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Ideal monitor type and size

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dutchie

dutchie

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As my current CRT looks like its about to pack it in, I think I will soon be in the market for a new one.

I assume that I will go for a flat screen LCD (as big as possible).

My eyes are slowly getting worse and I find I am looking at the screen (running Comsec Protrader) a lot during the day as well as charts (and at night).

I would be interested in anyones experiences or suggestions as to what type, brand, size etc. to get, bearing in mind the above. I am happy to pay top of the range if necessary.

All comments welcome.

Cheers

Dutchie
 
Graphic designers swear by CRT, so far nothing came close yet.

Domayne had recently 20” LCD Samsung monitor just under $500, with 4 years extra warranty for $50 or $70, will give you peace of mind until something goes wrong.

I did not hear good comments about Harvey Norman and Domayne warranty, they do not give replacement while unit is in repair and take months to repair, and are very slow to replace things.

While getting LCD look at – Refresh Rate, and respectable now is 8 milliseconds, 10 is OK even 12 will do. Some units claim to be 5 milliseconds, I was told that this is little bit misleading but don’t know why, I am not that technical.

Contrast is important, not strong in this department, maybe somebody will explain why.
Viewing angle should be 160 degrees or more, but usually not as important for trading.

Wide Format Screen is actually smaller than you think; good for movies and OK for trading screen, but 22” wide screen is in height equivalent to 17” of old format with more on the sides.

Why LCD, doesn’t flicker, doesn’t send radioactive particles as supposedly CRT does and not produce as much heat as plasma screen, but not many plasma computer screens around, unless you use smaller size old plasma TV when you get new one for the family.

One drawback, not too good for games as fast moving object appear to have shade as well as screen can smear as you move objects with your mouse.

Number of dots on screen important and more the better, but if they have more dots, are more expensive now, but in few years time if price keep going down as it was until now, we can expect price to halve again in 2 to 3 years time.

Price will probably stay the same but size will go up.

Hope this will help a bit
 
Hi Dutchie,

Had an eye problem myself last year, (not quite right but getting there) so had to do some DD on this.

the resident nerd at my PC place told me that only 3 cos actually make the LCD type screens, Phillips, Samsung and Acer.

I had a look at the warranties and the best warranty to me was Samsung, 100% pixel warranty.

I got a 19" one then went to Microsoft site and adjusted the screen using "cleartype", it is MUCH easier to read than my old CRT.
 
imo stick with CTR

bought a LCD 19" to replace my CTR .

the kids use it surf the net

Fair less eyestrain with CTR , If you look down at a angle on a LCD the top of the screen looks like a 8 bit graphic.

Bought 2* 21inch and a 19 inch spare CTR second hand for $250

Their really cheap atm

Cheers
 
I have 2 x DELL 24-inch LCDs, cost $1099 or $2198 total, delivered. As a tax deduction they cost even less over their depreciable life.

Can't complain. I've been told I'm indulgent, but it's my profession so I deserve good tools, right?? ;) Perhaps not ideal for design type work, but for charts and other trading related duties like Internet research and spreadsheets they're more than ample.

The ASX Gorilla.
 
Get a Dell 24". Nothing comes close. Or even a 30" one but that's if you can afford it, as the retail price is over $2000, I am using a 30" now and it is just mind blowing for everything (including widescreen gaming :))

Cheimei (spelling?) are also a very good brand. They don't get any publicity, however Dell's latest lineup of monitors use their panels as far as I know. They are very well priced.
 
dutchie said:
As my current CRT looks like its about to pack it in, I think I will soon be in the market for a new one.

I assume that I will go for a flat screen LCD (as big as possible).

My eyes are slowly getting worse and I find I am looking at the screen (running Comsec Protrader) a lot during the day as well as charts (and at night).

I would be interested in anyones experiences or suggestions as to what type, brand, size etc. to get, bearing in mind the above. I am happy to pay top of the range if necessary.

All comments welcome.

Cheers

Dutchie
Click to expand...

Hey Dutchie, I just purchased a new DELL home PC with a 19" flat screen and if I were to trade full time I would not hesitate to buy another. Its good value for money and ample in size. I looked at the 22" but it was just too dear.

Cheers.
 
If you're used to a CRT monitor as most are then you'll probably find the LCD somewhat "cartoonish". If picture quality for moving images etc is the primary consideration then LCD is absolutely inferior to CRT. But if it's just for text, graphs etc then the very sharp image will more than make up for the downsides.

As for non-image issues, anyone who tells you that LCD uses no power, lasts forever etc either knows nothing about the subject or is lying. Turn it off at night as you would with a CRT both to save power (and greenhouse emissions) and extend its life.

As for plasma, a big NO from me as personally I prefer equipment that has a reasonable life expectancy. The life expectancy of a plasma TV is in the order of one third that of an old fashioned CRT TV set and it's likely to be even worse for plasma used as a monitor given that a few dead pixels are far more tolerable on a TV than a computer monitor.

Buying a decent quality monitor and keeping it when you upgrade the rest of the system is the way to go IMO. The monitor I'm using right now is over 10 years old and the image quality still beats that of late model CRT and most LCD displays. But then I have given it a proper re-adjustment when I upgraded the PC two years ago (don't even attempt this if you don't know what you're doing - you'll end up either being thrown across the room or imploding the tube, neither of which are particularly nice).

I strongly suspect that CRT's are being phased out in a similar manner to what happened with vinyl records circa 1989. That is, keep making them but the quality of manufacture seriously declines thus accelerating the demise of the technology. Much the same was done with VHS when durable alloy cast mechanisms and power supplies that rarely failed were replaced with cheap plastic mechanisms and power supplies that fail after 4 years. :2twocents
 
Keep coming back to Dick Smith's philosophy:

"keep the overheads down"

2 grand for a monitor may be ok in your personal ventures, but it's hard to justify in a business venture such as trading --- that's trading capital gone, along with potential compounding profits.


