OK time to ditch the CRT, advice on gaming panel please?

EffBee

EffBee

EffBee

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After temporarily swapping out my trusty old 19" CRT I realized just how bad the pink colour-cast has become. This monitor is unusable.

So I am looking for a quality panel to run on an oldish system running with a factory overclocked Nvidia 7600GT.
The CRT is 19" so I want at least a similar screen area. I might be tempted to go widescreen. I play at 1280x1024 oe 1600 x 1200 at present. In fairness to the card probably don't want to go much higher. Issue - the perceived size of stuff on the screen should not be smaller on the panel compared to the CRT. I'm over 50 and the old eyes aren't what they were.

Cost about 150 but happy to spend more or less up to whatever it takes.

Availability - preferabliy from OC - I would go and pick it up myself (I can still do that I hope)

My main worry is dead pixels. What is the position on that. Whatever the manufactureres say I demand NO dead pixels. How do I ensure this?

Hoping to make the purchase today or tomorrow.

PS: This one caught my eye. Any comments please?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-009-NE&groupid=703&catid=17&subcat=948

Thanks in advance.
 
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That monitor is £317 !!! a bit over your budget!

Going from a 19" CRT you'd actually be fine with a 17" LCD... the actual screen size (and improvement in the clarity) of an LCD mean that's fine. Trust me - I sold my old 17" screen to a friend with an old 19" CRT and he's delighted.

However, 17" LCD's are old hat these days. 19" is the standard for a 4:3 screen. But if you play games then I do recommend a widescreen. My 19" widescreen feels *much* bigger than my old 17", even though really it's an optical illusion of the wider screen area better matching our eyes' field of view.

Considering your gfx card isn't exactly a screamer ;) then a 19" widescreen will have the advantage of being 1) cheap (so you could save some money towards an upgrade) and 2) not too demanding on your system, so you'll get decent framerates. Remember - you must play games at the native resolution of the screen to avoid 'soapy' images caused by scaling, so unlike your CRT you can't, for instance, eke out more framerate by playing at 800x600 without trading off *lots* of image quality.

(The one disadvantage is the low vertical res means you do scroll more in docs and websites, but it's not a nightmare)

I've just got an 8800GT and because the pixel count on my screen is so relatively low, I'm now enjoying screaming frame rates AND I can turn the AA and AF up with impunity :)


As for dead pixels - the manufacturer policies vary greatly. Some offer zero dead pixel warranties on their top end screens. But does that matter? I've not seen a dead pixel for years... we've got loads of screens at work... they're all fine. Only one of my friends has some stuck pixels. And he's probably punched the screen a few times :)
With Distance Selling Regulations you could probably return a duff screen for no/minimal cost anyway.

In summary... you'll be happy with a 19" widescreen, or consider a a 22" if you're going to upgrade your system in the near future. Take care with glossy screens if you sit near a window.
 
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I've recently gone from a 19" crt to a 22" Iiyama E2201w. It's perfect for gaming as it apparently has no lag when put next to a CRT (check out the review/comparisons at, I think, behardware).

If you're concerned about screen size, if I remember correctly 22" widescreen adds a little in height to a 19" 4:3 CRT and obviously much more in width. The 20" looses a bit of height (probably slightly under an inch) and again gains in width. If you go to a 19" widescreen then you will notice the drop (my housemate has a 19" widescreen and it seems really small!). Obviously though a 19" 4:3 will be larger than your CRT.

Back to playing games, I've been playing a little COD4 and I don't run it in the native resolution of 1650x1080, yet, in my opinion, it still looks great (though you should bear in mind I only relatively recently upgraded from an ancient system).

For dead pixels, I think Iiyama's is very good. They offer something close to a zero dead pixel. I can't remember the exact details but I believe if you have a dodgy pixel in the middle of the screen they'll replace it. I didn't have any dead pixels so I didnt need toworry about it. But as McSpoons mentioned above, the distance selling regulations should sort you out, unless of course you do pick the thing up from OcUK.

I very nearly bought an LG L206WTQ (20") which was around your budget and supposed to be very good (though some had a ghosting issue which could be fixed easily apparently).
 
I have a 22" Iiyama E2201w en route, bought it to replace my againg 19" TFT. When gaming the faster the screen the better and as already posted, this is a dam quick screen 2ms response and zero lag.
When ever the muppets at Citylink deliver it I will post some pics :)
Hopefully zero dead pixels and no backlight bleed...here's hoping !!
 
