New LCD?? Monitor

[glojo]

I'm the one who is thick, I forgot to paste it in to the thread!

http://www.rdc.co.uk/shops/main.php?sh=4&sc=0&sb=0&page=2&psc=0&srchText=

Its @ the bottom of the page....

Just made up my mind after looking at all the excellent monitors that everyone has mentioned and then reading some very good reviews offered by my son. The reviews compared the top 19" LCD's and I decided to go for the ViewSonic V191b it seems to be the all round fastest monitor in the real world and not on 'claimed' thingie (refresh rates) Andy gave me a link that corroborated my first choice of a 4 m/s monitor the ViewSonicVX924? but then my son gave me a link that tested this monitor against the 8 m/s V191b. The 924 was all over the place with real speeds actually as slow as 32 m/s, but in some situations it did very occasionaly drop to 4 m/s. The V191b outshone everything with a steady 16 m/s and an excellent write-up.

Unfortunately I remembered Mambo's link and it offers the excellent 20" wide screen Dell monitor for less than the V191b?? typical.

My only concern is the warranty and the fact that it is 'refurbished'. What does 'brown boxed' mean please Mambo?

Thanks again,
John

Now my son is pooh hooing the Dell!! Typical

Just read a few reviews.... Looks like number one son is right

 

[Bugblatter]

I've just bought one of these.

It's brill. Bright, crisp picture, no dead pixels, nice price. I am working my way through GTA San Andreas at the moment with excellent image quality.

Don't get bogged down by tech hypotheses. I was an early adopter of LCD monitors (four years now) and I have never experienced this so called motion blur due to low pixel response times even though I played Doom3, NFS Underground, Half Life 2, GTA3, GTA VC & GTA SA.

P.S. I've just looked at the spec on PC World and it says "viewable screen size 16in". Cobblers it's 19in. I've just measured it!

 

[JonP]

I'd recommend www.aria.co.uk to be honest.... they're not much cheaper than ebuyer (although still competitive) but they do offer a dead pixel check which is REALLY useful is you're buying anything that might be considered 'budget'.

Basically for £20 they guarantee no dead pixels and a replacement if there are any when it gets to you (rather than the 1, 2.... 8 dead pixels some manufacturers find acceptable).

I did a fair bit of research into this when I was getting mine and refresh rates are (so it seems) less important because they don't cater for the real world - anything sub 16ms should be ok as long as you've got a DVI connector on your graphics card (thus loosing the time require for the digital/analogue conversion).

For example their Digimate L-1916 is £175+vat (inc the pixel check).... and runs all the games I've thrown at it perfectly with no ghosting (eg. HL2, Battlefield2 etc).

Depends if money's an object...

 

[Mambo]

My only concern is the warranty and the fact that it is 'refurbished'. What does 'brown boxed' mean please Mambo?

Not really sure to be honest, found this on another website

"This item is packed in bulk packaging (brown boxed). You are getting a big price break, since it is not in a colorful retail box."

Good luck with whatever you choose to get.

 

[Mambo]

I'd recommend www.aria.co.uk to be honest....

Yeah I normally get my stuff from Aria when I am up in Manc, either there or Micro Direct.....

 

[fuzzer]

Ilyama are the best

in the last 12 months or so , ive bought about 1500 pannels and the ilyama on my desk still looks the best

HP monitors are shocking

 

[JonP]

No argument there, Ilyama are the best.... unfortunately that's probably cos they're the most expensive (or vice versa).

 

[glojo]

When I get hold of my son I will post the link that evaluates the so called top ten 19" LCD's.

The findings of this reviews top monitor are born out by a good few other web sites, so it looks like the decision is all but made.

Regards for now,
John

 

[glojo]

I always enjoy 'The Chase' whenever I make a largish purchase and to me buying a monitor is a largish purchase. This is what is the strongest influence so far.

There appears to be a number of Samsung monitors and I would dearly love to hear anyone's comments on this particular review.

Everyone must by now realise my complete contempt for statistics or figures. They can all be manipulated to say whatever the author wants them to mean. Anyway here is the link:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/572-1/19-lcd-monitor-survey-4-8-ms-tn-ips-va.html

Regards,
John

 

[scotth_uk]

My Acer 19" 1912 has been really good since I got it. Cheap, cheerful and very good image quality. The other "outstanding feature" is the fact that I left the Velux window open the other night - ALL night - whilst raining. Water had run down through the monitor's delicate bits and formed a puddle underneath - didn't miss a beat.



