Quote: Original post by benryves

Quote: Original post by d000hg
Why would the typical developer care about color reproduction in their IDE? Obviously artists are different but most of us are not in that category.
I doubt gamers really care either, response time and so on are more critical.

Do you only use an IDE on your PC, then? I watch films and videos and look at photos on my PC, which requires decent colour reproduction.

Well I sometimes watch TV, but if I want to watch a film with proper sound/picture I watch it on my TV instead of a small PC monitor.
Photos, you have a point, but it really depends... does it matter when looking at holiday snaps that much?

If you mostly care for games, text and code, any cheap LCD will do. Benq G2400WD seems to be a good all around choice (balanced colors, good contrast, response and black levels). Samsung monitors are good choices, too but their image quality tends to suffer (especially in black levels and color reproduction - still acceptable for most tasks, though). Both monitors employ TN panels and you will likely feel they are a step back in image quality compared to your CRTs.

Stepping up, you can get a good IPS panel for ~$500 nowadays (HP L2475w, 24'', 1920x1200). This monitor should easily surpass your CRTs in image quality and color reproduction. Calibrated, this monitor can even be used for pro/semi-pro photo editing on the cheap.

Another interesting choice is the new 22'' E-IPS panel from Dell. It sells for something close to $250 and should be much better than TN monitors of the same price. Initial reports are looking good, however it's only 1680x1050 compared to HP's 1920x1200.

Edit: Check this Anandtech thread for more recommendations.

Quote: Original post by d000hg
Well I sometimes watch TV, but if I want to watch a film with proper sound/picture I watch it on my TV instead of a small PC monitor.
Photos, you have a point, but it really depends... does it matter when looking at holiday snaps that much?

I think it does matter a lot. It's not only about photos or movies. It's about everything, from a simple IDE, over playing games, to doing 3D programming. TN matrices cannot represent black or white. Instead, you get a washed out greyish thing instead of black, and an inconsistent 'dirty' greyish (or worse, sometimes it is faintly coloured) imitation of white. All surfaces that are supposed to be filled with a constant colour will have some kind of slight gradient instead (eg. your IDE background).

There are no pure and vibrant colours anymore, everything appears washed out compared to a CRT. Games and movies look dull, like through a grey-filter. Also, TN matrices, being 6bit as someone mentioned, cannot accurately represent smooth colour gradients. Colours that are perfectly distinct on a CRT appear to be the same on a TN matrix. Or worse, they become a messy something due to dithering artifacts.

Now, in the end it all depends on your expectations in terms of quality. But TN matrices are a huge step backwards from CRTs, judging by image quality. Better solutions exist - (S-)PVA, MVA, IPS, etc - but they're often expensive, or development was halted because TN matrices are so much cheaper to produce and consumers didn't care either way. LCD displays are amongst the rare technological developments where older models (PVA or IPS based) had a better quality than newer ones (cheapo-TN based).

But well, some people might get used to it, or some just don't care. In all cases, before buying an LCD, check it out thoroughly at the store. Also, try to check out PVA or IPS based panels. They're in a completely different league than TN displays.

Quote: Original post by GMuser
And they said that 1920x1080 would make everything too small to read, hmpf.

On Windows you solve this by increasing your dpi setting (it's really more of a scale factor and has very little to do with physical dpi). At work I run at 1920x1200 (x2) at 125%. I'm looking forward to the day I can bump it up to 150% and get text looking that much nicer.

As to the OP, at home I'm in a similar situation. I've got an ancient CRT, but there's nothing wrong with it and it was pretty high quality for it's day. The geek in me would really like to upgrade to something sexier but then I step back and realize there's really very little practical value in it and there are better things I can do with my money.

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
Another interesting choice is the new 22'' E-IPS panel from Dell. It sells for something close to $250 and should be much better than TN monitors of the same price. Initial reports are looking good, however it's only 1680x1050 compared to HP's 1920x1200.

Street price is actually $200 and a bit; I have one in front of me and an older TN sitting next to it. The TN's colors are noticeably bogus compared to the e-IPS in the Dell. The model is 2209WA, and it's a dead on match for sRGB -- but no wider. It won't do the bigger color gamuts, but I think very few people really want a gamut wider than sRGB.

Modern TN blacks are pretty good, by the way. I really can't complain. Yes the IPS is better, but it's just not that big a difference. The color accuracy is what stands out.

Still, if yuou are willing to accept 22" at 1680x1050 for a somewhat higher than normal price tag, the Dell 2209WA does have the e-IPS panel and it is fantastic.

Quote: Original post by GMuser
I have never seen an LCD screen that didn't have the visible pixel issue. Even on my 15.4" 1920x1080 laptop screen. And they said that 1920x1080 would make everything too small to read, hmpf.

yours is 143 PPI
Sony Vaio P is about the best @ 221 PPI

IIRC the human eye can see down to about 600 PPI so we've still got a long way to go until pixels 'disappear'

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
Edit: Check this Anandtech thread for more recommendations.

o_O. I did not imagine that picking an LCD display would be this nuts. The thread you linked to has a lot of good information though.

It seems that just going to the store to look at the displays isn't going to be enough. Seems like I need to do a fair bit of research about which specific model I should buy before even going to the store.

Additionally, Fry's Electronics hooks up their displays to a signal splitter which also make selecting the right monitor even more difficult due to signal degradation.

I recently bought a pair of BenQ FP241VW 24" LCD's; I got them refurbished for $275 each.

They have an S-PVA panel and 1920x1200 resolution. S-PVA has much better color quality than the cheap TN panels, and the viewing angle is also much better.

The color quality is much better than my laptop's display, about the same as my old CRT, but the resolution and clarity are far better than the CRT.

Also, this model includes HDMI, S-Video, Component, and Composite video inputs, so I'll be using it as a TV as well (I don't currently own a TV).

I've only got a few complaints:

*The HDMI input is optimized for HD video and doesn't look good with a graphics card. (Instead, I use VGA on one monitor and DVI on the other; unlike cheap LCD's, I can't tell the difference in quality between the VGA and DVI inputs.)

*It poorly handles some resolutions. I just figured out that it stores separate settings for each resolution, so if a resolution cuts off part of the display, I can go in and tweak the settings and it'll keep track of everything properly. It's still a bit annoying to set up new resolutions, but I don't mind nearly as much.

*The stand doesn't swivel to portrait mode. (The FP241Z swivels and is identical other than packaging, but I found this great deal on the VW and decided that swivel wasn't worth the price difference.)

[Edited by - nagromo on July 15, 2009 11:07:09 PM]

I have a 22" LG Flatron LCD that I paid only 220$ cdn for, and I have no visible issues whatsoever. I have 97% of the color gamut. I seem to be missing some shades of gray, but I work with grayscale images all the time, and I can barely tell.

My brother has a crap no-name brand of LCD and it's foggy as hell, and a lot of the colors look dithered. A lot of web pages have indistinguishable color separations as well.

Not all LCD screens are bad. Just make sure you get a good one. I have a nice 21 inch CRT I could use too, but this LCD one looks so much better. I code on here, I play games on here, I watch movies, and I go 3D and 2D art with lots of color fades. I haven't had a single issue with any of these.

I get faint ghosting very rarely in high contrast areas, but that is because I only have an analog plug on my video card, and I can't use a proper digital one. I have to look for it to notice it though.

Be careful with PVA/MVA panels -- quality is fantastic, but they tend to suffer from as much as 50ms of input lag. That's not ghosting, but rather the time required to process the signal for display. Some people really hate seeing a game 2-3 frames late.