PC LCD Monitors?

Step up to about $650 and get a Dell 24 inch. It's got good picture quality and all the connectors that you want except for HDMI.

Whats wrong with dell? The dell ultrasharp 24' is the best of the best in lcd computer monitors. Just read up on any reviews that compare lcd computer monitors.

There is nothing better. You can get bigger but not better in quality for a pc input feed.

I have a samsung 21', gateway 21', and the dell ultrasharp 24' and there is no contest.

Shize man, are you kidding or what?
That Dell is mediocre, at best. If you want to see a real LCD monitor check out an Eizo 24", your eyes will bleed with tears when you try to look at your Dell after that. And honestly to recommend this guy the Dell 24" of anything else, the latest 24" from Dell has been nothing but riddled with problems and is currently rated as one of the poorest 24"s available.

With a budget of $400 you are kinda limited in going anywhere above 20.1/21" in size. Anything about that gets to be, well, over $400.

So do you really want to invest your $400 on an inch or two more of screen size? You'd be better off to save a bit more and get a 23" or 24".
Two recomendations would be:
BenQ FP241WZ
HP L2335 (was discontinued to make way for a new model recently, despite that it is a wonderful display and you might get lucky and find one at a really good price)

If you really can't wait though, this is just within your budget and is an excellent display: Samsung Syncmaster 225BW

Either way, ANYTHING is better than the Dell that guy recommended. I wouldn't really be shooting it down so bad here but the guy is trying to flog it off as the best of the best, when in actuality it is more like the worst of the worst.

Anyways, good luck with it all

P.S - Take your question here, the guys there are absolute freaks about PC monitors and will be able to assist you much better.

You know, after reading that I would have to disagree. I have a 20.1" Dell LCD monitor. I'm not saying this thing is the best, but after upgrading from a 17" monitor, this thing is amazing. I play F.E.A.R, COD2, BF2 (a LOT!!), COH, and DVD's on this thing, and its an amazing monitor. No ghosting, no lag....I dont think Dell is the "worst", and maybe I havn't seen what a great LCD monitor is about, but I love my monitor. I think Dell is a good choice, but I have seen Samsungs, and they are amazing as well!! Get a Sammy, probably better priced, for more area, and a great deal. I got my Dell as a gift, so I had no choice, but am VERY happy with it.

Well, if push comes to shove, I'd consider an Apple Cinema display, preferably a 24" Cinema. I know that Apple's displays are rather pricey, but they do give out a better display than most PC monitors, and it works with PCs as well as Macs, so don't be afraid about Apple Cinema at all...

Actually, wasn't it actually Westinghouse that designs these? I know that they have very similar quality, as far as display resolutions and brightness/contrast ratios are involved.

I purchased a Gateway FPD2185W 21" Widescreen High-Definition LCD Flat-Panel Display last February that I'm very satisfied with.

Viewsonic is consistently rated amongst the top LCD monitor's...

Take a look at their website...

As for the Apple display, it's actually very old technology compared to other options, and now it falls behind in many areas.

The Eizo's ARE amazing from a graphic design standpoint, but if you want something for games as well, check out the VX2235 from viewsonic, or even the 19 inch version, they're some of the fastest and most accurate monitors.

lol - what better place to find objective information!!

http://pcworld.com/article/id,123726...s/article.html


http://reviews.cnet.com/4566-3173_7-...edRating7+desc

2 quick reviews from trusted sites i just pulled up doing a google search of Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP, all at the top. The gateway(FPD2185W) is alright its in the average but its vertical mode doesn't work with any new videocards , samsung(225bw) is better and a great monitor, but the dells higher resolution and value can't be beat. I dont know about the other dells just the 2407WFP, as its the one I own and its awsome.

Thanks for saying my recommendations is the worst of the worst and everythings is better then the dell ultra sharp btw. Ill change what I said, the dell's the best of the best in value. You cant even get the BenQ FP241WZ yet, which im looking forward too tho ^^

ive had a couple of dell monitors, there not to bad
wouldnt say the best though

I knew that LG made monitors, but did they ever do widescreen monitors, per chance?

