Best Monitors availiable in T&T

[Spazosaurus]

...as we on the topic of monitors....


1920×1200 24″ LCDs Fall Below $300

It was only a mere ten-fifteen years ago when you could easily spend a good $400 on a 14″ CRT monitor. And that was no bargain, would have cost you $1000 or more for a 17″ that had about as many colors as a small box of Crayons, not to mention it was as deep as it is wide and wasn’t any more flat than one of the moon’s craters. But now days as new innovations come about, and production costs are cut down low, you can get a lot more bang for your buck. Such as a 24″ wide screen LCD computer monitor now below $300 USD with a little digging and searching. Such as the Soyo 24″ LCD, and that’s just it’s normal price, O***** *** is selling them on Black Friday for below $250! (Edited for legal purposes).

If you’re still running CRT, this would be a good time to upgrade! Not only are they better for your eyes, but they consume less power and last a lot longer, meaning much more bang out of that same buck!

http://stealthytech.com/200711/1920x1200-24-lcds-fall-below-300/

Grantes that its some cheap brand that i've never heard about and no doubt that this particular product is junk, its existance is a good sign for the future.

[rassmatic]

My cousin works at Circuit Zone he told me there might be some bigger lcd this month and xmas month.

If u want i can find out price and size 2morrow.

sounds good. thanx. i was thinkin of getting a samsung 226bw with a 2ms response time, but if there's better, i'll check it out.

[Notnice]

ok they are get big monitors up tp 42'' for like $10000 and 27'' for like $5000 he siad check them like next month my cousin siad.

[Prowl]

something to watch otu for, yes for gaming you want more ( lower ) response time but go to toms hareware and check the overdrive scores, not all response times are made equal, also many makers are ussing what I waould call inferior designs to lower the costs. Think about it, my 215tw with 8ms ( 16 actual ) is still $450 usd, but the 226BW is $350, now check the specs and test results. Now granted if your a gamer colour accuracy etc means nothing to you as long as the guy with the crt doesn't see you first but out side of that if you do photo editing, publishing, video work etc the view angles and colour quality suddenly makes all the difference, ( not to mention the y/c inputs for my camcorder yay ).

I'm just saying buyers beware and check the tests first.

BTW the reportd input lag of the 215tw goes away once you install the proper monitor driver, I was one of those who was cussing and ready to send it back with the input lag from hell unil I installed the samsung driver and reintalled vid card drivers, now can barely see a difference between it and a crt.

[rassmatic]

thanx for the heads-up Prowl. but i think the reason that the 215TW is more than the 226BW is because of the component, S-Video, composite inputs it has. the 226BW doesn't have those features. plus, the BW isn't that adjustable (can't swivel and pivot much).

[TriniXaeno]

I've got a new angle to add to this question.

Now that my gaming rig is coming together, considering a new monitor, like a 22" panel.

Captain Awesome wrote of an Acer in his mid range intel PC recommendations:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HAR8UI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Looks good,

But my question is this....how are games dealing with the widescreen??

Do you just suffer stretched out graphics or black borders to maintain the ratio?

Do you edit registry, ini and other config files to get proper res in games like the guys on www.widescreengaming.com??

I'm thinking I'd not want all that trouble.

What has been your experience? (Looks @ awesome)

[UltimateGamer]

Well noob i can't honestly say that in recent times, from the release of bioshock onwards, that i haven't got a game with widescreen res. If any, most manufacturers are heading towards widescreen cause you know that is the current craze. 

Even shying away from pc look at xbox 360 and ps3, all deal with hd res which are widescreen. The only time you have to worry about no widescreen support is if you intend to beast the ever popular bejeweled and/or zuma deluxe on that rig of  yours.

Just my 2 cents 

[Arcmanov]

Don't worry...most games support widescreen now, and the ones that don't have easy workarounds.

[Spazosaurus]

I've never come across a game that looked stretched out on this monitor. Even when I select a 4:3 aspect ratio resolution (read non widescreen resolution) in any game, there are no borders at all and everything looks excellent. Even games pre Bioshock look great (COD1, 2, UT2k4....the whole shebangabang). Nothing to worry about. Also, if you're concerned about ghosting, dont be. There's none to be seen on this screen.

