I'm looking for a new monitor

[Venetia]

I HATE MY MONITOR!!! The colors are DEPLORABLE and the contrast ratio is AWFUL.

Unfortunately my desk doesn't have room enough for a CRT (and I can't find any good ones on the market anymore anyway), so I have to go DLP. (CRTs have no native resolution and a quicker response time than ANY DLP).

I'm looking for a monitor with the following specs:

- Under $300 (around <$250 preferably)
- Atleast a 1000:1 contrast ratio
- About a 2ms response time
- Atleast 16.5 million colors, preferably 16.7 million
- Native resolution of 1680 x 1050 (or 1600 x 1200, for 4:3, honestly whether or not it's widescreen doesn't matter to me)
- About 22"

I don't care a whole lot about view angle, viewable distance, swiveling, turning, none of that crap. Although if it rates well on those, it's gravy.

I prefer the glossy finish to the screen, for some reason, it makes colors look sharper for me. My comp's in my den so there's no bright lights to worry over.


I've been thinking about a DELL SP2208WFP; I was able to find it online for $260. However all the reviews I've been reading have been saying that color banding is obvious, and I am so sick of color banding.

Also it's a Dell =.=

I use my PC for my home business of graphic design, so I need great color quality. However it's a gaming PC, so I have to forfeit some color/contrast quality for low response time. My monitor now has a 5ms response time and I notice very obvious ghosting, so the 2ms thing is very important. I also do a lot of pixel art, so a good contrast ratio and good sharpness are very important.

If you have any suggestions for me, I'd appreciate it!

 

[DigitalAbuse]

Thank for adding me in your signature first off  :blush:

On the topic however, I got this screen for 150$ in Future Shop, or depending on where you live Best Buy.

Link: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... 711&catid=

If your a gamer look for --> Response Time  5ms

The best you can get that I know of is 2ms, which I got mine as 2ms. But that monitor which is a step down from my own has great graphics, it fits nicely on my little desk, and well... it's flat ^_^

-Edit-

But for the price range your looking for, you may not find EXACTLY what your looking for, for higher I have other choices. But don't ask me about technical stuff hehe, I'm not very good in that mode of aspect. It's my friend who suggested it  :lol: I'm just typing what he tells me too  :smile:

 

[Venetia]

Yeah that one's a little too small and the response time isn't that great but I'll take a look around that site, maybe they have good deals!

Like I said, I have a 5 ms monitor right now and when it comes to browns and greys together, ghosting is REALLY apparent. (Ghosting is like ... an image echo, whenever you move, it looks like the object transparently stays in one place for a second, it's very distracting.)

I know all about monitors, I'm just tryin' to find a good deal. Thanks though :D

 

[Buster]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824005112

This one's a little more expensive than you said ($320), but it meets all of your requirements except that it only has 16.2 million colors.  I'm not entirely sure if it has the glossy finish either.

 

[Venetia]

actually yeah i was looking at that one. The 10000:1 cr is crazy, you usually don't see that in dlps that cheap.

the 16.2 thing is what's killing me; color banding is my biggest peeve with my current monitor :S

 

[DigitalAbuse]

I tried  :lol:

 

[Buster]

Here's a cheap one that meets all of your requirements:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=2775

Actually, it's .4" smaller than you wanted, but I'm pretty sure that's close enough. :p

EDIT: Never mind, for $10 more, you can get the full 22"

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=2775

 

[arev]

I can really recommendt buying a Samsung. They have superb LCD panels with great colors and smoothly lit. You just can't go wrong with it

 

[Venetia]

yeah i have a samsung lcd TV, too, and it's awesome

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3645926&CatId=2775

i think we might have a winner, bob

i found a store with this model in town. i think i'mma check it out tomorrow in person :D

 

[Ellie]

Don't go with Dell if the thought ever crosses your mind.

I found a wholesale site before that sells the Dell monitors before they get the Dell name added to them, about half the price that Dell charges. I can't remember the link but I'm sure someone out there knows it.

 

[___]

http://www.e-cost.com has great prices on pre-branded, refurbished and overstock monitors. Just make sure you know what you're getting and are comfortable with it. We used to resell these at the shop I worked at with a significant markup and never had any problems with them.