Oh that's great. 2 reviews from places that have been know to post professional PAID reviews. Despite that fact, letting reviewers tell you what's good and actually seeing something for yourself in action is two completely different things. I owned that Dell 24" for several months, and in that time I thought it to be decent. But wait, that was just in it's own right, by itself. When I actually got around to seeing some of the other 24"s and other LCD's out there I realized what an utterly poor display it was. The only thing that made that 24" decent was the fact that shortly after it's release Dell significantly dropped the price below other 24"s & 23"s on the market after the landslide of complaints from unsatisfied customers started rolling in. Don't believe it? Just go check out the Dell forums. Yes, the actual DELL forums. You will not believe the amount of topics there are of people whining and complaining about all the problems the 24" has. This monitor was such a huge disaster for Dell they actually had to assign a represantitive to specifically deal with the incredible amount of activity in the forums related to the horrible 2407's they had shipped out. This lead to several revisions which didn't really fix much (and as many people discovered, a lot of these 'revised monitors' were just ones that had been returned and rebadged - way to go Dell!) Aside from that you can go to pretty much any gaming or pc hardware forum and find identical customer responses. This is actual people we are talking about, customers who experienced these things for themselves. Not some reviewer trying to point out the Pro's and minimize the negative while Dell pads their back pocket.

Sorry to be so hard on you with this, but as I said in my previous post, you just had to recommend the 2407 of all Dell monitors. It is and most likely will remain to be Dell's biggest mistake in their entire marketing history. Not only that but the responses Dell took to the issue have forever scarred Dell's name and their customer support for many many people, including myself. And now that prices have levelled and there is several other models out (and coming soon) in the same price range there is just no reason to even consider the 2407 anymore.

So I give my sincere condolences to you and your 2407. I'm sure you do think it is great and if you want to keep it that way I'd highly suggest you avoid looking at any of the competition. As they say, ignorance is bliss

my pc monitor just got busted and i wanted to buy an lcd screen. thanks for the info you've provided. i think viewsonic is more reliable though...

I have a ViewSonic VX924 and I like it a lot... very nice and no problems even when left on static screens for hours on end..............

I have a FPD2185W monitor with the DVI port connected to a Radeon X1900 GT graphics card (and drivers), which makes my $400 display look great. If you are referring to running the monitor in portrait mode with Gateway's EZ-Tune software... I don't use that.

How do you feel about glossy LCD screens JD?

Well, I'd still recommend an LG Flatron, I hear that these monitors are by far the fastest response time out of all of them, about 4 ms response time sounds about right. Also, their contrast ratios seem to be better than some of the others as well. You may want to confirm that information, but I, for one, think that it's one worth looking into.

I would recommend you stay away from LG Flatron's, I've demoed a few and particularly their 20.1" baffled me. The colours were very dull on it, the text did not look sharp and you could easily make out the pixels in things. Overall the monitor just seemed very unsatisfying, and I couldn't figure out why anyone would pay $400 for it With the LG you feel like you got nothing out of the purchase, just a waste of money.

Be aware also that a lot of these LCD monitors boast untrue response times, or they state colour response times that were measured with grey to grey. It's all a huge competition between companies these days to get the fastest response times, and they will pull a trick or two to make those sales. For the real facts on true response times head to that forum I linked in my first post. Ask the fellas there and they will do an actual test for you on the spot and tell you.

Anyways, I still stand by what I said in that first post to, you really ought to just wait a few more months and save a bit more. Your options for size are extremely limited with that budget, and personally I think you would feel like you wasted your money upgrading just 1 or 2 inches.

Well, another LCD that looked like it popped out was Westinghouse 19" LCDs, those are by far the brightest, most brilliant monitors on the shelf. Of course, they have the same technology that they seem to use in their HDTVs, IIRC.

I just got a 19" LG Flatron, stylish and great for my office. However, light bleeds from the top edge, lots of people have reported light bleeding from multiple edges. It is a detratctor any time you are doing anything with very dark colors on the top edge.

I'm far from an expert on computer monitors, and haven't tried the other brands/models mentioned above. If the other ideas aren't floating your boat though, then I was gonna suggest looking at the glossy-screened NEC GX2's, specifically the 19" 90GX2/90GX2-BK or the 20" widescreen 20WMGX2/20WMGX2-BK. (The "BK" models have a black base rather than white.) Fry's and some BB's should carry these in their stores. I tried a used 20WMGX2 and it easily put my old Samsung 175V LCD to shame in virtually every respect: contrast, blacks, angle of view, pixel response, color, size, clarity, etc....

