The computer show has finally come around this weekend, and I am in desperate need of a new monitor. The one I am currently using is 4+ years old running on my new dell, and I think because of how old it is, that the colors arent fairing too well. Now that the computer show is here, I figure it a good time to get a good price on a new monitor. SO, can anyone suggest some good Monitors? Primary use is for photo editing and of course, online usage. Is LCD the way to go? Thanks!
LCD is only the way to go if you spring the $$$ for the higher end ones. Those have higher resolution, brightness and contrast, and better (wider) viewing angles.
For bang for the buck, it's still hard to beat CRTs. A good 19" CRT can be run at 1600x1200 (or higher) resolution and produce a very sharp, high-quality image. Look for a Trinitron-based flat CRT.
LCD is only the way to go if you spring the $$$ for the higher end ones. Those have higher resolution, brightness and contrast, and better (wider) viewing angles.
That explains why most of the lcd display look crappy to me. Everybody talks about how great they are and I always wonder if my eyes are going or what. I guess not every lcd is created equally. That's good to know.
LCD is only the way to go if you spring the $$$ for the higher end ones. Those have higher resolution, brightness and contrast, and better (wider) viewing angles.
That explains why most of the lcd display look crappy to me. Everybody talks about how great they are and I always wonder if my eyes are going or what. I guess not every lcd is created equally. That's good to know.
The new Apple LCD monitors are fantastic, they are a bit more expensive than other brands but if you are looking for LCD's then you should have a look at them.
Currently running a Syncmaster 181T with DVI...18.1" viewable screen and stunning colour/contrast. Costs around $1000 - £600?
Takes up very little room and clearer than my old Viewsonic 19" CRT.
Good choice. That's one of the best and highest rated LCD's out.
I'm currently using a Dell 19" 1901fp and I'm extremely happy. It even flips into Portrait mode and comes with extra USB ports built-in. And no ghosting when scrolling or playing games. In my case, I got tired of the CRT bulkiness a long time ago.
One tip...if you do decide to buy an LCD, try to open the package at the store and check for dead pixels. Some dead pixels can be massaged back into a working state but others can't. Always best to check a store's return policy about this rather sensitive subject.
That explains why most of the lcd display look crappy to me. Everybody talks about how great they are and I always wonder if my eyes are going or what. I guess not every lcd is created equally. That's good to know.
Most LCD displays that I looked at had a matte screen. This (I was told) was to help reduce glare and thus eye fatigue. However, for me, the clarity/sharpness was not there and I struggled to find a flat panel that met my expectations. I stumbled upon an NEC Multisync LCD 1765. It has a glass panel front like a CRT but the space savings of a flat panel. Resolution is excellant. Retail last year was between 5-600.00 US. IMO it is the best of 3 worlds.....sharpness, size and cost.
Currently running a Syncmaster 181T with DVI...18.1" viewable screen and stunning colour/contrast. Costs around $1000 - £600?
Takes up very little room and clearer than my old Viewsonic 19" CRT.
Yup these are very nice, I'm using the Samsung SyncMaster 192N 19" viewable. I dropped 599.00 for mine after a 100.00 dollar rebate. Seen it this weekend for 499.00.
Samsung LCD's come with a pretty good ICC/ICM driver but also have two color correction programs in the box. MagicTune 2.0 and Natural Color 2.0. Both are pretty decent for calibrating the monitor. With the SyncMasters you can tune your color guns individually to get the warmth that you need.
A good point about LCD's is that they shouldn't be run with a higher or lower resolution than their native resolution. Just in example. If you look at a LCD display that have a native resolution of 1600x1200 and the store put it at 1024x768, the LCD have to scale down the picture (like we do with our images in photoshop to submit them to DPC) in order to display it but using a cheap interpolation like nearest neighbor and this is why the definition look so crappy. As for definition, there's nothing that can beat LCD for now when the user use it well. As for the colors, the real problem of the LCD is that it is dead on. Let's say you have a beautiful sunset shot with a rich gradient sky from yellow to red. if you had some saturation in your image you'll need more gradation to go from you yellow to your red but the LCD is only able to reproduces the colors is been built to (256 shades of green, red and blue) and then you'll start to see stair like gradation in your sky. Because CRT's produce images with a unique device that is endlessly gradating from a color to the other even in these situation you sky will remain smooth. I myself have a 200$ (CAN) LG 17" CRT monitor that outperform the 17" sony LCD I use at the job in matter of definition and color accuracy and i'm not even talking about 14,000$ (can) LCD tv set that I sell. LCD is the best technology but the standard in color reproduction will have to be raised to 16bit/channel in order to get the best out of them.
