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Ok, my 17" jumbo monitor after a couple years has finally blew and we need a new one. We want a flat screen and we also know nothing about what to get and why. Any ideas on which brands are good to choose from?

Flat screen or flat panel?

This is a niggle that gets to me, but when people say "flatscreen" they really mean a panel display like an LCD or plasma TV. A flatscreen is most highend CRTs like that lovely Sony or like my Toshiba TV/VCR combo. They are merely rear-projection but with, obviously, flat faced screens.

I can, from experience, say my bro's 17" LCD by Advent isn't half bad, though I really don't care for LCDs myself.

As far as flat-screen(i.e, flat CRT), goes, don't, IMHO. The image is much less "full" on my current flat-screen than it was on my old monitor. Just get a normal non-flat CRT monitor.

As far as LCD's go, I just know they're crap for older games cause' of their high native resolution. I, regardless, don't like being locked into one resolution. It's a matter of taste.

Could a real expert chip in?

Yes, yes, we want a flat panel monitor. My mom kept on saying "flatscreen" over and over again.

Edit: The main reason we want it is because it wouldn't take as much space as a regular monitor.

If you want a flat panel monitor then your choice will depend on a few things.

1. What type of connections does your video card have?
If it's regular RGB, then just about any analog Flat panel will work. I've had good luck with Planar and I hear good things about Dells. Stay away from the low end Sonys. They just aren't up to par in visual quality with monitors $50 - $100 bucks less. If you ahve a DVI connection, then you can go for some nice high end screens, again Dell have great models.

2. What are you going to use it for?
If you are a photographer, then you want something bigger.. say 19 inches. If you are just going to use it for the Internet, word processing, etc..., then 15-17 inches will do you.

3. How much do you have to spend?
Higher priced LCDs will have little extras here and there such as; pivoting screens, landscaping screens, built-in USB hub, and TV tuners. Lower end models MIGHT have a DVI connection, but usually just an RGB.

In the end you ahve to get what's comfortable for you. If you want an all around best buy look at 17 inch Dells IMHO. If you want high end, then go for the 20 inch Dell. Right now I'm just saving money for that 20 inch Dell. BTW, Maximum PC rated the Dell UltraSharp 2001FP as the best right now ($900.00).

I own the BenQ 17" FP767 available from Newegg.com. My main concern with a flat panel was the response time; since I'm a gamer, I didn't want any ghosting. The FP767 has a 16ms response time, and I've never seen any ghosting on the image. It's got built-in speakers if you're into that, but the best part was that it only cost me about $450 with shipping and tax.

If you have a DVI connector and want a *big* one, get one of Apple's cinema display. Very fast refresh rates, gigantic (20, 23, and 30 inch, though you can't use 30 inch without a Dual Link DVI graphics card so don't think about it), and they even have USB and FireWire ports for you to plug peripherals into.
not to mention cool looking

I have an older Iiyama Vision Master Pro-450, which has a Mitsubishi flatscreen CRT. It has excellent resolution, excellent picture quality (better than the Sony Trinitron) and is still holding up well after six years.

So I'd say that Mitsubishi CRTs would be a pretty good choice, if you want quality. LCD flatpanels you will pay a premium on, and the picture quality can still be a pain, especially if you don't run them at their native resolution.

Whatever you do, make sure you check out the screen in store to make sure it doesn't have any dead pixels before you buy it. As a general rule, you could have up to 10 dead pixels and companies will not refund, exchange, or warranty you LCD monitor, you are pretty much SOL. Though with better manufacturing dead pixels are less common than they once were, you still want to watch out for them. Put an all white background up on screen and look for any dark spots or non-white spots, that's a dead pixel.

The Apple LCDs are rather expensive and for most users overkill. Most people don't need color-calibrated LCDs.

Try to get an LCD monitor with DVI inputs (make sure your video card has DVI output!) and 16ms response times. There are some 12ms monitors, IIRC, but their gamut is constrained compared to most other LCDs. Samsung makes good ones (IIRC, Dell and BenQ are mostly relabelled Samsungs)

phongn wrote:The Apple LCDs are rather expensive and for most users overkill. Most people don't need color-calibrated LCDs.

Try to get an LCD monitor with DVI inputs (make sure your video card has DVI output!) and 16ms response times. There are some 12ms monitors, IIRC, but their gamut is constrained compared to most other LCDs. Samsung makes good ones (IIRC, Dell and BenQ are mostly relabelled Samsungs)

They're expensive because they're gigantic.

If he's looking for a 15" or 17", theres no point, but if he decides he wants a 20", Apple's prices aren't that bad.

Praxis wrote:They're expensive because they're gigantic.

They're expensive because of the Apple Tax and because they are color calibrated.

Dell's 2001FP costs $809, the Apple 20" Cinema Display costs $1299.

phongn wrote:

Praxis wrote:They're expensive because they're gigantic.

They're expensive because of the Apple Tax and because they are color calibrated.

Dell's 2001FP costs $809, the Apple 20" Cinema Display costs $1299.

And Philips costs $1,699.

http://www.lcdmonitors.philips.com/fold ... itors.html

Retail price for the 200P3G is ~$1200-1300, which puts in near Apple's price. I still consider that expensive compared to the Dell 2001FP, which is a good one.

I second Phong's choice of the Dell 2001FP, but I would recommend even over that the Dell 1901FP which is only an inch smaller diagonally, runs at 1280x1024, has 25ms response time and is a steal at $611.

Apparently my mom wants something cheap and "short-term."
So now I'm starting to think, we might as well just buy a regular goddamn monitor! We are in a very very tight budget and six hundred dollars is very steep for us at the moment.

Samsung makes some good CRT monitors for not a lot of cash.

phongn wrote:Samsung makes some good CRT monitors for not a lot of cash.

Indeed, I recommend the 900NF which can be found for almost nothing.

Pfft. Get a 32"er from Apple. So what if you need a state-of-the-art dual-link-DVI graphics card to drive the thing?

Okay, not joking now... try here:
various LCD monitors

Is it really that hard to dress your links? - Phong

The Kernel wrote:I second Phong's choice of the Dell 2001FP, but I would recommend even over that the Dell 1901FP which is only an inch smaller diagonally, runs at 1280x1024, has 25ms response time and is a steal at $611.

And boy do I love it......

Seriously, I couldn't be happier with that model.