The GX2's were designed with gaming, video and high-quality graphics in mind, and are a little more expensive than most LCD monitors. And there are other mfrs that offer similar glossy screens (eg Sony and HP), so you may be able to find something relatively comparable for less elsewhere. (Staples has a 20" glossy Acer AL2051W LCD with fewer features for less than the NEC. Don't know if that's a good brand though.) Many laptops sport glossy screens as well. Why they're popular on laptops but not desktops is a mystery to me.

The NEC 20WMGX2 has a variety of video inputs (no HDMI), a tuner (NTSC only I believe), remote, and a number of USB connectors, so that's probably also inflating it's price compared to some others. DVDs and other imagery looked superb via both VGA and DVI at the panel's native rez of 1680x1050 from my PC. I tried an HDMI DVD player connected via DVI as well. 480p and 720p looked pretty good, though there was some tearing visible especially when switching between the VGA and DVI inputs. 1080i exhibited pretty unpleasant flicker. (It's possible the display was configured wrong for 1080i, but I sort of doubt it.) Didn't get a chance to try the component or other video inputs. There was also a small light leak along the bottom edge on the unit I tested.

1600:1 is the rating for dynamic contrast (which can be turned off) on the 20WMGX2 btw. It's static contrast ratio is 700:1 like the 90GX2.

The picture on the NEC looked fantastic from a PC, but if anyone has other widescreen glossy recommendations (the larger the better), I'm open to suggestions. I'm also looking for displays (big or small) with an aspect ratio wider than 16:9. Something on the order of 2.35AR. I think Dell makes (or made) one, but can't find any info on their site or elsewhere.

I will second that Viewsonics are great LCDs. I have two of them myself, in a dual monitor setup - I was so happy with my first one that I got another Viewsonic this spring.

However, the old 20" I got (VP201s I believe) is in some ways better than the new VP930b! While both have very similar, excellent ergonomics (height, tilt, portrait), the 2-year old one has better viewing angle and very uniform backlight. It looks and feels like a truly professional monitor, and that's what $1000 could get you 2 years ago. The new 19" one has "glaringly" obviously better contrast ratio (no pun intended) and even 8ms compared to 16ms is certainly noticeable - but it has some corner backlight bleed and washes out faster when looked at an angle.

Larger monitor also has EXCELLENT scaling - I played many games at whatever resolution I wanted, 1024x768 or 1280x1024 and I could not notice any issues nor it was obvious that there is a resolution loss. And the thing is, unless you're going to buy a $600 video card (never mind two), you're going to be playing your games at lower resolution than the panel can provide - if you are buying 20" or above, that is, which is pretty much a given at prices we have nowdays.

However, I don't think you should buy a monitor because it was made by X or Y. You should buy a PARTICULAR MODEL. Just because Viewsonic X rocks, it doesn't mean that Viewsonic Y does too. And the same applies to any other manufacturer, be it Samsung or Dell or whatever.

I am considering getting a 24" HDTV compatible model. If I were doing that, Viewsonic model would be my first choice - for research at least. Right now there are no decent 1920x1080 monitors though, and the just released BENQ with HDMI is actually bad when used as HDTV according to first impressions I've read. I've also heard bad things about the 24" DELL with HDMI input as well. So if I had to get a monitor today, I'd buy a cost-effective, GOOD, 20-21" monitor from Viewsonic, Samsung or Dell. Or get a 22" Acer. I do believe you get what you pay for with LCDs though, and would go for top of the line series only. Monitor is most important part of your computer, better to get a slightly smaller size than one that scales badly, has video noise due to "speed enhancing" overdrive or non-adjustable height or bad viewing angle.

I can understand that in a office setting, with lots of overhead flourescent lighting, the reflections might be too much. But at home... I've had a Sony X-Brite (19") for a few months now and I have yet to see a non-glossy screen that even compares. It's not even close! The glossies blow the others away. They are pricey, but I managed to grab one on sale with a $100 rebate which brought it to $319, and worth every penny.

Seriously... I walk thru the stores and am just dumbfounded that the old-skool lcd's even sell at all when parked next to a glossy screen.

Just searched around... are these discontinued? Don't see new ones anywhere.

Looking at high rez photos on this is about as close to reliving a photo as you are gonna get, just love it.

there are several new 22" display out now built around the same panel, all less than $400, some barely over $300. samsung, viewsonic, acer, chimei. nothing spectacular, but decent pic, fast response. try newegg.

I've been using a Westinghouse 32w6 for months after upgrading from a 19" Hitachi CRT. I couldn't be happier. The screen is perfect for my PC use and DVD viewing.