I don't think it's great for backlight bleed but it really doesn't bother me. Viewing angle is noticable poor, though it does depend HOW you use it. Games it is fine, no problem at all. If I watch TV it can be noticably darker when I recline backwards, for example. But that said I think you would need something significantly more expensive to avoid that being an issue.
 
just had the delivery at home of my new Iiyama Prolite E2201W-B1 22" screen, the wife signed for it as "not checked" just as well, I have just rushed home and the backlight bleed on this screen looks terrible.

There is what looks like a foot print on one edge of the box,

Iiyama007.jpg


when I inspected the screen, the bezel is very uneaven, I can see a bump in it top left, the bottom has a larger gap on the right hand side (where the backlight bleed is most noticable)

Iiyama003.jpg



Iiyama002.jpg



the backlight bleed looks bad at the moment

Iiyama004.jpg


but I will see how it is after a few hours use.
No dead pixels though, so thats a plus.

I think its an RMA item though. :(

This is to add to a 24" OCUK and a Samsung Pebble 22" screen both in December last year. I am seriously considering saving my pennies and ordering a higher priced screen.
 
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That's not bad tbh^, unless you pay £500+ for top end LCD you will be very lucky purchase one with zero backlight bleed. Give it 12 months or so and the above common LCD problem should start to be phased out with the next gen LCD's, as competition hots up with the new LED monitors.
 
If it was my money, and especially without a great eyesight, theres nothing worse than squinting to see the lower dpi's. I'd totally recommend one of the 1680x1050 / 22" screens for around £190-£220 as they're very good.

Maybe one of the samsungs?
 
Sean_UK said:
That's not bad tbh^, unless you pay £500+ for top end LCD you will be very lucky purchase one with zero backlight bleed. Give it 12 months or so and the above common LCD problem should start to be phased out with the next gen LCD's, as competition hots up with the new LED monitors.
Click to expand...

That backlight pic was taken in daylight, I game in total darkness so for me it wasnt acceptable, plus the fact the condition and poor fit of the bezel made me RMA it, they are picking it up tomorrow morning.
 
Wen't from a CRT straight to an LCD, the Viewsonic VX922 to be exact. The actual motion in games was noticably different than the CRT however much better than the other LCD's that i have. Don't think there are many other monitors that compare to this performance wise. :p
 
Honestly it doesn't matter... LCD's are completely different to CRT's, there's no flicker. And with current screens the difference in motion isn't that big a deal. I went from a 19" CRT to an Hitachi CML174SX screen years ago, and it didn't upset or annoy me. Current tech has come on leaps and bounds since then!

I consider myself a fairly hard-core FPS gamer (not that I spend hours obsessively practicising, just that it's the only genre I've really played for 7 or 8 years now, and my whole pc setup has been created specifically to improve my FPS fps ;))
I've just gone from a 75hz 17" 4:3 LCD to a 60hz 19" 16:10 LCD and even that's no real difference (though I must admit I now play with vsync off rather than on... maybe that's made a difference?)
 
Thanks for all the input people. I did a little scouting in my local shops to check stuff like apparent size of text and icons on various sizes of monitors.

Have bitten the bullet and gone for the NEC I mentioned in my original post. Unfortunately missed the second hand cheaper jobbie though.

First impressions though the jaundiced eye of a die-hard CRT user.

I miss the wall created by my two CRT monitors which this jobbie is replacing. I feel naked and exposed when people come into the room.

The screen is a beautiful piece of technology. Little touches like the on/off LED having a control for brightness are nice.

Good to not have to worry about geometry issues like pincushion etc.

Still playing with colour balance brilliance and contrast. Might buy one of those calorimeter things.

I am reminded about the early arguments that raged when people switched from vinyl records to CD. The new monitor seems vibrant, clinical, maybe even without a soul compared to CRT.

No dead pixels thank god - though OC UK said a return under the distance selling goods act was ok.

Don't get me wrong though, this monitor is infinitely better than my worn out 7 year old 19" CRT. I am extremely pleased with it. Like the CRT it has its strengths and weaknesses. Personally I always like to maximize all the eye candy in a game and find a resolution which the card could cope with. Now I have to fix the resolution and modify the eye candy. Set in my ways I suppose.

The 7600GT card copes with this screen at native resoulution OK, but only just (as expected :) ).

I like the presets for Text, gaming, photo, and movies accessible throug a simple front panel switch.

For the record this 20" screen is exactly the same height (actual working area) as my old CRT but obviously somewhat wider. I like the xtra width.

Currently playing WoW at native resolution with the "Text" preset. It is quite beautiful.

Not being familiar with the LCD technology things like ghosting and backlight bleed don't mean much to me. Suffice it to say I have seen nothing that causes me to sit back and say to myself "ooh - I don't like that". Except maybe the reflection of myself in the glossy screen when it is turned off.

Ah well - I have moved with the times. Progress!

Thanks again all.

From a happy convert.
 
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