I want to know what I should look for in buying an LCD monitor, such as what specifications to look for or any other advice that would be useful.

Probably looking at an 19 inch.

Used mostly on the internet, text, watching video.

Thanks.

A 19 inch monitor will probably be okay if you get a "square" monitor. If you get one of the wide format monitors then I recommend 22 inch at a minimum. I'm using a 22 inch monitor and I'm very happy with the size.

The main spec that I recommend using to select a monitor is the brightness. 500 cd/m^2 is about the highest that I can find browsing the Best Buy web site right now, Then a very high contrast ratio is also very good. This is why you should shop around and select the monitor that you like best.

I also recommend making sure that the monitor has a real power on/off switch. My Gateway monitor does NOT have a real power switch and I am very unhappy about it.

See if the monitor you are considering is easily damaged. I have some permanent fingerprints on my screen because I accidentally held the monitor with my fingers partly on the screen when I lifted it. My LCD has a matte finish. I don't know if the glossy finish monitors are damaged the same way.

Lastly make sure that your monitor has a 15 pin D connector for VGA. I have found that the other high performance connectors don't make any difference in picture quality and in my latest computer I'm just using the VGA connector on the motherboard. The picture is just as good as my computers with high priced graphics cards. Mind you I don't use software that uses graphic hardware acceleration. I suppose if you play games or render animations you may want to use the expensive graphic card but you can still use the VGA connector. That DVI and HDMI all seem to be a humbug. I can't see any difference in image quality.

Having Vga is a good feature for legacy reasons, but if your video card has DVI (or HDMI) use it. It greatly simplifies your Xorg.conf. Mine went from close to a page to about 1/4 of a page, using the same video card. I went from a 17 square CRT to a 19 WS LCD and I greatly prefer the LCD(19 WS is plenty for me). Your best bet is to go and look at them(see what you like/dislike). Make sure you move side to side(and up/down) in order to check that the monitor looks ok off angle (some do not). One caveat, DO NOT try to hook both the DVI and the VGA from the same computer. I thought it would be an easy way to A/B between DVI and VGA, all it did was make DVI unusable(in A/B type mode). I did have two computers hooked to the same LCD (at the same time) and could hit the input selection on the LCD to choose (real handy).

One of the criteria I use when choosing a new monitor is the reaction time (the time taken for a pixel to go from white to black and back to white again - or is it the other way round?).

If the monitor has a reaction time of 4ms then it will take a lot longer for a pixel to go from one shade of grey to another. I believe that tv and DVDs change frames at around 24ms.

This is important to me as I use my PC as my TV and DVD player. Watching football on tv on a monitor with slower reactions than 12ms is all but impossible as you keep losing the ball. These days, many TFT monitors have reaction times of less than 4ms which is excellent.

But it all depends what you use your PC for. It's unlikely you'd ever notice any difference in this watching YouTube.

I have used a ViewSonic and been very happy - but it suddenly went fut in an electronic-burning-smell sort of way. Now using a Samsung SyncMaster 2032 BW with no problems. Slightly bigger than you're considering, but they do an extensive range.

I would agree with previous posters that if you're going smaller, you'd probably be better off with a squarer monitor.

I think Samsung makes some of the best and cheapest LCD screens, I have a Samsung SyncMaster 2232BW 22" Widescreen, and it works great, and it only cost around $300, and it has 3000:1 contrast, and 2 ms response time. Absolutely perfect for gaming and watching movies. Like the others said higher contrast and lower response time is better.

One other spec to look at is the viewing angle.

Think twice about the smaller "wide screens". For many applications, what you really need is total area.

The best flat panel I have ever seen is the Dell 2407, which we have at work. At home, I have a Viewsonic 2030b (20", 4:3 format)---this is almost as good as the Dell.

I wonder what you mean by this, first you say watching football on a monitor with reaction time (response time? ) less than 12 ms is all but impossible. Then on next line you says reaction times of less than 4 ms are excellent

'slower reactions than 12ms' means reaction time greater than 12ms, these are times we are talking about, so slower means it takes more time. 'reaction times of less than 4ms' means exactly that.

I still did not get that but lets go to the original intent of your post and Googling of mine on Response Times. Lower the response time, the better the things , like this LG W2284F, which has 2 ms of response-time and 30000:1 of contrast ratio. superb ...


BTW, whats the deal with DVI or HDMI ?

I own a Samsung 19" LCD Monitor. Playing games was never so much fun!


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Signal wise HDMI is the same as DVI, except that HDMI has audio built in. So you can get a DVI to HDMI converter plug(the plugs are physically different) but you still need to handle audio separately.

DELL ULTRASHARP 2408WFP
Dell has it on sale right now for $517. This is the monitor I want to get. It also has all the ports you could ever want on it.

nothing can come near my E74 CRT Monitor ( IBM ). people who are used too of looking crt screen never wants LCD, i used lcd for 1 week and my eyes were like burning.

I am also going to buy an LCD monitor. I am keeping 4 things in my mind:

• Size: 22 inches Widescreen LCD
• Response-Time: 5ms or less
• Contrast-ratio: 8000:1 or 10000:1
• DVI Interface: yes
• Angle: 160/170, 170/170
• HDMI Interface: optional ( NO from my side, as that is expansive)

LG W2252TE fits the description very well . Trust me, 19 inces Wide Screen does not look very good.

I wonder why that happened. I work in front of CRT from 9:30 AM to 7 PM everyday, sometimes till 10 PM and it feels as if my eyes are literally F**ked ..