Monitors

Tulkamir

Hey, I'm looking to buy a new monitor for my home computer, but I'm not exactly sure what to look for. What kinds of contrast ratios and response times am I looking at to ensure I'm getting what I need? And what brands are good and good value? I have 2 Samsungs, and they seem great so far. Is Samsung a good bet? Or should I look to something else? (I've heard Dell's are fairly good).

Thanks a bunch.

Fordy

Hi Tulkamir

Yeah, I love Dell flatscreen monitors. Don't get me wrong I'm not a Dell fanboy, I hate and detest Dell PC's down to my last breath but their monitors are superb.

I have a 24" at work and a 22" at home although in retrospect, I would have been better with 2 x 22" at work which would have cost the same as the 24".

nealb4me

Dell or Samsung. You don't have to worry about contrast ratios and response times these days. They are all good. But in case you wanted to know 1000:1 and up is great and 8ms or less is a good response time. Some panels with a 2ms response time have shitty colour range (6bit instead of 8bit I think). However you have nothing to fear by buying any of the new Dell or Samsungs.

Toomas

What you want it for?
I have 22" Samsung 226BW, its 2ms and up to 3000:1 contrast but its TN panel so the color might be off and view angles suck. Costs around $350, cant complain too much.

Tulkamir

Sounds like I should be able to get a decent one fairly easily then, thanks a bunch guys.

Toomas - I want it for a combo of gaming and digital art, so painting, modeling, logos, etc...

Jesse Moody

i actually picked up the 19" Gateway widescreen one. It does 720p for my 360 which is nice and the color is wonderful, plus it only cost 190 bucks. But yeah Samsung or the Dell LCDs are great.

Toomas

Led backlights is the next gen of lcd's, you might look into those. Reportedly they have better color accuracy and more colors than crt and true black and no light bleed and longer life span but i havnt looked into those much..

Mitch Cosgrave

My Dell 24" (2407AO3) has some fairly noticeable banding issues when texturing. It's not really a huge deal, but it's frustrating when i spent over $1000 on a monitor.
That said, i still believe they are a fantastic monitor, and i would be hard pressed to find a better one, unless i was prepared to fork out for those super expensive medical monitors they use to view Xrays.

Jeremy Lindstrom

I just got this one.
Acer AL2216W - 22" LCD Monitor, 700:1, 1680x 1050, 5 ms, DVI - ET.2216B.0D0

$229

http://www.buy.com/prod/acer-al2216w-22-.../202892776.html