).

[Gwill]

* Gwill hugs her good old CRT monitor

[J. M. Pescado]

But the trouble I've had with it is the viewing angle.  The colors change color slightly as you change your viewing angle. In something with textures of different colors, you don't notice it so much, but if you have a solid color on the desktop, the edges are slightly different colors. It doesn't bother me in games, but I when I'm doing other stuff, or writing, it drives me crazy.

This sounds like a monitor specific flaw. Really Old LCDs had a built in privacy feature: You saw basically nothing if your viewing angle was much off center. Newer LCDs break this "feature" through the use of a screen coating, which is what produces the effect.

Also it's very weird getting used to the brightness of the whites on it. On my CRT, white was actually  sort of blue-ish. I had to change my desktop colors, because staring at a bright white background like in applications started to hurt my eyes.

This again sounds like an instance specific problem. CRTs have better color than LCDs in general, and most certainly do not have "blueish" white unless you have the color temp set too high, or the monitor is dying and thus may have a failing tube, like yours.

[twojeffs]

I just purchased the LG one. PLEASE TELL ME I made a good decision lol.

Linda

I bought this same monitor about 2 months ago when my old CRT finally bit it and I love it. I've had no problems with my older dinosaur programs, they either get scaled, or they simply take up their little portion of the screen real estate.

[lindaetterlee]

Now i need to upgrade my PSU. UGH I have no idea what to choose. I wish there was a magic upgrade button that would make the best decision for me. 
:muse: "Why aren't there easy buttons like on the commercials?"