What to look for in a monitor?

[Machete234]

Buy cheap, get two.

The question is what for?
I have seen these setups and they are as useful to me as the pope's testicles.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/product ... dellSearch

21.5 " IPS lcd from Dell, 8ms, it can pivot and is in hight adjustable
DVI & DisplayPort (no hdmi)
it costs 260 euro / 280 usa $ / 600 nz $

Probably a great monitor and people who buy 100Ôé¼ (whatever that is in your currency) monitors are usually too dumb to set those things in native res.
(please not another board warning (racism against retarded people or so) )

edit: zyklon B was a siemens product

Pretty sure it was BASF or a firm that later fusioned with BASF.

[MidKnight]

Buy cheap, get two.

The question is what for?
I have seen these setups and they are as useful to me as the pope's testicles.

I personally use a 3-monitor setup and find it incredibly useful. If you do lots of word processing, use a tablet or do other kinds of art work, or browse several sites at once, more than one monitor will likely improve your computing experience greatly.
You can do 2 things at once!

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/product ... dellSearch

21.5 " IPS lcd from Dell, 8ms, it can pivot and is in hight adjustable
DVI & DisplayPort (no hdmi)
it costs 260 euro / 280 usa $ / 600 nz $

Probably a great monitor and people who buy 100Ôé¼ (whatever that is in your currency) monitors are usually too dumb to set those things in native res.

Looking for a bargain doesn't make you dumb.
It doesn't mean you have to skimp on quality, either. Just last month, the 23" version of that monitor was on sale for $199 (145 EUR).
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... t=dell+ips

(please not another board warning (racism against retarded people or so) )

Isn't it better to avoid flaming in the first place, rather than doing it anyway and begging for forgiveness?

[clumsy_culhane]

If you care about image quality, get an IPS panel. Viewsonic recently brought out a IPS screen set a price point that is within the range of some of more expensive TN panels (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/monito ... b-review/1)

[Neddie]

The benefit of multi-tasking varies from person to person, and is dependent on the specific tasks involved.

I find dual screens configured separately to be useful whenever I have multiple active elements to a task, or one active element and some digital references or resources. I've never found them helpful when playing computer games.

I do not currently have an IPS monitor, but this is due to limited finances. If you have a use for the superior colour accuracy and image quality offered, they are worth the bang for the buck. I would steer clear of VA, I find the colour shifting annoying and I always have to raise the gamma level in grimdark games to retain even detail in dark regions when using VA panels. They both tend to respond worse than TN panels.

If you're going to use this primarily to produce high detail artwork, or you are an extremely discerning videophile, IPS may be worth it. Otherwise, pick up a well-received TN panel or two from a reliable manufacturer on sale.

[Das Bruce]

Ended up getting http://www.aocmonitor-anz.com/lcd_monitor/2436vwh.php. Got a good deal, some of those monitors posted were nice but way outside my budget.

[Petah]

Nice, I think that the 1" bigger version of mine. What did you pay for it?

[Caydr]

Try to get a feel for what kind of dot pitch you're good with. A 22" 1920x1080 monitor will have super-tiny pixels that make pictures look good, but may make text difficult to read.

That's the only reason I got a 32 inch "TV", I just find it easy to use on a daily basis and it only cost about 25% more than a 24" monitor would've at the time. This is even though I have really good eyes for detail. It's just easier to work with.

Also, it's just not worth buying monitors online. Buy one in a store that you can return it to if you have problems, but make them price-match to an online store.

edit: Finally, don't forget whatever you buy you need a graphics card that can run it. 1680x1050 isn't the very best you can get but it will make about a $100 difference in how much your GPU will need to cost in order to get a similar framerate. (except in Spring, where everything depends on whether you have a NV card or not)

edit 2: Bastard already bought one.

[Das Bruce]

I've got an 8800GT at the moment, probably going to keep it for some time yet. I'm considering SLI with another one if it I find one cheap but I assume it will be enough for now.
Can't say I've been overwhelmed by recent offerings from the games department so I'm not too fussed.

[Caydr]

An 8800 GT? Wow.

