Need advice on Flatscreen monitors

[kupocake]

The monitor on my mum's cheapo PC is doing some weird stuff, so I've promised to give her my old 15" CRT (which is actually twice the age of hers, but still great quality) whilst I go and treat myself to a nice new LCD monitor (I want a lighter, better monitor for when I go to Uni anyway)

Naturally, this being one of those advice threads, "I know nowt" about what to get. I'm thinking 17", within the range of £200-£250 and i'm assuming that will get me a decent 1280x1024 resolution and the kind of response time ideal for gaming. So I put it to you all, can you hook me up with a nice new monitor?

 

[Alan Freeman]

Get a Syncmaster 213T 21.3 " ohhh wait you said 200-250 $ nevermind

 

[kupocake]

ohhh wait you said 200-250 $ nevermind

Just for clarity, that's £200-£250 or $370-$465

 

[oldagerocker]

hello tiger. we're find you something nice.

16ms responce time is what i have... and to be honest with your budget, its the lowest you can get to. more than 16, is just going to look poor ingame. Also, you do want a fairly decent make, so you dont get dead pixels... which arent returnable for. Unless there's more than a certain number on the screen of a certain type.

ooh i just found abit of a blinder... prices seemed to have dropped.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=63512

The best makes are Sony, Samsung, LG, (oh and ofcourse Viewsonic) and possibly Acer, although if you can one of the others, i would over an Acer. have fun, tft's are great.

 

[[Matt]]

hello tiger. we're find you something nice.

16ms responce time is what i have... and to be honest with your budget, its the lowest you can get to. more than 16, is just going to look poor ingame. Also, you do want a fairly decent make, so you dont get dead pixels... which arent returnable for. Unless there's more than a certain number on the screen of a certain type.

ooh i just found abit of a blinder... prices seemed to have dropped.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=63512

The best makes are Sony, Samsung, LG, (oh and ofcourse Viewsonic) and possibly Acer, although if you can one of the others, i would over an Acer. have fun, tft's are great.

Prices for LCD monitors are falling through the floor right now. Give it a few more months and they will be around 50% less across the board.

Go here and notice how most of the 17" panels are now sub £200!!!
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/lcd17.html

If you're prepared to wait until late spring then i garuntee you could get a 12ms no ghosting 8bit 19" TFT for around £250 or less...

 

[[Matt]]

...If you were to go with a 19" panel instead of a 17" then you cant go wrong with the one at the very bottom of this page...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/lcd19.html

Its an absolute blinder!!

EDIT - or here cheaper... http://www.lowestonweb.com/products/displayinfomain.asp?e=6125EB8D-5EF0-4DDC-9433-BE2204306907

 

[kupocake]

One thing i'm noticing (and it's not really a concern), but do LCD screens tend not to go above 1280x1024 at the moment?

Also in connection with this, what's the deal with 1280x1024 native resolutions? Does this mean I have to run everything in 1280x1024, and by doing so, won't I get really crappy framerates in newer games?

oldagerocker's suggestion sounds very tempting... I don't think I have the money just yet, but my mum will help me out if she needs to replace her quickly monitor. Those 19" also sound tempting (I suppose I could stretch an extra £50), but i'm not sure whether I have the deskspace... edit: also, I consider it kind of important that it doesn't look too tempting to steal. Student houses can be targets as I understand it.

 

[Maxi]

I'd go with the ViewSonic VP171b-2 17".

And native means that that's how many pixels that are in the monitor. If you put a lower resolution than it's native resolution, it will depolate(or something) the image so that one pixel goes on four.

 

[`unreal]

most 19" LCD's are not able to have a native resolution of over 1280x1024, but 20"+ does. For example, my 20.1" widescreen can go at 1680x1050, which made me decide I wasn't going to get a 19". However the 19" LCD's are priced so incredibly well lately, I'm amazed.

Look out for Viewsonic, Dell, Samsung and LG LCD's, they currently do a good money to performance ratio.

 

[The Terminator]

BENQ FP71G+ 17IN, thats BENQs new 8 ms LCD, not sure of price but shop around for it and youll get a good one. Its really fast ,w hich makes it great for gaming.

 

[01000101]

Here's some nice LCD's
I just bought this one about three weeks ago. I couldn't be happier with my purchase