LCD Computer Monitor advice needed

[EddieWalker]

Our 3year old Dell 19 inch CRT monitor died yesterday. We're using an older 17 inch monitor right now, but need to buy a new one.

Looking on ebay, I see quite a few 22 inch LCD flat screen monitors for under $250, which seems like a great price. Of the brands I'm seeing Samsung sort of stands out. I've always been disapointed with HP, so that's out. NEC used to be OK, but I don't know if they still are. Acer is crap, don't want anything from them. There are also allot of Dell monitors for sale and from what I'm reading, it looks like Dell and Samsung might be the same thing.

Any thoughts, suggestions or warnings?

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[Willl]

I'm pretty happy with our CTL's.

Welcome To The CTL Monitors WebSite!

 

[rich_ncal]

Someone I know purchased an AOC model because it had a good rebate:

AOC-Envision 2216Sw Widescreen LCD Monitor - 22" - 1680 x 1050 @ 60Hz - 5ms - 30001 - Black, Silver

The picture is sharp. It puts my 19" LCD to shame. He has only had this for three weeks now, so the life time is still TBD.

 

[Tig]

I am very happy with the products and service I get from Tiger Direct. Check them out. I usually buy the cheap stuff but they do sell quality too.

 

[tommu56]

Eddie

I have vuewsonic wide screen on my computers at home and work and like them some people at work say it looks better than the acer the IT guys buy I think so to.

I also have a 37" vuewsonic lcd tv in the living room I got them from micro center or tigerdirect.

tommu

 

[Wombat125]

There are only small handful of companies who actually make the LCD displays. They sell to the dozens of retail manufacturers. I'm just saying that you shouldn't get too hung up on the brand.

If you are buying this monitor to attach to an older computer, make sure that your video card supports the wide screen resolutions. Whereas CRT displays are happy at pretty much any screen resolution up to their upper limit, LCDs only display properly at their one native resolution. This is because LCDs are made up of a discreet number of pixels where CRTs just have an analog raster beam. A wide screen LCD just has a greater number of horizontal pixels to widen the aspect ratio. You can set a computer to an LCD's non-native resolution, but the picture will be much less sharp because the monitor is doing a mathmatical interpolation of the number of pixels requested versus the number of pixels available.

Since I've apparently gone into soapbox mode, everyone with an LCD should check their documentation to see what the native resolution of their display is and set their computer accordingly. The image will be clear and the eyes will be happy.

I also agree with Tig: Tiger Direct and Newegg consistently have very good deals on monitors. You can probably do about as well as eBay with no ambiguity about the source.

 

[LMTC]

Newegg. I have 5 LCD monitors, 2 HP, 1 Dell, 1 Samsung, 1 Hanns-G. Happy with all of them. Dell is 5 years old, 1HP is nearly 5, 1 is 3, others newer. Just looked on Newegg...19" Hanns-G with really good feedback under $200 with shipping. Item #: N82E16824254005

21" or 22" is a BIG monitor. I don't have the deskspace.

 

[MossRoad]

I have had great success with ViewSonic and Samtron/Samsung monitors(about 1500 of them), over the years, both CRT and more recently, LCD. They offer decent warranty period (three years, usually) and NEVER question warranty returns. Many of these are 24 hour a day, 7 day a week monitors. We get over three years out of them before they die. I have many 10 year old and older CRTs in service by these two manufacturers. If they are turned off when not in use, they should last a decade or longer.

 

[EddieWalker]

I was just looking at the 22 inch monitors at Tiger Direct and realized that I don't really know what I'm looking at.

The top three rated models there are the Samsung, NEC and Asus. The main difference that I see in each model is this number. Samsung 700:1 NEC is 1000:1 and $20 more. Asus is 2000:1 and is $30 more then the Samsung. Then there is the next level Samsung wich is $10 more then the Asus with 2000:1

Another difference between the $299 Asus and the $309 Samsung is the Asus is 2ms and it says they have the fastest 2ms response time among 22" widescreen LCD monitors. The Samsung is 5ms and the others are 6ms.

What is ms? Is the smaller number better and is it something I can even notice?

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[RonMar]

You want to test how well something works or is put together, put it on a USCG icebreaker and send it on a south trip. Breaking ice is like driving down the worst washboarded road you have ever been on. We had a few different flat panels onboard, and the ONLY ones we didn't have problems with were the Viewsonics, and the laptop displays. The viewsonics were used on the electronic chart system and were in use 24/7 while underway. That was over about a 3 year period. After my first year onboard, I bought one for my personal computer in my stateroom and it made 2 south trips. I still have it and it is running right now about 2 feet away from the machine I am typing this on. It cost more, but it was worth it IMO.