If you're happy with your screens, why not stay with them? Save up and when they eventually start to die, or you move house, buy a couple of 21" screens.

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.

Perhaps you should consider not sitting so close to the monitor? Of course you can see individual pixels, the same is true for a CRT. You're laptop screen probably has a better pixel pitch than any CRT I've ever seen, to stuff 1920x1080 in what a 15" CRT would typically fit 1024x768

Also, CRT's typically didn't have square pixels, which is why to many people LCD's are considered sharper.

LCD pretty work only in native resolution. They don't scale resolutions as well as CRTs. But you'll love the switch, it's like a breath of fresh air. CRTs feel like cold war relics now.

I'd say a 22'' widescreen, and a secondary 19''. Samsungs are cheap and cheerful.

Lol, I just had a look at overclockers.uk, and their entry level is a 24'' for £159 (not HDMI). Jesus H-Christ...

Basically, you can get a lot of screen space and resolution for $500. Shop around, and try to get some HDMI goodness (and 1900 x 1200 resolution is lovely, although you'll get borders playing 1080p games).

I like my 24'' + 19'' setup. Equally, two 22'' monitors would be nice. One vertical, one horizontal. That should fit your budget.

hmmm...

Another advantage of LCDs is support for HDCP, so you can watch DRM-protected content (eg Blu-ray) on them.

I'm not a big fan of LCDs at all (generally horrible colour reproduction and contrast, the dreaded dead pixels, less flexibility with refresh rates and resolutions) and am hoping that OLED displays can at least fix the colour issues when they become a bit cheaper and longer-lived.

If you are used to high quality CRTs, then you'll be in on a very bad surprise when switching to an LCD in terms of colour reproduction. Unless you fork out a lot of cash for a professional IPS panel, which costs easily $3000 or more. The colour quality of low cost LCDs is really abysmal. And it seems it is getting worse lately, since more and more even mid-priced panels are now using cheap TN matrices instead of the higher quality MVA/PVA matrices. Consumers generally don't care about quality.

If your current screens work fine, then I wouldn't upgrade. You might gain some physical space and increase the 'coolness factor', but you'll lose a lot of image quality. Alternatively, you could save some cash for a couple of higher priced panels with extended gamut (like Samsungs PVA LED-backlit models). But I wouldn't touch TN panels with a ten feet pole, if I were you.

Oh, and make sure you buy one with a zero dead-pixel policy. Screens with dead pixels are still very common, especially in the lower cost segment.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
If you are used to high quality CRTs, then you'll be in on a very bad surprise when switching to an LCD in terms of colour reproduction. Unless you fork out a lot of cash for a professional IPS panel, which costs easily $3000 or more. The colour quality of low cost LCDs is really abysmal. And it seems it is getting worse lately, since more and more even mid-priced panels are now using cheap TN matrices instead of the higher quality MVA/PVA matrices. Consumers generally don't care about quality.

Just how bad is the color reproduction? Is it on the order of "Hey, why is this apple purple?"

I've seen some screen on display at my local electronics store and it didn't seem that bad. Although, I do admit that the screens costing around $300 looked significantly sharper and had richer color than the cheaper units.

Quite honestly, I don't really know how bad or good the color reproduction on my CRTs are. How do you even find out?

Quote: Original post by Programmer One
Just how bad is the color reproduction? Is it on the order of "Hey, why is this apple purple?"

My problems mostly stem from a lack of dynamic range (unable to have bright whites and dark blacks) and uneven colour reproduction (a solid colour appears one colour at the bottom of the screen and a different one at the top - this site has some good examples). On top of that, not all LCDs use the full 8 bits of information per colour channel (TN panels will only use 6 bits and dither). These problems are reduced if you shell out for an expensive display, however.

Go to a shop and see for yourself. Reset display to default settings. You wont find any CRTs to compare against though :)

Entry level LCDs can feel a bit washed out, they seem to have trouble with black and low intensity contrasts, especially compared to decent CRTs. But it's something you get used to very quickly. Unless you are a pro graphics designer and work in advertising, publishing, that sort of stuff, I don't think that will be a major problem.

Frankly, the pros (dimensions, comfort, HDMI, ease of setup, power consumption), outweight the cons (fixed resolution, viewing angle, contrast, 'artificial' colour balance, dead pixels). And given the prices nowadays, they are darn good, even entry level panels.

About dead pixels, I only ever saw on on my crappy shitty laptop from 3 years ago.

Quote: Original post by Yann LUnless you fork out a lot of cash for a professional IPS panel, which costs easily $3000 or more. The colour quality of low cost LCDs is really abysmal.... Consumers generally don't care about quality.

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.


Out of interest, there is a war between Plasma/LCD TVs right now. Can you get Plasma screens for PCs too?

Quote: Original post by d000hg

Quote: Original post by Yann LUnless you fork out a lot of cash for a professional IPS panel, which costs easily $3000 or more. The colour quality of low cost LCDs is really abysmal.... Consumers generally don't care about quality.

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.

Quote: Original post by d000hg
Out of interest, there is a war between Plasma/LCD TVs right now. Can you get Plasma screens for PCs too?

Plasma screens look much better than LCDs (brighter, significantly higher contrast with bright whites and dark blacks, wider viewing angle, faster response times) but require as much power to run as a comparably sized CRT (ie, a lot) and are highly susceptible to burn-in. The latter point would seem to make them unsuitable as PC monitors (that and I don't think you can get them any smaller than 32") unless you'd like to see the start menu superimposed on whatever you're doing.