The price diffrent isnt all that much as it was maybe one or two years ago and if you think cheap CRT's will do it for you well......You get what you pay for no matter if it is a CRT or an LCD.
may be i am wrong , i think CRT really shows better pictures , unless the technology changed to High defination Digital monitors with Plasma or TFT resolution screen.
Interesting discussion. Just to add a little twist to the conversation-- don't throw away your old monitor when you do upgrade. I run two monitors on my pc as it's so easy to do with Windows XP or 2000. I have a nice big 20" Sony on which I have the main Photoshop window and all my tool boxes are on my old 15" monitor. Totally clear workng area and all the tools and info boxes constantly available. You cant beat it and once you've tried it it's difficult to go back.
Interesting discussion. Just to add a little twist to the conversation-- don't throw away your old monitor when you do upgrade. I run two monitors on my pc as it's so easy to do with Windows XP or 2000. I have a nice big 20" Sony on which I have the main Photoshop window and all my tool boxes are on my old 15" monitor. Totally clear workng area and all the tools and info boxes constantly available. You cant beat it and once you've tried it it's difficult to go back.
Get a 30" Apple Cinema display and you dont need that extra monitor
A good point about LCD's is that they shouldn't be run with a higher or lower resolution than their native resolution. ...
Exactly...
When shopping LCDs at like Bestbuy, Walmart, Sears and even Fry's remember that they are most likely set up incorrectly, all showing that canned presentation that they like to run.
They weren't too pleased with me at Bestbuy when I made them move the monitor I was looking at to the Alien PC running the ATI Radeon 9800 demo. We set the monitor to native and it rocked so I picked it up.
Going beyond native res is like turning digital zoom on your camera on ew yuck... Go below and text starts to get fuzzy.
If you extend your (LCD) monitor cable as I did, don't go cheap on the extension as I found out. Go for the high quality with graphite right from the start. Go cheap and you will think it is a bad monitor...I found this one out the hard way.
If you are going to do any printing go with an aperture grill monitor(all aperture grill monitor tubes have the suffix "-tron" ae trinitron or Diamondtron).
The new Apple LCD monitors are fantastic, they are a bit more expensive than other brands but if you are looking for LCD's then you should have a look at them.
I've heard that Apple monitors don't work with IBM PCs. Please, someone tell me it ain't true. I've been to a Mac store and found them to be the most impressive LCDs around.
BTW, for a good value on a CRT, you can try to get a used Sony GDM-F500/GDM-F500R or the newer GDM-F520 off eBay. I got my F500R about 1.5 years ago for under $300 and it still works great. It's a trinitron, and I run it at 2048x1536 resolution. Good colour too. It wasn't new though, but it was a darn good deal.
The new Apple LCD monitors are fantastic, they are a bit more expensive than other brands but if you are looking for LCD's then you should have a look at them.
I've heard that Apple monitors don't work with IBM PCs. Please, someone tell me it ain't true. I've been to a Mac store and found them to be the most impressive LCDs around.
BTW, for a good value on a CRT, you can try to get a used Sony GDM-F500/GDM-F500R or the newer GDM-F520 off eBay. I got my F500R about 1.5 years ago for under $300 and it still works great. It's a trinitron, and I run it at 2048x1536 resolution. Good colour too. It wasn't new though, but it was a darn good deal.
The new line of Apple LCD's work perfectly with a PC except maybe the 30" one ...
that one needs some monster dual VGA card configuration and a G5 from what I've heard
