Aliens Called "LCDs"

[LeftEyeNine]

In a week I'll have moved to where I'll start working which means I'll have to drag my PC along as well.

However, as father suggested in the first place (yeeha), my 17'' CRT is like a dead ox with tubes that can illuminate so I've decided to get an LCD monitor.

I may be upgrading my rig to a beast in the near future but it will take time, therefore I'll need an LCD that can keep up with what that foreseeable beast can theoretically show me, while I need to keep a close eye on the bugdet as well.

Briefly, for a gamer and an HD fan, what are the specs of a decent LCD monitor ?

Response time (any variations) ? Contrast Ratio -of which sometimes 2 different ratios given ? Brightness ? What else ?

For example, here are 2ms LCDs sorted descendingly regarding their prices. Something lower than 200 USD would be within my budget.

Oh and, dear Lemur, I wish I could get your full HD gadget, but I'm sure it would cost at least 1.5 times more here (optimistically)

Thanks in advance.

[Husar]

Well, if you want the full range of colours etc blabla, to edit pictures, wide viewing angles etc, you have to spend way more than 200$.

If you want to go for a somewhat cheaper option, I have a Benq G2400W, certainly not perfect, but a nice 24" with a TN Panel, 1920*1080 pixels, VGA, DVI and HDMI in, audio out(3.5mm stereo plug, you can input audio via HDMI, use that for my PS3) and the colours etc aren't bad either IMO.certainly not suitable for photoshop freaks but if you want that we have to go to the 600$ and more price class.
What's also nice is when I input a 1080p signal the monitor can do 1:1 pixel mapping which means the picture is not distorted, I get a bit of flickering in the black bars on top and bottom but that hasn't really impacted my BluRay experience yet and other monitors can be even worse in that department(though that is only an issue if you ever connect anything other than a computer to it, which you can, due to the HDMI port).
Well, one issue is of course it cannot handle the 24 frame rates of BluRays too well it seems(they still look awesome, just some minor stuttering in slow camera movements, some expensive HDTVs even have that...) but to get rid of that you would probably need something really expensive again. I'd say it's the cheap student option and a very nice monitor overall.

As I said, there are definitely better options and some others in that price class but I found this one offers a lot for the price and performs very well in it's price class back when I compared before buying mine.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Monitors are relatively expensive, so it may be worth to do some double-checking before you go ahead. This site may be useful for you to see what you should be on the look out for: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mon...lcd-guide.html

[Lemur]

This is the monitor I got. About 22", 1920x1080 so you can watch 1080p content in full resolution, HDMI connection as well as DVI and VGA, saturated colors, fast response time, no dead pixels, and it's from Asus, one of the more respectable manufacturers.

It's selling for $180 right now. What's not to like?

[Husar]

This is the monitor I got. About 22", 1920x1080 so you can watch 1080p content in full resolution, HDMI connection as well as DVI and VGA, saturated colors, fast response time, no dead pixels, and it's from Asus, one of the more respectable manufacturers.

It's selling for $180 right now. What's not to like?

The TN panel.

But not bad, though some would say the 16:9 aspect ratio is a bit small vertically compared to a 16:10 monitor when you're actually working with the thing. Might bother LEN, might not, also a 24" is a bit bigger which is pretty great.
The input options aren't bad either on your monitor so I guess that one is really fine.

[LeftEyeNine]

[monetarily_concerned_post]

I guess I have to remind you that I'm living in +!%&#?! Turkey.

[/monetarily_concerned_post]

[Lemur]

Well, was that directed at Husar, Tellos, Me or all three? How does that impact you, in terms of what you can buy and how much it costs? I thought almost all of the manufacturers were in China or Taiwan, not the U.S.A., so wouldn't it be kinda immaterial where you are?

I want to understand and help, but I'm kinda lost.

[Husar]

[monetarily_concerned_post]

I guess I have to remind you that I'm living in +!%&#?! Turkey.

[/monetarily_concerned_post]

In that case I will have to remind you that anything cheaper will be some cheapish 17" or 19" monitor, the price of the one Lemur presented surprised me a bit already.
If you cannot afford a cheap 22" I'd wait and save some money, because going even lower isn't worth it anymore IMO.