Cheers
 
...but TWO 24 inch LCDs for 2 grand is such brilliant value for money :p

How does it compare with the rest of the world?

$2240 in Sweden,
$2043 in the UK
$1924 in Germany
$1635 in Argentina
$1099 in Australia
$1004 in the US
$955 in Malaysia
 
I will also vouch for the chimei 22" widescreen you can pick one up from MSY for $383. Its been really good no complaints with it so far it's great value IMO. Probably still come down in price if you wait a couple of months. Widescreen wallpapers are a little harder to find @ 1680 x 1050, anyone got some good sites for them??
 
G'day all

Thanks for everyones advise, to date.

More questions:

Anyone like to comment on the screen size?
Whats an ideal size - why?
Is the size a factor of how far away you sit?
Is 24" - 30" too big?
Can a large screen be effectively split in two?
Personally cost is not important - especially if its over a lifetime of 6 years or so.

Cheers


Dutchie
 
falconx, I think if you subscribe to webshots you can get access to their "professional" pics which can be of the dimensions you described.

Dutchie,

I sit about 60cms away from my 24" screen. I have it adjusted on it's stand so that the centre of the screen sits slightly below eye level and is tilted up a fraction. It's good for my posture this way. I've had neck problems in the past from peering down into a 14" laptop screen. When I use a laptop I wear glasses, but with this screen I don't need to.

I simply do not have any criticisms on this monitor (DELL 2407WFP) for the purposes which I use it.

Can it be split? Hmmm, I suppose. There is a picture-in-picture button...but I'm just using it in "vanilla" mode. You can certainly get more on the screen though...1920x1200 resolution helps with that, you see :)

24" is not too big, and now I have it I couldn't imagine ever going to anything smaller. In the cost/benefit assessment I couldn't justify the 30" model...but I know someone who has 3 of them, specifically for trading. His trading account is about 50-times bigger than mine too, so it's all relative :)
 
I agree asxgorilla. I've been a software engineer for over 5 years now and have used 15, 17 and 19 as my everyday monitors. Once you go up, you cant go back so it just depends on your budget. No matter how much space you have on a screen, you will find a way to use it.
 
Over the past couple of years we replaced three 17 inch crt's by 19 inch lcd monitors. My wife, who is a very dedicated digital art worker, used our best crt (Hitachi with 24 x 23 mm dot pitch). She replaced the crt with a ViewSonic VX922 - a $400 unit (from a discount supplier) which has been featured over many months now as the "best buy" 19 inch lcd monitor in the "pc world" magazine. She is very happy with this unit because the reds are redder, the greens are greener and the blacks are blacker than she ever had on her crt monitor. Also the text is crisper.

Maximum power usage by the ViewSonic is 35 watts compared to the crt's 75 watts. It has a very fast response time of 2 ms, which makes it good for gaming. With all the gear on her table lcd's small footprint is a very major consideration.

I use two 19 inch lcd monitors because they are easier to read and because they have a much smaller footprint. In the space previously taken by one 17 inch crt I now have a printer, the lcd monitor and a keyboard. And the power consumption and heat generation are now only about a third of what they were with the crt's.

anon
 
With the exception of high-paced games - the refresh rate is pretty meaningless for LCDs today. Whatever you get will be fast enough.

If you really want high image quality you should be looking at 8-bit panels over the standard 6-bit panel. They do cost more than the regular LCDs though. The Dell Ultrasharps and some of the Viewsonic VP models are 8-bit. Basically for an 8-bit, each individual pixel can display 16.7million colours and it doesn't rely on pixel colour blending techniques to get the full spectrum. I paid up $700 for a 19inch Viewsonic VP191s at the time, it's great. Similar model can be had for $400-500 now.

The new current trend with LCDs is "glossy" screens. They are starting to become prevalent with laptop LCDs and are starting to trickle into desktop LCDs. I have a macbook with a glossy screen - it is the bomb. Once you go glossy you won't go back. My next desktop LCD will definately be glossy, but it's just a bit hard to track down at the moment.

Even though my next purchase will probably be 24-inch, widescreen and glossy... my recommendation for you would be 2x19-22 inch. For office-type productivity and how microsoft does its windows management, I still think dual screen comes up trumps. Standard 4:3 ratio monitors would be better in this configuration than widescreen. I have a 2x17-inch config at work and with the amount of windows I have open at once time, I think I'd go crazy if I went back to one monitor.
 
Somewhere in the cupboard I've still got a 12 inch green screen complete with nice rounded corners on the tube... :p: :p:
 
dutchie said:
Anyone like to comment on the screen size?
Click to expand...
Large enough so you don't have to turn your head to see all parts of the screen.
Whats an ideal size - why?
Click to expand...
I found 19" LCD a good size, didn't take up much desk space. Have used 21" CRTs in the past, but had a bigger desk!
Is the size a factor of how far away you sit?
Click to expand...
YES
Is 24" - 30" too big?
Click to expand...
For me, yes. I'm used to a 12" iBook screen though.
Can a large screen be effectively split in two?
Click to expand...
Depends on the OS and your video card driver. Some do.

I make do with a laptop for convenience, next laptop will probably be 15"-ish screen.

m.
 
I plugged my 12" laptop into a 42" Plasma and, once I got the screen settings right, it was very impressive running both screens. Just a thought! The plasma only cost $2500 but I guess it is a bit of overkill. You would need to reconsider you office setup as well. I will Comsec Professional Trader with plasma when I get back from holidays.
 
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