I'M CONFUSED!!!

[Guest]

I want to get a 17" or 18" LCD panel. I have a nvidia ge 3 ti500 video card in my computer. Everywhere I look I find conflicting reports. I got a 17.4" Planar and I think my 15" analog Samsung is superior. The Planar's going back. If you look at the specs the Planar is outstanding...brightness, contrast, speed, etc. I also noticed that there wasn't a huge difference between analog and digital performance. Do I need a monitor with dual interface?
How come if I read test reports in different magazines there are vastly conflicting reviews on the identical product? How much contrast is really necessary...200:1, 300:1, 400:1? What about brightness, 200cm, 225cm, 250cm?
I don't imagine that anyone has the luxury of looking at 20 different monitors at the same time to do a proper "A-B" comparison, except the people that write magazine reviews. But then, if Viewsonic advertises more (eg)...they get a better review. Where does one go to get an honest opinion and where can I go to get the best monitor at the best price with no regrets?

 

[flamethrower205]

hehe, contrast wise, I set my TFT7020 to 50, and brightness to 20! The Ti500 r known to have isues w/ LCD and ghosting though... BTW, today I got to do a side by side comparison of my freind's 15" Dell FP1503 LCDF (in analog mode, 45ms response time, 300:1 contrast and 200 brightness, 100/80 degree viewing angle 15") with my TFT7020, and boy did his look better for some reason! I even tried his Ati vid card over my Quadro DCC, but the TFT7020 still didn't look as good. This was especially noticeable in scrolling text on THG- my TFT7020 tends to fuzz things and make em lighter, even when scrolling slowly- on his things stayed pretty damn readable till I scrolled made fast. Very odd. Then same thing with the mouse on all sorts of color backgrounds! This is pissing me off- luckily they r letting me return my tft7020...

Sig of the week.

 

[Guest]

You must be a curse for LCDs flame. I don't know why you have so many problems.

My 7020 is still working beautifully and really beats the pants off of other LCDs I have worked with. My 17" viewsonic professional series CRT is sitting in the corner as I type this. I wouldn't go back if someone paid me!

Also, I leave my brightness at 55 and contrast at 65. What is wrong with your eyes? Heh.

 

[Oni]

I have my brightness at 100 and contrast at 75, I think everything looks fine.
You guys just need to get out of your houses more often. I know I know the light is bright but the sun won't hurt you...honest....at least not to bad

"Why can't I be the man? I mean, I DO have harmony balls..." -epoth

 

[flamethrower205]

Um, looking at the sun isn't good for your eyes. I do get outside often, even have 3 300 watt lamps in my room! My eyes really do like darker images though, but then again I have some sick nightvision It's not necessarily that I have problems w/ LCD, just that I really know what to look for, and my eyes can pick up a lot of stuff that most people won't (I can see refresh rates even at 120Hz!). Thus, I'm waiting a year to see what'll happen.

Sig of the week.

 

[Guest]

I was in a similar situation to you in that I wanted to get an LCD and did not know much about it other than prices. After investigation quite a bit, and on some recomendations (albiet spurious) here, I got a Compaq TFT7200.

A big concern of mine was dead pixels, ghosting, and color quality, which has plagued LCDs since their inception. I was VERY worried about this purchase, but Compaq had a 14 day no-questions-asked return policy and with the high recomendations here I decided to take the dive. If it were bad, I could simply send it back.

I tried numerous LCDs at stores and while most of them realistically looked pretty good, I couldn't really compare the ghosting with the applications I felt would put them under stress. That being said, every single application that I have thrown at the TFT7200 has not produced ghosting or color issues. Additionally, my LCD came with NO dead pixels which made me very happy. I use 2 computers at the same time, and one computer uses a Samsung 955DF 19" monitor while the other uses my TFT7200 (DVI connected). I find that the images produced by the TFT7200 are very high quality and comparable to the Samsung. The Samsung does seem to have a finer detail, but I believe that what I'm seeing is the difference of LCDs vs. CRTs. I am totally happy with my purchase. This LCD has not let me down under any circumstances.

Ron

 

[Guest]

BTW, the 19" Samsung has about the same viewing size as the TFT7200s 14.7", which I hadn't realized. The screen is basically the same viewing size as a 19" CRT! It's really large.

Ron