Buying a Monitor

[mytmyke]

I'm considering buying this monitor. It seems like a good price and gets really good reviews, but I wanted to get some opinions here. Thanks in advance.


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

[whicker]

dunno. bought one for my brother a while ago.
no complaints. no reason not to get it.
It doesn't have that tru-glare coating on it.

3 year warranty, it isn't that heavy to ship back if needed.

I'm sure it's a 6-bit + dither panel, but what do you expect for that price?
even $250 panels still are like that.

We're so spoiled these days. Remember what the CRT monitors were like?

[sweener2001]

when it comes to a monitor, i always feel that saving up and spending that little extra to get something awesome (samsung, in my opinion) is always worth it.

but acer is an excellent bargain brand

[kode54]

Just ordered this monitor, on sale now. Not as cheap, but still cheap. Probably better to get the more expensive Dell monitor, though.

[funkyass]

Just ordered this monitor, on sale now. Not as cheap, but still cheap. Probably better to get the more expensive Dell monitor, though.

a good monitor.

[Gil_Hamilton]

I'm sure it's a 6-bit + dither panel, but what do you expect for that price?
even $250 panels still are like that.

We're so spoiled these days. Remember what the CRT monitors were like?

Let's see... even the cheapest of them were true-color, not dithered...
they didn't have scaling artifacts...
they didn't have viewing angle constraints...
brightness was consistent across the entire display...
But hey, modern LCDs are less than an inch deep!

Yes, we're spoiled as fuck nowadays.

[SquareHead]

I'm considering buying this monitor. It seems like a good price and gets really good reviews, but I wanted to get some opinions here. Thanks in advance.


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

You know I just picked one of these up at wal-mart just last week 3 days before tiger direct dropped their price. Its not a bad monitor really.

My only cons were that the monitor is fixed, no tilt or swivel. Its blacks are a little light, but other than that its not bad. Has great response time, playing games on it are crisp and bright.

Left4Dead and Bio-Shock look awesome on this.

I am also using the DVI connection, not sure if this matters or not.

[I.S.T.]

I'm sure it's a 6-bit + dither panel, but what do you expect for that price?
even $250 panels still are like that.

We're so spoiled these days. Remember what the CRT monitors were like?

Let's see... even the cheapest of them were true-color, not dithered...
they didn't have scaling artifacts...
they didn't have viewing angle constraints...
brightness was consistent across the entire display...
But hey, modern LCDs are less than an inch deep!

Yes, we're spoiled as fuck nowadays.

Yup. -_-

[Panzer88]

hmm, why is it that there are much more expensive / higher build quality tvs vs. monitors (of the same size) ?

are things viewed on a PC simply not as important to see in the most clarity?

[franpa]

Why do you guys think I still cling to my CRT monitor? to get a good LCD screen I'd probably be looking at $350 to $450 ._.

[I.S.T.]

hmm, why is it that there are much more expensive / higher build quality tvs vs. monitors (of the same size) ?

are things viewed on a PC simply not as important to see in the most clarity?

Because idiots have no idea how much higher quality TVs can be. >.>

Also, a 24 inch TV/monitor can only look so good...

Really, if you want the best picture quality, get a damn plasma or an OLED TV that's like 50 inches big and hook it up to your PC. Boom, you have a very pretty picture.

And yeah CRTs>LCDs for liiiiiiiiiiiiife.

[Gil_Hamilton]

hmm, why is it that there are much more expensive / higher build quality tvs vs. monitors (of the same size) ?

are things viewed on a PC simply not as important to see in the most clarity?

Because idiots have no idea how much higher quality TVs can be. >.>

Also, a 24 inch TV/monitor can only look so good...

Really, if you want the best picture quality, get a damn plasma or an OLED TV that's like 50 inches big and hook it up to your PC. Boom, you have a very pretty picture.

And yeah CRTs>LCDs for liiiiiiiiiiiiife.

Now, to be fair, I WILL grant that at it's native resolution a good LCD(with a digital feed, dammit, who the hell thinks using ye olde VGA inputs on an LCD is a good idea?) is way better than a bad CRT, or maybe even a good CRT(this demands the intervention of science. I don't have a good LCD).


The problem is... MOST LCDs aren't good. And the ones that ARE are expensive.
A cheap CRT may not be the BEST display, but it's a CONSISTENT display, and there's a lot of adjustment available to make it decent. Hell, even the cheap junk displays had full color balance controls, and you could ACTUALLY GET THE COLORS TO BALANCE, which isn't possible on many LCDs.

And since no one gives a damn, LCDs aren't getting any better. It's cheaper to do a bad LCD, and the mass-market is perfectly happy this way, so why bother making them decent?

[creaothceann]

(with a digital feed, dammit, who the hell thinks using ye olde VGA inputs on an LCD is a good idea?)

Eh, I'm just too lazy to get one. From what I've read about my LCD, it'd just allow a little bit more control for non-native resolutions (such as displaying them as a smaller window in the center of the screen).

When I see the 17" CRT of the ancient computer that my parents are still using, I'm glad that I now have a flat screen surface.

[I.S.T.]

many CRTs are flat too, creaothceann. I have like... two or three myself.

[franpa]

DVI is digital, you get no noise interference in the signal etc.

[blackmyst]

I'll just add another voice of support for the good ole CRT to this.

[sweener2001]

And since no one gives a damn, LCDs aren't getting any better.

maybe less so with monitors, but tv's are getting vastly superior. LED backlit where lights turn off for blacks, higher refresh rates (up to 240 Hz now), and the viewing angles have been taken care of for awhile now. those are your 3-5K sets. for around 2K, you can still get 120 Hz, and an excellent contrast ratio ~50,000:1 or higher. i even saw a 37" 120 Hz samsung set selling for ~900 on amazon.

but those high end lcd sets keep closing the gap between lcd and plasma. which is nice since the kuro will have long been out of production by the time i can afford my ideal home theater.