[LeftEyeNine]

Well, was that directed at Husar, Tellos, Me or all three? How does that impact you, in terms of what you can buy and how much it costs? I thought almost all of the manufacturers were in China or Taiwan, not the U.S.A., so wouldn't it be kinda immaterial where you are?

I want to understand and help, but I'm kinda lost.

Mighty Lemur, what I meant to say is: Your 180-USD LCD would prolly cost around 300 USD provided it is sold in Turkey. Had I had the idea that I could see a price tag of 200 USD for that monitor in Turkey, I'd really refrain from opening this thread.

e.g. The same notebook that is sold for 1500 USD on Newegg costs 1500 EUR + KDV (Turkish VAT) here.

Clearer I guess

Husar, how much did that 24'' cost you ?

[Lemur]

Mighty Lemur, what I meant to say is: Your 180-USD LCD would prolly cost around 300 USD provided it is sold in Turkey. Had I had the idea that I could see a price tag of 200 USD for that monitor in Turkey, I'd really refrain from opening this thread.

Okay, so what's to stop you from having a friend in the U.S.A. ordering it, then shipping it to Turkey? Surely that would add no more than $20-$40 bucks onto the price, right? So a $180 monitor with $10 shipping in the U.S. becomes a $200-$220 monitor by the time it reaches you.

I don't believe that breaks any relevant laws, although it might void some warranties. Am I being terribly simplistic?

[Husar]

Okay, so what's to stop you from having a friend in the U.S.A. ordering it, then shipping it to Turkey? Surely that would add no more than $20-$40 bucks onto the price, right? So a $180 monitor with $10 shipping in the U.S. becomes a $200-$220 monitor by the time it reaches you.

I don't believe that breaks any relevant laws, although it might void some warranties. Am I being terribly simplistic?

He'd also have to check for things like power adapters, you know, lately I bought an american bluetooth headset from the UK, was packaged with an american power adapter (two parallel connector bars with a hole in each), the store tried to think ahead and put in a UK AC adapter (two bar-like connectors with some plastic thing above) but here we have the european connectors (just two round connectors with a bit more distance than the american bars). So I got myself ana adapter for the american thing for 5EUR, luckily it goes up to 240 Volts or I couldn't have used it at all.

What I'm trying to say is you have to think of things that aren't standardized across the world, DVI, HDMI etc probably are, I once saw a list of countries where a certain WiFi adapter would work, which surprised me, I thought WiFi was the same everywhere, actually I still do but the list confused me anyway. I also read a german iPhone 3G in america gets really weird bugs so I'd make somewhat sure that a monitor ordered from the USA would actually work in Turkey before spending a whole lot on the shipping etc. because those costs stay even if you can send it back.

Now that was more than I wanted to say on the topic ( ) but PAL and NTSC are TV only things, right?
Then only the power problem remains, potentially.

Oh and I paid 334EUR including shipping but the thing has become cheaper, it's below 300 now, let me have a look...

Seems like it is superseded by some variant and hardly available anymore(it was pretty new in their program when I bought it in mid 2008)....265 in one store, there is a new WD and a WT version which show 4 times the contrast and looks similar otherwise, the WD is just 2 EUR more in the cheapest shop.
Then again you just said 300$ is too much and that's what I'm talking about here so guess we forget about that for now.

[LeftEyeNine]

Lemur-sama, if only it was about shipping costs...

I've been told that for a standard laptop, I'd have to pay an extra 200-300 USD to meet the customs taxes. If you know of a way to get it overlooked, you're being my instant friend born in the U.S.A.

Husar, I had given a link above from a Turkish shopping website, would you take time to have a look at those 2ms LCDs please? (I fail at being cute)

[Husar]

Well, they do not seem to have a lot of choice there, but let me tell you whether it is 2, 4 or 5ms shouldn't really matter, they're all fast enough, things like input lag(time the monitor needs to show the picture after it arrived through the cable) however, are never mention, to see an example, watch this.

