New Monitor

[Kuyuk]

Looking to get a new monitor in the next month or so...

Budget - $300 or less

Size: Largest possible

Current: 20" LCD - Want better graphic ability, etc etc.


WTF is the difference between the 1000:1 vs 12,000,000:1 ratio? Something seems fishy to me.

LED LCD looks appealing, but not really sure why.

So many different options, so confusing to me.

halp?

I also have a $25 gift card to best buy..... if it's worthwhile to go toward it ;p

[Kuyuk]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Acer+-+27%22+Widescreen+Flat-Panel+LED+HD+Monitor/2246191.p;jsessionid=A7637E8594A70ABB88C31EBB92789 FF2.bbolsp-app03-47?id=1218320157322&skuId=2246191
? $40 higher than budget, (but with gift card only 15!)

[septus]

WTF is the difference between the 1000:1 vs 12,000,000:1 ratio? Something seems fishy to me.

It's a dynamic contrast ratio. This means that the monitor can vary the brightness of the backlight in order to simulate a larger contrast ratio than what you'd otherwise get. It's a gimmick imo, but it might work well for movies. Generally I disable dynamic contrast on my monitors if I have the option.



LED LCD looks appealing, but not really sure why.

LED has less power usage, so it's great for laptops. However, at the moment LED's aren't pure white, so you sacrifice some color accuracy for the lower power. They also tend to cost more. I'm not a big fan of them.


What do you mostly use your computer for? For general stuff I suggest a 23" 1920x1080 monitor and see if you can find one with minimal backlight bleed (you'll get a halo effect on the top and bottom edges of the monitor when it's displaying a complete black background.. you won't be able to avoid this entirely, but some models are better than others.) If you do graphics, you can find a 23" IPS panel at that price. They have better color accuracy and viewing angles. The downside is that they have a slower refresh rate, which might bother you if you play video games and are sensitive to motion changes. (If you can see a crt flicker you would definitely fall under this.)

I'd suggest avoiding anything 27" that has less than 2560x1440 resolution, unless you have bad eyesight or you sit further from the monitor than normal.

[Bobmuhthol]

Unsurprisingly, the Acer monitor is cheaper at Newegg ($309 shipped).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001502&cm_re=samsung_led_monitor-_-24-001-502-_-Product

I don't know what the model of my Samsung LED monitor is (using my laptop atm) but it's 23" and I paid $280 for it last year and I fucking love it.

[septus]

Here's an excerpt from wikipedia (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrast_ratio) on dynamic contrast:


A notable recent development in the LCD technology is the so-called "dynamic contrast" (DC). When there is a need to display a dark image, the display would underpower the backlight lamp (or decrease the aperture of the projector's lens using an iris), but will proportionately amplify the transmission through the LCD panel. This gives the benefit of realizing the potential static contrast ratio of the LCD panel in dark scenes when the image is watched in a dark room. The drawback is that if a dark scene does contain small areas of superbright light, image quality may be over exposed.
The trick for the display is to determine how much of the highlights may be unnoticeably blown out in a given image under the given ambient lighting conditions.
Brightness, as it is most often used in marketing literature, refers to the emitted luminous intensity on screen measured in candela per square metre (cd/m2). The higher the number, the brighter the screen.
It is also common to market only the dynamic contrast ratio capability of a display (when it is better than its static contrast ratio), which should not be directly compared to the static contrast ratio. A plasma display with a static 5000:1 contrast ratio will show superior contrast to an LCD with 5000:1 dynamic and 1000:1 static contrast ratio when the input signal contains a full range of brightnesses from 0 to 100% simultaneously. They will, however, be on-par when input signal ranges only from 0 to 20% brightness.

[Jarvan]

Not that anyone cares, but I picked up this monitor for myself based on someone' recommendation when another monitor fell thru.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254052&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

Huge, good resolution, bright, can tilt some, under your price point ( and 5 bucks for an HDMI cable from there too ), no dead pixels.

It's not LED, which I was preferring, but it would have been like 50-60 more for LED, smaller, and worse resolution.

So far I am extremely happy with it.

[Kuyuk]

Alright, so I had to put the monitor on hold for a few months, but it's goin down. Trying to make sure my graphics card can handle what I buy, and my monitor can provide what my computer is capable of... so here's what I found on my graphics card:

My graphics card info: http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-4000/hd-4870/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-4870-specifications.aspx

Two integrated dual-link DVI display outputs
Each supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)2
Each includes a dual-link HDCP encoder with on-chip key storage for high resolution playback of protected content3
Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs
Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all resolutions up to 2048x15362
DisplayPort output support
24- and 30-bit displays at all resolutions up to 2560x16002
HDMI output support
All display resolutions up to 1920x10802
Integrated HD audio controller with support for stereo and multi-channel (up to 7.1) audio formats, including AC-3, AAC, DTS & Dolby True-HD4, enabling a plug-and-play audio solution over HDMI
Integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder
Provides high quality analog TV output (component/S-video/composite)
Supports SDTV and HDTV resolutions
Underscan and overscan compensation



Essentially if I went DVI, I only need to make sure the monitor goes up to 2560x1600? and HDMI to 1920/1080? therefore DVI would be better resolution?

But which is better, HDMI or DVI? Does it matter?

/sigh too many options. Planning a trip to Micro Center here in Columbus in the next few days to give some a test drive

[Geijon Khyree]

But which is better, HDMI or DVI? Does it matter?>>

Same, but HDMI carries Audio signals as well.

[Androidpk]

Awesom monitor for your budget.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254052

[septus]

Alright, so I had to put the monitor on hold for a few months, but it's goin down. Trying to make sure my graphics card can handle what I buy, and my monitor can provide what my computer is capable of... so here's what I found on my graphics card:

My graphics card info: http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-4000/hd-4870/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-4870-specifications.aspx



Essentially if I went DVI, I only need to make sure the monitor goes up to 2560x1600? and HDMI to 1920/1080? therefore DVI would be better resolution?

But which is better, HDMI or DVI? Does it matter?

/sigh too many options. Planning a trip to Micro Center here in Columbus in the next few days to give some a test drive

it doesn't matter between HDMI or DVI. Both are about the same. Looks like you'll be able to run just about any monitor. 2560x1600 = resolution on 30" displays (that don't just do giant pixels for 1080p)

[SpiffyJr]

But which is better, HDMI or DVI? Does it matter?

.

Edited because someone answered it already.