Spec me a monitor :D

Killerkebab · 23 Oct 2008 at 19:30

I've noticed widescreen monitors are approaching the sort of price I paid for a VP930 now two and a half years ago, and as such I'm interested in getting one as a second monitor. My Viewsonic VP930 is a 19" TFT (non-widescreen). If we assume budget as being around £400, what would be the better monitor?

I intend to play games on it that actually support widescreen (the VP930 can handle anything else) and other obvious things like watch movies, etc - if the monitor supports a 360/PS3 (if I ever get one in the future) this is a plus as I don't have a big TV.

I was looking at 24" monitors, the 2408WFP in particular - but I confess I really don't know anything about monitors, and I'm not even sure where to start. For instance, why is the 2408WFP roughly the same price as a 2709W?

Other than Dell, what manufacturers should I be looking at?

Frositay · 24 Oct 2008 at 20:49

You should definitely be looking at Samsung's, they make fantastic LCD TV's which look great with my PS3

. So I imagine they would make really good monitors too

. If you find any that gets your interest I can look over the specs for you.

Pranksterr · 24 Oct 2008 at 21:36

Have a look at the big Hazro and HP 24' threads here, also NEC do a good new 24' version but at a lot more cost.

acccc · 24 Oct 2008 at 23:30

Samsung 245B+

Orison · 25 Oct 2008 at 10:57

I'll second the Hanns-G. It really is a splendid thing for a ridiculously low price. For gaming, size is everything (oh and refresh speed - which is 3ms, excellent, on the Hanns-G).

People made a fuss about it not supporting 1:1 pixel mapping once upon a time. Basically this means the screen's widescreen ratio is 16:10, whereas on a typical TV it's 16:9; hence Xbox or PS3 images looked slightly "stretched" when put through this monitor. But Microsoft updated Xbox 360 so it supports 16:10, so that's a non-issue now. As for whether the stretching is a problem on PS3, well, I'm afraid I've not seen one running.

Unless you're doing professional print and photo editing, don't sweat too much about colour rendition either. From what people were saying about colour accuracy I thought this screen would arrive with a horrible coloured tint to everything, or something. Not at all. Reds are still red, blues still blue, etc. It only matters if you need the red on the screen to be EXACTLY the same as the red on your printout.

I really don't think you'd regret the Hanns-G if it's mainly for games. And you'd save £150 on your budget.

hernaldo · 25 Oct 2008 at 11:06

Orison said:
I'll second the Hanns-G. It really is a splendid thing for a ridiculously low price. For gaming, size is everything (oh and refresh speed - which is 3ms, excellent, on the Hanns-G).

People made a fuss about it not supporting 1:1 pixel mapping once upon a time. Basically this means the screen's widescreen ratio is 16:10, whereas on a typical TV it's 16:9; hence Xbox or PS3 images looked slightly "stretched" when put through this monitor. But Microsoft updated Xbox 360 so it supports 16:10, so that's a non-issue now. As for whether the stretching is a problem on PS3, well, I'm afraid I've not seen one running.

Unless you're doing professional print and photo editing, don't sweat too much about colour rendition either. From what people were saying about colour accuracy I thought this screen would arrive with a horrible coloured tint to everything, or something. Not at all. Reds are still red, blues still blue, etc. It only matters if you need the red on the screen to be EXACTLY the same as the red on your printout.

I really don't think you'd regret the Hanns-G if it's mainly for games. And you'd save £150 on your budget.

^ What he said

Best thing I ever did getting one. The quality of the screen is fine. Its as good as any mainstream monitor. When people talk about its problems they are comparing it to monitors costing 3x as much.

Don't listen to them.

16:10 streching problem isn't a problem either. Just another thing for the "videophiles" to moan about. The difference in ratio from 16:9 -> 16:10 is ridiculously small.

Heck I strech a 2.35:1 image to fit my 50 inch panasonic plasma and nobody ever says anything of it. But then I don't invite fussy gits over.

One thing though, the update that allows 16:10 resolutions hasn't been relased yet for the 360, its coming out in 3 weeks time. The PS3 definately does strech the image.