Buying a screen/monitor, what to look?

[Tuomas]

Hi, I have this question you people will be good at answering to. it's about buying a new screen. Basically going to a dealership, they're all about technical this and that jibberjabber. But the common user doesn't know what to look for. Say, no-one wants a huge one nowadays, dunno if they even make anything but flat screens anymore, but the problem is the drawing range afaik.

See, let's assume a person would be on who plays games like C&C or at tops Comanche 4, what would it be exactly that he wanted to buy? What if he wanted more? LCD? Plasmoid? And what are the differences between these. I would so so so appreciate if you could give a hint as to what to look for, you know the salesmen use all their skills to cheating us, making us pay more money etc.

Thanks.

[Gregjazz]

Hmmmm... while I might not be able to give you any pointers on things to look for in a monitor, I will say I use a Viewsonic VG2230wm (widescreen), and it's loverly.

[zabnat]

It depends the usage. Do you need a screen with fast response or a screen with good colors and dark black (backlight of LCD panel leaks through black pixels). Plasma is not really an option and I doubt that anyone will offer you one. So it's down to LCDs and they have couple of different types of panels.
I would recommend you to read this article about the different panels. This will help you to decide which kind of a panel you may want. And from flatpanels.dk you can check what panel a certain monitor has. The cheapest monitors are usually TN-panels, which are quite fast, but colors and darkness of the black is usually not as good as with IPS and MVA/PVA panels. Until this summer I didn't want to change into flat screen because I'm pretty demanding about the colors and black. I bought a LG L2000C and have been pretty satisfied on it. It has a 20" IPS-panel and wasn't too expensive. (Note that models L2000CE, L2000CM, L2000CN sound similiar but have different panels).

Also if you can you should go to some store when you can see and compare different monitors.

[Radiant]

If it's for a student or other low-income group - CRT screens are really cheap these days.

[Tuomas]

Oh snap, the article is gone error-something. I know a CRT would be good, but the thing is, this hypothetical friend of mine wants to get rid of his CRT, so it's a flattie he's looking for.

But here: why a widescreen, or why not? And, I see you put a lot of thought in the panel side of it. Are the differences really that big then? And is that the main difference with all these models?

EDIT: I'm making myself sound like an irritating noob, but that's just because then you wouldn't assume that I knew something already and left it unsaid

[ManicMatt]

I have a Sony Bravia 32" widescreen LCD just because I can use it for my PC and my 360, and my ps2. (And a PS3 eventually)

Maybe I've set it up wrong (Or not at all), but I can see a faint flicker on the text, like as if its the refresh rate or something. 

[zabnat]

In my opinion the panel makes the biggest difference, but thats just my opinion
Bugger if the article doesn't work for you (work for me, just tried), because I think it give good insight on LCD monitors.
With widescreen (and 5:4) there comes the issue of monitors capabilities to maintain correct aspect ratio while using resolutions not native to the panel. I didn't want to dig in to this issue and so I bought a 4:3 monitor.

Maybe I've set it up wrong (Or not at all), but I can see a faint flicker on the text, like as if its the refresh rate or something. 

Probably the problem is in the settings and/or cables. Hope you are not using composite signal for picture.

[Sparky]

I recently switched from a CRT to my friend's old LCD monitor. One thing I'd like to add is that your friend should choose a native resolution that suits his needs. For instance, if he buys a brand new monitor with a native resolution of 1280X1024 but has an older computer, he'll need to either play games at lower non-native resolutions or deal with low framerates. He should also make sure he's comfortable running Windows, Photoshop, or whatever applications he uses at the screen's native resolution.

Overall I'm happy with the new monitor, but I detest the way vintage games (Monkey Island II, Another world, Doom) look on it. I really miss being able to switch resolutions without quality loss.

I have a Sony Bravia 32" widescreen LCD just because I can use it for my PC and my 360, and my ps2. (And a PS3 eventually)

Maybe I've set it up wrong (Or not at all), but I can see a faint flicker on the text, like as if its the refresh rate or something. 

That's awesome, I'd love to have one monitor for consoles + PC! Regarding the text issue: I'm sure there are other possibilities, but it sounds as though it might be set in interlaced (versus progressive scan) mode. If this is the case you'll also see the same sort of flicker along polygon edges in 3D games.

[Domino]

http://www.vistek.ca/details/details.aspx?WebCode=232923&CategoryID=PlasmaLCDScreens

This is what you want.

[voh]

When I get my tax refund I'm planning on switching from dual 17" CRT 4:3 to dual 20" TFT.

I'm probably opting for 4:3 again, rather than widescreen, because widescreen is basically the same resolution with less height - therefore it doesn't add width, it only subtracts height. And I need both for my design work

And I want a resolution of at least 1600x1200 too. Because I can.

I've gotten used to the weird downscaling properties of TFT monitors. I've been playing 320x200 games on my widescreen 13,5" apple monitor for a year now and I quite like the effect

[InCreator]

Well, depends.

There's LCD monitors that can handle almost any resolution nicely, some that need a bit puzzling how to do it, and some that suck in all means.

For example, my own 17"(?) Samsung SyncMaster 740BF:

* Normal desktop resolution in 1280x1024 pixels. Everything looks crisp and clean. Same for games
* At 1024x768 OR 800x600, everything is blurry as hell. Used on a desktop, I can barely read the text.
* 320x200 is VERY blurry, BUT 320x240 looks normal.
* For a 320x200 AGS game, I usually turn on letterbox mode and 2xHQ filter to see everything in 640x480, which has no blur either.
* All weird resolutions, like arcade 320x224 or 304x224 tend not to work at all or blur heavily.

In conclusion, only resolutions that doesn't make eyes bleed are 1280x1024, 640x480 and 320x240

So my monitor goes to somewhere "can be worked around" genre.
But I know this doesn't apply to all LCD monitors.

Still, useful to check out first. Of course, depends what way the monitor is used and what is played. People who make LCD's are looking at the future, and often low-res is not supported.

Also, big monitors playing low resolution simply looks horrid. The pixel size, huh...

[JimmyShelter]

Also, big monitors playing low resolution simply looks horrid. The pixel size, huh...

Which is why I usually play games in windowed mode. That looks pretty decent most of the time.