[grinvader]

intervention of science

I have a relatively adequate LCD.

The main issue with factory settings was the brightness ranking a couple supernovaes that left ghosts due to retinal persistence. After tuning the settings a fair bit (removing the stupid features like YOU NEED TO SEE BLACK STUFF YES YOU DO and various sharpness filters) the results are acceptable enough to enjoy the picture without shades.

Another issue is the lack of "fuck-with-the-sync" stuff - i.e. fake pal60 signals from my realps1 [the colours are completely shot] using scart. CRT was likely much more abusable in that regard.

My grandparents bought a topnotch widescreeeeeeeeeeen crt when that was still badass. Comparison shows little difference in picture quality because we're not fucking watching stuff 2 inches from the screen and can't see the pixels anyway.

Yes, we're fucked as spoil nowadays.

fixxed

[DOLLS (J) [!]]

... higher refresh rates (up to 240 Hz now)...

This shouldn't make a difference with the inevitable 60Hz sources, and if it does, it's probably interpolating between frames and that would be a shitty thing to do in my book. I bet those won't even accept a 100 Hz signal.

The only things that can really display a 120 Hz signal, besides CRTs, are the modern '3D Ready' gaming monitors, but are still not free of ghosting anyway, and are bound to display shitty colors until you spend $250 on a hardware calibrator.

[snkcube]

which is nice since the kuro will have long been out of production by the time i can afford my ideal home theater.

If only Pioneer wasn't forced to shut down their TV sector, due to the bad economy. I really hope their sector returns in the near future because their Kuro TVs were awesome.

[Panzer88]

LCDs can look good now, but the technology is inherently not that great, a CRT with the same money spent on it still surpasses.

I walked into a local HIGH end audio electronics store, it's like another world but that's another story.

Anyways they only carried plasmas and laser tvs (mitsubishi) and they looked 100x better than the best display sets at a play like Fry's etc.

more over you could tell they actually calibrated the screens for optimum color, brightness, and of course the black levels were great, and they had good source material playing.

Seriously you guys should look up a local high end audio dealer in your area just to walk into the shop, usually they privately owned and are only local businesses. They just have a lot of cool stuff.

[Gil_Hamilton]

And since no one gives a damn, LCDs aren't getting any better.

maybe less so with monitors, but tv's are getting vastly superior. LED backlit where lights turn off for blacks, higher refresh rates (up to 240 Hz now)

Sucker.

They aren't increasing the refresh(which is a non-issue anyways, since LCDs don't have the flicker concerns CRTs had{and the 60 Hz flicker was a non-issue on TVs, due to phosphor persistence. It was only a problem on monitors, which used faster phosphors because they were designed to go faster than 60 Hz}).

A 120 Hz TV inserts blank frames(simulating... 60 Hz CRT flicker) or interpolated frames between REAL frames to reduce the appearance of motion blur.

...

Okay, it apparently also offers some minor enhancement with 24 FPS sources, since you can just multiply every frame by 5 instead of the standard 3:2 pulldown.
But that's pretty minor, really.

... and the viewing angles have been taken care of for awhile now.

Still depends on specific set, where you're sitting, and distance from the set.

My grandmother's TV, bought a few months ago, is giving her no end of trouble.
It was set up so she could watch it while laying down on her bed, and the image "disappears" when she sits up.

Arguably, she's sitting way too close and it's not the TV's fault, but it's the only way she can SEE her television.


And it's not a cheap junk unit. It's a 50" Samsung(again, the only way she can SEE it).

those are your 3-5K sets. for around 2K, you can still get 120 Hz, and an excellent contrast ratio ~50,000:1 or higher. i even saw a 37" 120 Hz samsung set selling for ~900 on amazon.

You know the contrast ratios are even more bullshit than the 120 Hz, right?
Contrast has been a meaningless number pulled out of marketing's ass since about 3 months after LCD became popular.

Hell, some manufacturers actually generate their contrast ratio numers by comparing a full-brightness white screen to a screen that is PHYSICALLY TURNED OFF.




I do grant that a large LCD TV generally has a much more even backlight than an LCD monitor(or smaller LCD TV) due to the difference in lighting solutions.
And LED backlighting will fix that across the board when(if) it trickles down to lower-end displays.





But yeah, I was speaking mostly of computer monitors.

[Panzer88]

pretty soon all new tvs are going to have to be 120hz (REAL 120hz mind you) for true 3D viewing

already 3D films in theaters are projected at about 144hz IIRC

3D seems to be the next "big thing" and after using the polarized glasses (as apposed to the old anaglyphic red and blue ones) it's actually pretty impressive

I suspect the next console generation will try to capitalize on this gimmick like they did with "HD" this generation. Of course this will mean games will have to have significantly higher frame rates but the systems are supposed to be more powerful right?

[Gil_Hamilton]

3D seems to be the next "big thing" and after using the polarized glasses (as apposed to the old anaglyphic red and blue ones) it's actually pretty impressive

They actually tried polarized glasses for theaters back in the day too.

The thing is... they used linear polarizers, so tilting your head messed with the image.
The new ones use circular polarizers, which avoids that issue.


Now... in the home environment, they're probably gonna have to use liquid-crystal shutters. Polarizers generally require twin displays.

[DOLLS (J) [!]]

NVIDIA is already pushing their tech along, reviving the shutter glasses.