Can't ask for more than that - is your monitor waterproof?

 

[Alfie]

I always enjoy 'The Chase' whenever I make a largish purchase and to me buying a monitor is a largish purchase. This is what is the strongest influence so far.

There appears to be a number of Samsung monitors and I would dearly love to hear anyone's comments on this particular review.

Everyone must by now realise my complete contempt for statistics or figures. They can all be manipulated to say whatever the author wants them to mean. Anyway here is the link:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/572-1/19-lcd-monitor-survey-4-8-ms-tn-ips-va.html

Regards,
John

John,

Wow thats a lengthy article. I'm afraid I havn't time to wade through it myself (the gym and pub are calling!) After that I'll be hopefully finishing off my COMAND install at last. Anyway, at the end of the day you will be pretty pleased with just about any of the ones recommended by the guys on here as they/we use them all the time and have given you long term honest opinions. 19" is a good size also.

Once you go to an LCD you probably wont ever go back to CRT. The strain on the eyes is so much less with LCD and it wont be long now before someone in Brussells issues an edict saying that CRT's are not suitable for humans to use!

Hopefully you'll have it in time for the weekend! Are you going for Black, Beige or Silver?

 

[glojo]

John,

Wow thats a lengthy article. I'm afraid I havn't time to wade through it myself (the gym and pub are calling!) After that I'll be hopefully finishing off my COMAND install at last. Anyway, at the end of the day you will be pretty pleased with just about any of the ones recommended by the guys on here as they/we use them all the time and have given you long term honest opinions. 19" is a good size also.

A man after my own heart... All that blurb is for technical folk. I tend to delegate my authority over all this technical reading to number one son, I then simply skip to the last page, or conclusion.

Annoyingly the monitor only comes in two colours. Black or silver, I am no fan of black, so it looks like I will have to go for silver. At least it will match the tv, although thinking about it, all my hi-fi equipment is black and the monitor will be directly alongside.

The monitor will not get here until next week at the earliest, I am still listening to everyone's recommendations. I ought to stress that I want the monitor to perform in all aspects, including watching films.

By for now,
John

A very hot, sunny afternoon in Torquay.

 

[Flyer]

Hi John, how's the new monitor working out?

After my 22" CRT blew up, I have had to find a replacement quickly, as working on a 15" at 1024x768 is not a lot of fun

After some deliberation, I plumped for the Dell 2001FP 20.1" TFT. Considered the 2005FPW (which is probably the Widescreen one you were considering), but needed the extra pixels Both monitors seem to have good reviews (apart from a few early ones in the States); can you recall where the reviews are that you found that weren't favourable?

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Bugblatter]

About LCD afterglow. Even if this monitor is the fastest one tested, we have to admit that it still isn’t as good as a CRT. One trained user will always spot the afterglow. Not every user has this training, so 99% of them using this monitor won’t see it. This monitor will be perfect for these users. The remaining One- percent will be disturbed and will be right: this monitor still features a slight afterglow. But, honestly, we quickly get over it as soon as we are in the game.

The use of english is a bit dodgy, but the point is exactly what I said earlier.

 

[glojo]

can you recall where the reviews are that you found that weren't favourable?

Hi Andrew,
Number one son is out buying 'shares' in the local breweries at present, but I will wake him first thing in the morning and find out where he found the reviews

At least it will make a change from me waking him up, just to tell him it's time for his sleeping tablets!!

I have had major problems trying to locate a ViewSonic Vp191 at a reasonable price. They appear to sell like hot cakes and the only places selling them were putting a premium on the asking price! By sheer coincidence I found a store this afternoon that had some in stock at a reasonable price, so..... they will be posting one to me on Monday.

As soon as I drag my son out of bed tomorrow I will get back to you with the link (If I can remember)

Regards,
John

 

[glojo]

can you recall where the reviews are that you found that weren't favourable?

