Which LCD monitor to buy?

[Alakazam]

I've been looking into 17, 17.5, & 18" LCD's. Anyone using one this size and can tell me the good, bad, or ugly about LCDs. I do some graphics, a little gaming, and a lot of surfing if that helps for the use.

 

[yaethom]

In your case, where u want mostly surfing, you should probably steer clear from LCD's.

Now they are good cuz of the large screen size, and simply a soothing display to look at. (I have a Sony CPD-L181A one of their first 18 inchers.) So it's not the newest model, but its really good in my opinion.

However, the only down side to LCD's is that they have a slow pixel refresh rate (in the order of 30-50 ms, compared to the CRT's 5-10 ms). And this is what causes blurring. On my monitor, i dont see any blurring in games or movies... But the main blurring i see comes from scrolling webpages, its pretty hard to erad while the page is scrolling. (even if it scrolls slowly). Other than that, its a great monitor

 

[Alakazam]

Tnx yeathom, I was looking at the Sony SPM-M81, an 18.1", I think I'll do some digging at the review sites. I wonder if the latest LCDs are any quicker at refreshing.

 

[AMDPwred]

I wish I could get an LCD. Right now I'm working on getting a 19inch monitor. Best of luck with whatever you choose Alakazam.

 

[Alakazam]

The main reason I'm looking into them is we're moving to a new place and our computer area is going to be much smaller, I think we're going to get a more compact desk and am looking to save a lot of space. C'mon guys, there has to be more of you using lcds out there.

 

[Wizkid]

Check out the samsung 170T

Samsung

 

[karmasalad]

I'm using a 17" Samsung SyncMaster 770TFT. Got it for $750 during the Dell 20% off deal a week ago.

I use it primarily for browsing, Web development work, and some gaming. I know a lot of people talk about ghosting when playing games, but I've been playing CS on my LCD just fine.

The Good: Gorgeous display, reclaimed a whole lot of desk real estate, beautifully crisp graphics and colors, and damn sexy. Oh, and as for practical purposes... consumes less power, generates less heat, much easier on the eyes (esp. for long periods of viewing), and light!

The Bad: The chance that you may end up with some dead pixels. The first one I ordered from Buy.com came with about 10 dead pixels. I promptly returned that one for a refund. However, Samsung's general dead pixel policy is 3 or more dead pixels, so you may have to live with a couple if you're unlucky.

The Ugly: The price! Especially when compared with a regular CRT.

I've been using 15" Dell LCDs at the office for a couple of years now, so when it came time to get a monitor for my new rig, there was no question that I was going to get one myself. IMO, their benefits far outweigh the perceived negatives. But until their prices come down another couple of hundred bucks, they'll play second fiddle to traditional CRTs.

 

[Alakazam]

Tnx karmasalad, they've got the 770tft at our local Best Buy and it looked good, you got a good deal from Dell.

 

[karmasalad]

Yeah, I was going to pick mine up at Best Buy until I saw the Dell deal.

Dell currently has a 10% off deal that expires tomorrow, so you could pick it up for ~$850, over a hundred less than BB and no tax either. However, I personally don't like the idea of UPS handling the monitor (my Buy.com order arrived with a hole in one side of the box), so I had mine shipped next-day via FedEx.

 

[bacteria]

i heard that samsung lcd-displays were darker and with less color saturation, compared to others like viewsonic and sony.

 

[foofoo]

i'm very happy with my viewsonic vg181.
it plays games without straining (halflife-based, unreal, homeworld, etc)
and the lack of a blinking refresh is great.
i've also got a samsung synchmaster 170t coming in next week for a computer that i'm building for a friend.
i've heard very good things about it.

ps should point out that i'm using digital input and dvi out video cards (gf2 ultra, ati aiw radeon)

 

[Rpower]

Link to review on three 18 inch LCD's(Song NEC SGI).
http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=18lcdso&page=1&mscssid=&tp=

 

[medic]

Just bought a NEC LCD and damn! do I love this thing. The color in games is incredible and it's so comforting to my eyes from years of CRT (burn)use. I can work for hours without eyestrain.
BTW: Web pages USE to blur as I scrolled until I went to Options and turned off smooth scrolling. Helps alot!
Now I'm saving for a 18" Samsung (I think it was) but the price between the 15 and 17-18 is huge at the moment.
One tip I can give is if you can, buy it at a local comp. store (B&M) and get them to quickly plug it in before you buy it and go to the desktop/Properties and on the Appearance tab set it to a black background and check for dead pixels. (turn any background pictures off)
Don't forget to drag all the desktop icons to the right and check behind them. (try a white background as well)
The first one I tried had a cluster of three always on white pixels right in the center, I told the kid to get another, to which he whinned and pleaded..."are you sure it would really bother you? To which I asked if he needed help to lift it... Needless to say he quickly got another and this one IS perfect!