What to look for in a 22" monitor

Jaffar · 19 Jun 2011 at 18:54

Hi, I'm currently using a HDTV as a monitor, but want to get a proper monitor with a better resolution.

I'm a bit clueless about what to looks for. I've seen this on offer ATM: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-058-IY&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat= which seems good for the money. What differences would you notice between this and a more expensive screen?

Does anyone have any recommendations?

mraerosmith1981 · 19 Jun 2011 at 19:01

Thats a bargain, you could spend a lot more on a monitor and not have it be as good as that 1 m8

Jaffar · 19 Jun 2011 at 21:04

Thanks for that input.

Also, would you say 22" is a good size for gaming whilst sitting at a desk? (i.e. not sitting the other side of the room from the screen)

timciren · 19 Jun 2011 at 21:21

hi,
I bought 3 22" monitors for Eyefinity, I had to send them back, I think resolution of 1920 is too fuzzy on a 22" screen.
There is a 24" monitor for £ 125. 2" may not sound much but it makes a massive difference to text readability IMHO

Jaffar · 19 Jun 2011 at 21:30

Sorry if I'm being dense, but wouldn't the same resolution be crisper on a smaller screen? Or do you mean the text was just too small? In that case I think there's an option in Windows to increase text size.

dz1 · 20 Jun 2011 at 00:31

That monitor is only 60Hz. A more expensive screen will have 120Hz refresh rate. IMO that is the most important feature missing from that cheap set.

BAcon · 20 Jun 2011 at 14:49

dz1 said:
That monitor is only 60Hz. A more expensive screen will have 120Hz refresh rate. IMO that is the most important feature missing from that cheap set.

Can you actually tell the difference between 60 and 120Hz though?

dz1 · 20 Jun 2011 at 18:05

You can tell the difference in any kind of fast motion but i'm probably not the best person to ask as i still use CRT

Jaffar · 27 Jun 2011 at 23:04

I thought I'd revive this thread instead of starting a new one.

I've seen this http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-019-PH which looks like an even bigger bargain.

My question is, how would gaming at lower resolutions look like on a screen this size? The reason I'm asking is because you'd need to constantly have a high end graphics card to play new games at the native resolution.

For gaming, would it be better to buy a smaller screen with lower resolution so that it's easier on the GPU?

What do you guys think? I am seriously tempted to get this while it's on offer...

suitheist · 29 Jun 2011 at 01:06

Well, I just bought one of these, so you can imagine I think it's a very good deal. For a 1080p resolution it's at least £20 cheaper than any other I've seen.

Well, smaller screens with a given resolution may look better than larger screens at the same resolution bc that have a higher pixel density. But they don't really make 1080p monitors smaller than this that I know of, so it won't look worse (better I should think) than a lower res smaller screen.

That said, yes you will put less strain on your card at a lower resolution. It really depends on your graphics card. What are you using at the moment? Future cards will inevitably be able to hit this resolution more and more easily, and most current gen cards can do it now (depending on other quality options).

At the end of the day you can set the resolution lower if you like, but it's nice to have the facility if you need it, especially so cheaply.