Now I guess on your page this one could be nice but it's neither Full HD nor exactly cheap and to give any real opinion would require to know what you need it for and some research on user opinions/reviews.

When I bought mine I liked to read the reviews on www.trustedreviews.com and this forum

Maybe that helps.

edit: should add a warning though, reading that forum can cause depression and make you wish you never went there, you have to know that some of the people have very high standards concerning image quality and you have to pick what is important for you.

[Tellos Athenaios]

input lag(time the monitor needs to show the picture after it arrived through the cable) however, are never mention, to see an example, watch this.

Is largely irrelevant if you have only 1 monitor, though. With 2 you'll probably want 2 identical monitors anyway because no 2 monitors display identical input the same.

[LeftEyeNine]

Simple question:

Is looking for a 2ms unnecessary ? Would spending the same money on a bigger LCD with 4ms response time be more reasonable ?

[Husar]

Is largely irrelevant if you have only 1 monitor, though. With 2 you'll probably want 2 identical monitors anyway because no 2 monitors display identical input the same.

Eh, no, a lot of people say you can feel it for example in shooters because everytime you make a mouse movement, it takes a while until you see it on the monitor, not even a second but in multiplayer this can be important for example. Must say I haven't tested it myself but I can see how it could potentially be annoying.

Simple question:

Is looking for a 2ms unnecessary ? Would spending the same money on a bigger LCD with 4ms response time be more reasonable ?

I'd say yes, don't know what mine has but usually anything below 8ms is fine, you cannot trust the numbers anyway as there are different methods of measurement and measuring grey-to-grey gives lower numbers than black to white or something like that, but if it's a TN panel there shouldn't be any tearing nowadays and all other panels seem to be above your budget anyway.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Simple question:

Is looking for a 2ms unnecessary ?

Quite.

Would spending the same money on a bigger LCD with 4ms response time be more reasonable ?

Nah. I'd rather look for something which has a better size/resolution combination (I mean if it's sheer size you want you might as well go for a TV, which is complete rubbish as far a picture quality is concerned) or if you can afford it see if you can get better colour reproduction, or less power consumption for same/very-close specs etc.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Eh, no, a lot of people say you can feel it for example in shooters because everytime you make a mouse movement, it takes a while until you see it on the monitor, not even a second but in multiplayer this can be important for example. Must say I haven't tested it myself but I can see how it could potentially be annoying.

Well I look at it this way:
If your GFX card is not fast enough that will incur more 'performance penalty'. If you *are* playing multiplayer the Internet delay dwarfs everything anyway (that's in the order of seconds to minutes as opposed to miliseconds). I mean: a DSL link is no match for a VSL link. Simple b/g wifi isn't on par with Ethernet yet, and that (ordinary Ethernet 10-100Mb/s) is again a good bit slower than Fast Ethernet (1Gb/s) or a DSL link. So any such bandwidth 'bottle-neck' is going to hurt harder than half a second input lag on your monitor.

[Husar]

Well I look at it this way:
If your GFX card is not fast enough that will incur more 'performance penalty'. If you *are* playing multiplayer the Internet delay dwarfs everything anyway (that's in the order of seconds to minutes as opposed to miliseconds). I mean: a DSL link is no match for a VSL link. Simple b/g wifi isn't on par with Ethernet yet, and that (ordinary Ethernet 10-100Mb/s) is again a good bit slower than Fast Ethernet (1Gb/s) or a DSL link. So any such bandwidth 'bottle-neck' is going to hurt harder than half a second input lag on your monitor.

Eh, unless your connection is way too slow, the ping can depend on very different factors other than your bandwidth, an american with a 100MBit connection will have a worse ping on a european server than the european with a 2MBit connection who lives next door to the server room.
And even then there's no reason to pile up the delays, it's worse enough that there already are some you can't get rid of, no need to get even more.

And then on the topic of TVs, most of them have a really good picture quality, that is if you spend >1000$ or so on one. Their 1920*1080 pixels are fine because you're not supposed to sit right in front of them anyway, they're not a PC monitor replacement for your workdesk.