Looking for a new monitor

[DreamThrall]

I am looking for a new primary monitor, 24"+, < $500, preferably glossy. I have two 24" glossy Gateways that will be my 2nd and 3rd monitors. I'm used to 16:10, but it looks like a lot of the 27"s are 16:9, but the 30"s are all way out of my price range, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'll be using it primarily for software dev, but it shouldn't suck for gaming either.

Any suggestions?

 

[Raziaar]

It's just that 16:10 is pretty much going extinct, that's why there's barely any of them.

 

[VirusType2]

I just got a 23" 16:9 TN 1080p panel and because of the wide aspect, it is possible to display two documents side by side, but it's not exactly roomy in that case. I manage to make it work to display PDF and an Excel spreadsheet side by side. Not ideal if this was something I'd be mostly doing.

For software development, you should go with 16:10.

My brother has two 24" 16:10 panels that he uses for software development.


TLDR:

1080p might not be ideal but its possible; however, you should go with 1200p, and you might consider two monitors.


In other words, keep in mind that the resolution of the screen is the factor in how much room you have, not the size of the actual monitor - the pixels will just be bigger.


EDIT: Sorry, I overlooked this part

I have two 24" glossy Gateways that will be my 2nd and 3rd monitors.

K, so this will be your middle monitor?

 

[DreamThrall]

Yup, it'll be the middle one. Valid point though on pixels just being bigger. I guess it wouldn't really be worth going bigger than 24" unless I get a higher res than 1920x1200.

EDIT: And it looks like higher res than 1920x1200 is going to be wayyy out of my price range: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...eValue=1099:9242&PropertyCodeValue=1099:25153

It's just that 16:10 is pretty much going extinct, that's why there's barely any of them.

Where'd you hear this? It seems like there's still plenty of 16:10 in the 21-24" range, it's just harder to find them larger than that.

 

[Raziaar]

Where'd you hear this? It seems like there's still plenty of 16:10 in the 21-24" range, it's just harder to find them larger than that.

Something I've heard from various forum searches in my quest to find a good 24" 16:10 LCD... and from my own experiences in really only being able to find a tiny handful of 16:10 ones, let alone known brand ones. And the ones that were out there, the prices were skyrocketed above what they originally were... as if there was a mad dash and supply was running out. The fact that many of them were no longer in stock also kind of led to my belief of that mad dash and dying out of them.

http://vnboards.ign.com/pc_generalhardwaresoftware_tech_support_board/b22497/111943130/r111953494/

1080 seems to be the mainstream choice... the marketing buzz word, and companies are really catering to that market than bothering with anything 1920x1280.

 

[VirusType2]

Valid point though on pixels just being bigger. I guess it wouldn't really be worth going bigger than 24" unless I get a higher res than 1920x1200

Well, with a huge monitor, you could use smaller fonts in many applications so you could kinda get more things on screen.

Shit, you've got two huge monitors already. It sounds like you kind of want an entertainment mainpiece (like for games, movies, etc.), and if I were you, I'd wait until the 120 Hz and 240 hz monitors come out in larger sizes (currently 23" is probably the biggest, as far as monitors, not TVs of course)


I just bought this one to hold me over until they make a 23"-25", 240 Hz, LED backlit panel. That's what I want. I mean, last month, I had been using a 16" FS and I just couldn't wait anymore.

120 and 240 Hz refresh means less motion blur and also its divisible by the 24 fps framerate of films, meaning they don't need to interlace or do any kind of tricks for films so it plays back smoothly. Besides less motion and panning blur, 120 hz is required for 3D (60 hz for each eye), and 240 hz would do 3D at 120hz per eye (best for 3D movies, since again, it's divisible by 24.)

60 Hz., divided by 24 =2.5 (bad)
120 Hz., divided by 24 = 5 (good)
240 Hz., divided by 24 = 10 (good)

The problem is, they want to sell you a new monitor as often as possible, so they won't make the perfect monitor right way. Instead they will improve it every year. So you will pay a huge premium for something like 240 (I'm not sure if they are available yet) when 120 hz is still rare.

Anyway, so my new monitor should hold me over for a while. I got LED so it can last 2 to 5 times longer than a CFL backlight. (also, I'd just lose 1 LED at a time, meaning the monitor would still be sort of usable) Plus the power supply is a brick instead of built in to the monitor, so I can just order a new power supply if it dies. (plus my brother is an electronic technician, so he could fix it if they are charging too much for a new one)

I know not everyone cares about all of these things, but I'm just putting that out there.

 

[DreamThrall]

Actually, I won't be watching any movies, and I don't do a whole lot of gaming anymore.

I was looking for a size upgrade because with my current 24"s, when I put any two windows side by side (using Win 7's winkey+arrow shortcuts), it always seems like there's just *barely* not enough horizontal space to fit all the content.

But as you pointed out, all that moving up in size would get me is just bigger pixels, so that wouldn't actually solve any problems, unless I **** with the font sizes, which I'm not really partial to doing.

Any resolutions over 1920x1200 seems to come with the $1000+ price tag, which is pretty much out of the question right now, so it looks like I'm probably going to stick with 24", just to keep things relatively uniform.

 

[VirusType2]

With a new 'eyefinity' ATi card, you can use 3 monitors, then the windows wouldn't have to share space. Isn't that what the plan was? It's true, it's nicer to have them on the same monitor.

With 2 eyefinity ATI cards, you can do 6 monitors.

Or with 2 nvidia cards you can do... 4, I think

 

[DreamThrall]

I've got an 8800GT + a USB adapter which works fine.

@Raz holy shit, you're right. I swear to god when I bought those Gateways 5 months ago there were lots more 16:10, but now on closer inspection you're totally right.

This is irritating... I don't want to lose that vertical space, but it'll cost me literally 2x what I paid when I got those other 2 monitors... UGH.

 

[Druckles]

It's been a while since I was on the monitor scene, but I love my Belinea 2485 S1W. It has great colour, acceptable latency, and I've had no problems since I bought it two years ago. I couldn't seem to find any after a quick Google, though . Nice panel, but it's not glossy.

I went here for reviews: http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/index2.html

Edit: Don't you mean vertical space?

 

[VirusType2]

Horizontal; width; a 16:10 monitor isn't as wide as 16:9 at the same measurement, e.g. 24". Conversely, a 16:10 monitor is taller; that's how they have the same diagonal measurement and both called 24".