You have a point about the prettiest games not being the most worthwhile lately though. Have you tried Call of Priypat yet? If you were able to run the original STALKER you can probably run it with similar performance, they really optimized the hell out of it after all the Clear Sky complaints.

IIRC a lot of the things you disliked about the original were fixed. Like, you felt they didn't live up to the original vision they'd been talking about. Anomalies moving from time to time, well-designed quests, the world not feeling very lived-in, etc.

I just finished CoP after about 25 hours of gameplay, by far the best of the series overall, though the original had a stronger (if predictable) story.

Err... Imma take this to the game recommendation thread now.

[Das Bruce]

I know it's not much now, but I'm still in a bit of a low liquidity situation, and trying to save for a holiday.

[SwiftSpear]

I try to stay with solid brands - Acer, for instance - and buy on sale.

I don't consider Acer Solid... but meh, maybe their monitors are better than everything else they do.

[TradeMark]

I've always thought Acer was the worst brand in monitors...

Also, two monitors are useful only after you wasted money on them IMO... (people often feel even useless things are useful if they wasted lots of money there). Or if you are a graphics guy or something like that then maybe you could use one extra monitor.

I dont quite get it why its so hard to switch a window, need new monitor for that huh...

And as someone noted, multitasking makes people dumber. Better to have one monitor, i bet your work gets done faster anyways when you dont have facebook on the other monitor, and work on the other...

Also, saying that two monitors is useful to have because you can surf on two sites at once, is quite retarded. Who needs to see two websites at once? Seriously... only for porn maybe. Besides, these days the websites have been shrinked into 400 pixels wide pages for the epic amount of adverts, so you can surf on 4 sites at once with 1600x1200 screen...

[very_bad_soldier]

Why need people high resolutions? Is it that hard to use scrollbars?

But seriously if the only use case you can imagine for dual screen is watchin pron you probably really dont need two screens. But there are people that use their machines also for other things and I can tell you for sure thats a big advantage to have an IDE on one screen and websites/documentation on another. I could give about 20 other examples but I dont think it would be worth the effort.

[Floris]

i would say that having 2 monitors is usefull if you are a programmer, but thats was especially true with 2x 4:3 screens. nowadays 2x 16:9 or 16:10 is equal to 3x 4:3, which isnt something very desirable. I used 3 screen and 2 and now usually use just 1 anyway.

[knorke]

A 22" 1920x1080 monitor will have super-tiny pixels that make pictures look good, but may make text difficult to read.

make text bigger?

[TradeMark]

i would say that having 2 monitors is usefull if you are a programmer, but thats was especially true with 2x 4:3 screens. nowadays 2x 16:9 or 16:10 is equal to 3x 4:3, which isnt something very desirable. I used 3 screen and 2 and now usually use just 1 anyway.

i've been programming for 10 years soon... and i never felt i need another screen for it, what the hell is wrong with me ?

[Caydr]

A 22" 1920x1080 monitor will have super-tiny pixels that make pictures look good, but may make text difficult to read.

make text bigger?

I must've missed that option in every game, ever.

[knorke]

seems so.
i like my to set my fragcounter to be huge like xbox.
so lol in what game can you not do that? in b4 ages old game with bitmap fonts that do not scale to resolution.

[Machete234]

Just last month, the 23" version of that monitor was on sale for $199 (145 EUR).

There is always a downside with such cheap monitors, sure the one in your link is good but you dont get that ever in the EU, no chance.
That thing is 200 something euros here on amazon.

So a 100Ôé¼ tft gives you eye cancer, I have seen these panels and I also know the people who buy them and they have no idea what a native res is, I swear.
Im not flaming this is my first hand experience as always.

[AF]

A 22" 1920x1080 monitor will have super-tiny pixels that make pictures look good, but may make text difficult to read.

make text bigger?

I must've missed that option in every game, ever.

I have a 22" screen, and I have considerable eye issues, I have trouble reading normal text on any screen or books because of my eye condition. I need to wear either glasses or hard contact lenses, and my eyesight will continue to slowly get worse as I get older.

Yet somehow I am capable of reading the tiny text with my glasses on.

Considering my eyesight, and that I can read this, yet you cannot, I urgently reccomend you go to an optician, or pull your monitor to within a 2m distance of your head