That said, there are two drawbacks to this monitor that you should probably consider...

1) Lack of height and swivel adjustability. Some people take those features very seriously and wouldnt even touch a unit w/o those features. But let's face it, for a unit THIS cheap that performs so well, its east to overlook that. (Need more height? Place monitor on a block of wood, that's what I did. Need swivel? Manual swivel iymc)

2) Slight backlight bleed to the very top of the viewable area. This, however is ONLY visible when a completely black screen is displayed. And when I say slight, I do mean slight.

Acer hit the ball out of the park with this one IMO. Go for it!!!

[Saxito Pau]

Mine is on the way.... i want the 22" glory for myself too!

[TriniXaeno]

nice. well that lays most of my fears to rest.

I just don't understand one thing. How can a 4:3 ratio res not looked stretched out on a wide screen panel??

Figured black borders would be the only way to compensate.

[Spazosaurus]

Well ive wondered the same thing myself, especially during all the bacchanal with people making a stink about lack of widescreen support in the Bioshock demo was it? and I had no problem, everything appeard to be normal. Other people with this unit (Arc) can confirm this.

I never really question it, but it just works like normal.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

getting a good LCD is a bit of stress, if you ordering it from away and it is damaged in shipping its stress to get it replaced.. Locally prices are astronomical..


but i think i found a way to beat the system  : dell sells their monitors seperately under 'small business' section.. very nicely priced too , 189us for a 19 inch.

 Comes with a 3 year warranty as well...

[TriniXaeno]

at $220US for a top rated 22", I don't see how US$189 for a 19" is a deal?

[Saxito Pau]

..and what is their shipping charge? And don't tell me you forgot that Customs will VAT you on top of all that?

[disciple]

dread, cheap 4:3 aspect monitors above 19 inch rarer than a honest politician..

if i could, i woulda take a 22 inch 4:3, ( cuz i prefer that to browse pages with)

[TrinireturnofGamez]

at $220US for a top rated 22", I don't see how US$189 for a 19" is a deal?

3 year warranty with local parts and service.. only reason i'd buy anything from dell.

That acer is very sweet for the price , but i'm afraid somebody in TTPOST would sit on mine.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&oc=e228wfp

22 inch wide screen dell for 280 US, 3 year warranty..

[Saxito Pau]

OMG I was not charged VAT on my 22: nearly $400 in freight though.

But I keeping my fingers crossed: my skybox has often charged the VAT "after the fact"

Acer here I come!

[TriniXaeno]

Luckily for me, wasn't charged VAT on my Acer either.

Like captainawesome has influence over the customs officers and established a concession for these units. lol

As an update on the issue of games. I tested over 50 games with the unit and sadly must report that older games do stretch to fill the screen.

The distortion is not "unacceptable" but it is noticeable.

Everything from Starcraft to Age of Mythology, to Warcraft 3 to Warhammer Dawn of War.

Out of the 50 games tested, four had native wide screen support. You could tell those because they offered not only the correct resolutions but also an option to set the aspect ratio. Choices being 4:3, 16:10 and 16:9

4:3 for regular CRT screens and panels
16:10 for typical wide Screen for Data/PCs
16:9  for typical wide screens for movies / TVs.

Even with those, you may still want to do some further configuring to retain the original appearance of the graphics. As is the case with COD4 where you can manually adjust the field of view setting to look similar to that of a 4:3 screen but with the added benefit of seeing 20% more of the game world.

One or two games actually maintained the 4:3 aspect ratio and displayed black borders to the left and right.

In conclusion:

Are games stretching? Yes
Is it noticeable? Yes
Is it a bother? No

Won't stop me from going widescreen. If you hadn't played them on a 4:3 setting before, you probably wouldn't even be aware of the stretch.

Most new games will come with widescreen support out of the box and for those that don't, you can find a "fix" on this excellent website:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=Master_Games_List_-_A

[Saxito Pau]

There is one thing I would like to note about Acer AL2216W:

Remember when I told you guys about my 3DMark06 Default resolution being 180 x 960 instead 1280 x 1024.

It was because I manually installed the Acer AL2216W Monitor driver (only good for win XP)

It made my games run at 1280 x 960 minimum widescreen res.
NGW, Try this driver and what differences it makes in game resolutions.