The Glade 4.0

It looks like my faithful Samsung SyncMaster 204B is starting to finally give up the ghost. I always power it off when I'm done with it and after 5+ years of it it's pretty slow to light back up, as in several minutes, and then it comes in dark until it warms up some more. Any thoughts on perhaps sending this one out for repair, or just retire it for a backup? Really tho, I'm looking for suggestions on a new monitor.

Mostly I use it for work, spreadsheets, database and billing. Also gaming. Lots and lots of gaming

I'm still currently running XP on a system I built about a year ago, running 4 gig of ram with an Geforce 8800 GTS. I don't have everything maxed out on this as of yet because of the limitations of XP, but have been pretty happy so far with performance. I think I have 1 or 2 AT Sapphire HD 3870's laying around here too.

I'd like to say money isn't an issue, but just in relation to the idea of a giant 40" $1200 jobby. I'd like at a minimum 23" but bigger is always better. 27"+ I think would be ideal. I've never owned a wide screen, but have used them quite a bit in the past, and I'm not opposed to it. I'm not sure what you all think, in relationship to the regular work stuff and gaming.

Suggestions? Let the Hive Mind guide me on my Black Friday purchase!

I use a 27" HP 2709m that I got for $305 at Fry's a while ago, which I think is fantastic.

Khross will make death threats if you don't consider the $1000+ IPS panels.

I just got myself a used Dell 2408 that I like a lot- excellent view, sturdy base, huge viewing angle. And can swap from landscape to portrait.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

You don't need to spend $1000+ for an IPS. Not getting anything but an IPS is a waste of money though, imo. The difference between the black levels and colors/contrast is just night and day. Your monitor is your single most important piece of hardware and you should never go cheap on it.

http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php

You can get a good 24 inch one in the $400-500 range now. The price does ramp up quite a bit going above that size range, but I've always been uncomfortable with monitors bigger than that for a desktop.

Pixel response time on IPS panels can still be pretty bad, at 4ms at the very high end to 16ms at the "low end" (which is still expensive.) Anything 8ms and above will show ghosting in action sequences of movies or games. TN panels, while they don't have the viewing angles IPS panels have, can be almost as good from a color perspective, and routinely have response times of 2ms.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I haven't really even looked at the IPS ones. I guess I just haven't kept up on monitors much lately. The refresh is what made me buy this one when I did because for some reason ghosting on games really makes me crazy and not something I want to settle on.

Newegg has this one for $100 off on special. Thoughts? I'd just rather not settle, but I don't have to be on the bleeding edge either.

I'm not sure where the speakers even are on that one. I have my own that give me that nice rumble from the anti-aircraft guns, and probably won't even use them unless I could add them to my configuration.

The response time on newer ones is a complete non-issue. The 400-500 ones have response times below 8 MS now. Mine is a 6 MS and I've never had a single issue with ghosting on it.

There's really no "almost as good" when it comes to colors with IPS vs TN panels. Once you see the difference between them you can't go back to TNs. 2 MS is a pretty irrelevant number compared to 6 MS vs the color difference. I will never, ever ever ever even consider buying a TN panel after having my NEC20WMGX2 which was worth every penny of the 600 I paid when I bought it and it's only a 20.1 inch.

I really don't see a huge color difference between the better TNs and the IPS panels, but regardless, most people would rather have an extra 7-10" in panel size for the price instead of slightly more vibrant color, but okay. If the color is the be-all and end-all consideration, OLED displays make IPS panels their *****. (Seriously, the color, contrast and brightness difference between IPS and OLED is many times greater than the difference between IPS and TN). LG has a 15" OLED display (at 1366x768). The entire display is only 1.7mm thick, as well. Of course, it costs about $2000...and I think it's only sold in South Korea.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Food for thought on that, what are your thoughts on widescreen VS 4.3 ratio, especially in relation to gaming?

For gaming, 16:9 is the way to go, without reservation. We have a much, much wider horizontal field of vision than we have vertical. Widescreen makes better use of our natural eyesight, and is slightly faster to render than a 4:3 screen of the same diagonal "size" (more pixels on a 4:3 screen.) Also, widescreen movies have less letterboxing, more efficient use of screen space.

Conversely, for desktop applications, you get more screen real estate out of a narrower, taller screen. It's not noteworthy enough to make me recommend them, though.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Most monitors are still 16:10 actually, don't think there's been a wide change to 16:9 yet. It's a little better than 16:9 for games, but gives you small black bars on the top/bottom for widescreen movies that use the 16:9 TV standard.

U2711?

That was true a couple years ago, but now i'm seeing more and more monitors at 1920x1080 as opposed to 1920x1200. Likely because 16:9 became standard for laptop screens first.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I was surprised by Talya's assertion of fewer pixels in widescreen, so I did some math.

4 x 3 x 5 (5 being the diagonal)
16 x 9 x 18.3575598 (being the diagonal)
16 x 10 x 18.8679623 (being the diagonal)

4 x 18.3/5 = 14.64 (roughly)
3 x 18.3/5 = 10.98 (roughly)
4 x 18.8/5 = 15.04 (roughly, rounded down)
3 x 18.8/5 = 11.28 (roughly, again rounded down)

16 x 9 = 144
14.64 x 10.98 = 160.7472 (and I rounded down, so it is actually higher)
15.04 x 11.28 = 169.6512 (again, actually higher)

Interestingly, the math can be used to estimate monitor dimensions - a 27" 16 x 9 would have to be at least 16 x 27/18.3575598 wide and 9 x 27/18.3575598 high with likely an inch or less for frame, and a 27" 16 x 10 is much the same, with 18.8679623 in the same spot.

I hope that helps if space is a factor in the final decision.

[Edited to add 16 x 10 numbers]

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Once, I was a ranger
Then, I was a warlock
And a mage
And a paladin
Now, I seek to be myself

Thank you everyone for their help. I made my purchase and I'll have it when I get back from my trip!

I too ordered the 2770HD today. Been looking at it for a couple weeks. Didn't expect it to drop $60 today though so score one for waiting.

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Hokanu
Duty is a magnificent blessing because it is the sign of trust from the universe.
END OF LINE.

Yeah, as your numbers show (the 16x10 being slightly larger than the 16x9 of the same diagonal size) the closer the monitor is to square, the more screen area you have at the same diagonal size. Technically, those 1280x1024 5:4 monitors are an efficient use of space if you're only running desktop apps. Just to do the same math on a 27" 4:3 monitor, you end up with an area of 350 square inches. The 27" 16:9 has 312 square inches of area. The same holds true for pixels... trading pixels from the vertical to add them to the horizontal costs you usable area -- for normal desktop apps. But i really prefer widescreens just the same. They look better, and many applications make heavier use of width than height, anyway.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So you're saying gamer girls prefer width to length?

*grins*

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Once, I was a ranger
Then, I was a warlock
And a mage
And a paladin
Now, I seek to be myself

New monitor looks great. Super bright though. Had to turn it down quite a bit. Does have a VESA mount so I was able to mount it with the others. Played several hours of CoD on it and it was odd having life size weapons :p

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Hokanu
Duty is a magnificent blessing because it is the sign of trust from the universe.
END OF LINE.

Hokanu, if you have a dynamic contrast option you might want to try that. During the day I don't like it much, but using my comp in the bedroom at night, it's much easier on the eyes. It doesn't just change based on the light in your environment, but also changes based on what you're looking at.

I'll give it a whirl thanks!

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Hokanu
Duty is a magnificent blessing because it is the sign of trust from the universe.
END OF LINE.