 

[Venetia]

thanks for the tip, mah man

i'm going monitor perusing at stores this evening, to see for myself how these contenders stack up. i'll tell ya'll the verdict later............

(btw yes i'm ordering it online but i want to see it in person first)

 

[Rare]

i would seriously go with a samsung

been using one of their smaller LCDS and its lasted me quite some time now

 

[Venetia]

ick, i just got back and saw the monitor. turns out the samsung is a matte screen finish with a glossy BEZEL

who the fuck cares about the bezel, i want a glossy SCREEN finish

also text was rather fuzzy, though the banding wasn't TOO bad. And i toyed with the settings for like 30 minutes and had like 4 guys ask me if i need help, lol

might take me more time and perusing to decide now :/

 

[arev]

Fuzzy text? Maybe the desktop resolution was bad? :>
And for the finish... why the hell do you want it glossy that much? When the monitor is on you wouldn't see it anyway, and when it's off... well... don't you have a mirror in your bathroom to look how pretty you are? ;p

 

[___]

Why in the world do you want a glossy screen finish? That's like asking for reflections and glare on an LCD. You have to remember you're dealing with color-changing crystals in front of a backlight, not phosphors which cast their own light as in CRTs, so the light behind your monitor has to compete with the light coming from the front. You want the screen to diffuse or refract as much outside light as physically possible

If you really want the thing glossy, airbrush on an acrylic glaze after you buy it  :crazy:

Also keep in mind in the showroom they always shift the white temperature, brightness, gamma and contrast way up because the first thing that catches a consumer's eye is a bright shiny screen, so a properly adjusted monitor once you get it home is going to look much better and suffer less color banding due to gamma correction (unless you make your screen glossy and have to crank the gamma up!).

Fuzziness is probably due to improperly set resolution, the only res that will look right on an LCD is its native resolution, which is going to be the highest res you can set. Anything lower than that has to be approximated, which results in fuzziness and image warping. If you see a medium sized monitor (15-19 inches) with less than 1024x768 (or 1080x7?0 widescreen) native res run screaming, but at or above that (1400x1050 or so) should look crisp until you get into the larger monitors.

 

[Venetia]

i know about native resolution and all that jazz, don't worry. i did my homework.

like i said, i personally fiddled with the controls when i was in the store for like 30 minutes, changing contrast, resolution, brightness, everything. i also looked at it with images of tons of gradients, images, and even movies.

i like glossy screen finishes because they seem to portray more vivid colors. I have my comp in a dark room with low, indirect lighting. I never see any reflections. my current monitor has a glossy finish and that's all i like about it.

 

[Buster]

There's also this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824112009

It has everything you're looking for, plus a 2000:1 contrast ratio.  Pretty cheap, and it has fairly good reviews.

 

[Venetia]

Hmmmmm, Sceptre, huh? Never heard of them before.

I'll have to look up more on them :3 Thanks!

 

[Venetia]

Ok, this is a necro, but! Here's an update :D. My husband got this awesome deal from his work that if we bought a monitor today from BB it'd be 25% off. We went and fell in love with the Gateway FHD2401.

http://www.gateway.com/retail/fhd2401.php
(spent about $375 on it before tax, which is a little out of our price range but this month we had a little extra)

It has a 1920 x 1200 resolution which is higher than I wanted to go initially, but having such a giant monitor is really great. Best thing about this monitor is that it has a 1:1 pixel mapping ratio, so that if I wanted to play a game or do something at a lower resolution, it'd auto-adapt to that size without upconverting, making things crisper and truer-looking. With all the old old games I play, that was a must.

The contrast ratio is 2000:1, has a 92% color gamut, and a 2ms response time. Plus it's glossy! I LOVE glossy screens. Everything looks so much better on them (I don't really have anything in the room that'd cause reflections).

I've only been playing with this for a few hours but I'm very happy. No dead pixels and text looks clear as a bell. I still can't get the red adjusted quite right but I'll get it. Gradients look very smooth. The only odd/banded gradient I've seen thus far was brownish-red > gold.

The thing itself only pivots forward and back, it's not height-adjustable. Typically I don't care but the thing is now set a little higher than I'd like. But it's not a big deal.

Anyway there's the update, in case anyone else is in the market for a moderately-priced glossy 24" widescreen, I'd recommend this one