Looking for a new PC monitor

GungHo

Folks, I'm looking for a new PC monitor. Right now, I have a 17" Dell LCD screen. It's fine, but I'm giving away my old PC to my niece, and I don't think it's proper to give it to her without some sort of visual interface, and besides, it's an excuse for me to get a new monitor.

I have 2 8800GTs w/ 500MB VRAM SLIed, and I play anything from RPGs to strategy games to FPSs. I imagine if I had a nice screen, I could also do movie watching and Hulu, but prmarily, it's gonna be for computer stuff.

I'd like something that's 24" or less. I do not sit 18 feet away from the computer, nor am I blind. I've looked at the Samsung T220 and T240, and they look nice and have a crisp picture, but I have no idea if they're any good or not. The picture looks nice, and they tout a gigantor contrast ratio, but something in the black cherry plastic clamshell screams "I'm a chincy POS and I'm going to break in 3 months, you should have learned to run away from shiny hard plastic when you bought that Pontiac Grand Am in 1998".

What are the good models, what are the bad models, what should I be looking out for? Any help would be appreciated, as would any "here be dragons" tales.

Zell

Input lag is one thing you should look out for, which the Samsung T240 has lots of. If you're looking for a perfect 24" monitor though, just give up, they don't exist.

and they tout a gigantor contrast ratio

If you choose to ignore any part of the technical specifications while deciding what monitor to buy, make it the contrast ratio.

GungHo

I'm fine with a 20"-22". 24" is probably too big for my needs.

Cronus

Zell wrote: »

Input lag is one thing you should look out for, which the Samsung T240 has lots of. If you're looking for a perfect 24" monitor though, just give up, they don't exist.

and they tout a gigantor contrast ratio

If you choose to ignore any part of the technical specifications while deciding what monitor to buy, make it the contrast ratio.

I wholeheartedly agree.

However you can't trust the manufacturers claims to response times. They often use their gray to gray test results. The color results are what matters to you. I'd check out www.tomshardware.com. They test all this kind of thing. When I last bought a monitor they saved me as the monitor I was looking at claimed 4ms, but was actually 16ms.

Scrublet

Is money important? The Apple cinema displays are pretty good, just pricey.

As far as stats go, you can really only look at the stats among ONE manufacturer's different models. And even that is of limited use. As far as stats between manufacturers, there's nothing really to gain from them.

TK-42-1

if you get a 24" you can run 1920x1200 which your sli setup can easily do. if nothing else i would go 24 for this. its nice to have real estate.

Zell

On a related note I've decided to keep my HP LP2475w which is a nice monitor but it oversaturates green colors and suffers from IPS white glow even at normal viewing angles. Other than that it's awesome though, every feature you could ever want and no other noticeable problems (to me at least, not sensitive to input lag and ghosting). I still expect to replace this in a year or two when there's hopefully better alternatives...

If you live in Europe I would say it's the best 24" monitor at the moment, and the increased workspace you get with 1920x1200 is really worth it.

Viscountalpha

GungHo wrote: »

I'm fine with a 20"-22". 24" is probably too big for my needs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009145

Inexpensive but decent. At that price you could get 2 for the price of a single 24inch or 28inch.

OremLK

I think you should ignore all manufacturers' claims regarding technical specifications, except perhaps which inputs they list, because they can't likely fudge those.

Look up reviews instead. Preferably ones that are professional and have detailed image quality tests, rather than subjective layman opinions.