Aliens Called "LCDs"

**LeftEyeNine** · 01-27-2009, 14:12

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** · 01-27-2009, 14:57

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** · 01-27-2009, 16:00

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** · 01-27-2009, 16:41

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** · 01-27-2009, 16:53

Originally Posted by 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?

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.