Monitor questions that need answering :)

[Brady]

Im thinking its time to buy a tft/lcd 19\" screen but being new to the flat screen side of things im not sure what to go for....there are a few on Aria i have my eye on and all are under £150 which is the limit...any suggestions?, personaly i like the 19\" Octigen OC9209 - 8ms - Black ..what are your thoughts on this?

Thanks all

Wayne

[LJ]

Don't forget that resolution is (usually) king, unless you suffer from a serious vision disorder, and as a result 19\" LCDs can be a bit of a con. You see....

15\" LCDs have a native resolution of 1024x768. Useless to 90% of the people on this board, unless you like your Halo on a postage stamp.
17\" LCDs have a native resolution of 1280x1024. This is good, without making every character look like it was designed for <6yr old kids or OAPs..
19\" LCDs have a native resolution of 1280x1024. Duplo-tastic.
20.1\" LCDs have a native resolution of 1600x1200. They rock. And yes, I'm biased.

Widescreen is a slightly different matter, as 19\" LCDs have a resolution of 1440x900 (WXGA+). Still fairly enlarged, but you need to bear this in mind - they may be bigger, but the TFT panels actually cost less to produce (it's easier to get decent yields off the panels with larger dot pitch).

So, how does this affect you if you're a gamer? Jaggies. Lots of big, beautiful jaggies (compared with the lower dot pitch panels). Your graphics card has to do a lot more work to get rid of the jaggies, and even when you're running at 1280x1024 8xAA, you're still going to notice them a lot more than you would on a 17\" TFT.

Even with sub-pixel rendering (aka ClearType on Windows) on the desktop, the pixels are noticeable....to me, at least. Perhaps I'm overly picky. If you read any of my other threads, though, you'll probably notice that I kinda take the opposite approach to a lot of people on here - I favour component quality over the traditional measures of performance. Just as an insanely high-clocked CPU isn't necessarily as good as one which more than does the job yet doesn't produce as much heat/noise, a big monitor isn't necessarily as good as one with lower dot pitch and more useful features.

Size isn't everything, kids :) I just wanted you to be aware of what you're getting, and the alternatives.

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[DeCrYpT3R]

1280 x 1024 is better than widescreen in my opinion :P

i have had both in the past 2 months

and i gotta admit, the widescreen is brilliant for weatching your divX films and videos etc, feels like a proper T.V

but 1280 x 1024 makes me feel more confortable playing games on

hope it helps pyle

[Brady]

Thanks all

I went for the Hanns in the end and very pleased with it, dont realise what your missing until you finaly throw the crt out the window..

A free bump for Aria, ordered wednesday morning and got it today...Excellent

Wayne