Cheers
Andrew

Hi Flyer,
Number one son has just been 'a surfin' and the sites he used were indeed American. This review was carried out in June 2004, hopefully the monitor has been upgraded since then. The review is slightly critical, but there are lots of plus points. I have posted the link but there is an awful lot of writing.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20040609/lcd_review-02.html

I would much prefer English reviews, but they are only beneficial when comparing four or five different brands of the same sized monitor and finding the UK sites is not as easy.

John

""Interpolation

In this test at least, the 2001FP earns slightly better-than-average marks. To such an extent that not everybody will see a difference between the 1600 x 1200 native mode and the one below, 1280 x 1024. Below 1024 x 768, however, the decrease in picture quality is clearly visible.

Games

While it has specs that you can only dream of, the 2001FP is not a gamer's monitor. The afterglow is too visible. To get an idea, it's worse than monitors based on TN + Films, and these are often considered low-end products. Most MVA monitors, although 25 ms, also have a lower afterglow. At best, you can entertain the idea of a few slower games from time to time. Forget about FPS championship training on this.

Movies

Impressive! Of all the monitors tested, this is the one that displays movies the best. Indeed, this is one of the very few gauged to handle more than it actually can. Unfortunately, 24 bit (16.7 million color) monitors are now used to interpolate their colors at 30 bits. The benefit: In pictures, color shades are more finely tuned. The drawback: This dithering corrupts the video rendering. However, there was none of that in this case, which seems to indicate that this monitor only uses its own colors to display movies. And that's very good. The picture is so beautiful that it makes up for the bad response time during fast action scenes.

 

[andy_k]

as usual this is a case of reviewers talking absolute ******* in order to mark a product down because one of the others in the review is an advertiser (or some other similar reason). Trust me - as a soft and hardware reviewer for a couple of mainstream mags this happens all the time.

So the monitor doesn't work quite as well when you switch away from it's native resolution - well that's because it's not designed to work like that. A rough comparison would be to say that my car performs less well when I don't let it use top gear - it's a worthless throw away comment - if your graphics card isn't up to supporting the monitors native settings then you should be upgrading that not criticising the monitor

It's no good for games but fine for movies. I'm sorry but if afterglow is a problem for games then the same applies to movie performance - read between the lines, it reads to me like the reviewer has a bit of an axe to grind and that review is no way impartial.

Interesting discussion a few weeks back with a magazine editor who reckons that less than 50% of published reviews are based on an actual product review rather than precis of other reviews - One leading graphics card manufacturer released 2 of their cards for reviewers to evaluate - over the next two months there were more than 50 reviews of this product all saying roughly the same thing

Andy

 

[glojo]

Interesting discussion a few weeks back with a magazine editor who reckons that less than 50% of published reviews are based on an actual product review rather than precis of other reviews - One leading graphics card manufacturer released 2 of their cards for reviewers to evaluate - over the next two months there were more than 50 reviews of this product all saying roughly the same thing

Hi Andy,
I totally agree with all your valid points and I am certain this applies right the way across the board, be it camera's cars dishwashers etc.

My son made the same point about resolution and suitability. The widescreen Dell being a case in question, has any graphics card got a specific setting to cater for this particular model?

I have tried to go to sites that review mutiple monitors in the sole hope that a pattern imerges from all the reviewers? The problem of course is we have to make decisions and whilst it is easy to criticise, finding an alternative is very very difficult.

I have also logged onto numerous forums just to read comments on various monitors and hopefully I have made the right decision?

So far I have not found a single criticism (there's a challenge) about the monitor I have finally ordered.

Take care,
John

 

[Bugblatter]

As I always say, go look at one working. If you like what you see then it is OK!

 

[Flyer]

Thanks for posting that John. I had read the reviews over at Tom's Hardware, but took them with a pinch of salt. It would appear that an early batch, made in China, weren't up to scratch, but most are sorted now.

Real-world reviews by actual users are much more accurate. There was an interesting couple of threads on a US site, FirstAdopter.com, which confirmed that the Dells are fine. Overclockers' forum was generally positive as well. Soon find out - ordered Friday late afternoon, despatched Saturday morning, due here today Be interested to hear what you think of your new monitor.

Andy, very interesting. Magazines and their reviewers should be impartial and anything less is a disservice to their customers. Slightly naiive perhaps, but that is what we are paying for! As a reviewer yourself, are you ever compromised with what you can say, or is that down to the editor/sub to do that?