My work monitor is dying (randomly changing colors, jitter, etc.) and i need to shop for a new one. I program all day, but also process images and video as part of my job. Can you recommend a 24" monitor? I really only want to hear from people who own or have personally seen their product of choice. This is for work, so i'm not paying for it, but i will be using it for 8 hours a day. It needs to be good for text and programming first and foremost. Budget is not specific but needs to be reasonably (that spiffy $1500 graphics monitor is out of the question) Any suggestions? Thanks for your input!

I personally prefer Samsung as a brand. Do you need/want a widescreen monitor?

Quote: Original post by Rycross
I personally prefer Samsung as a brand. Do you need/want a widescreen monitor?

I suppose so, yes. I want as much screen real estate as possible.

I've been using 2 UltraSharp 24" monitors for the last few years and they are pretty awesome.

You can pickup a 24" IPS panel one in the UK for ~£440, I so should think you should be able to get one for not too many $$$.

24" Dell U2410 Ultrasharp Widescreen LCD flat panel monitor, IPS panel is the one in question.

Quote: Original post by leiavoia
I suppose so, yes. I want as much screen real estate as possible.

I was going to say that you should buy a couple of standard-aspect-ratio monitors, but it looks like the prices have increased and the sizes decreased in the last couple of years. I guess the demand is for widescreens so the supply has followed. Either way, it seems to be no longer worth it to buy a standard over widescreen.

That being said, I just bought this monitor, and its pretty nice, but has a couple of disadvantages for a work setting. Its a bit bulky and takes a while to wake from power savings mode (I'm assuming because its basically a TV). Something like this might suite your needs, but I've never used that particular model.

Quote: I was going to say that you should buy a couple of standard-aspect-ratio monitors, but it looks like the prices have increased and the sizes decreased in the last couple of years. I guess the demand is for widescreens so the supply has followed. Either way, it seems to be no longer worth it to buy a standard over widescreen.

pretty hard to get standard aspect ratio monitor nowadays
widescreen/squashedscreen are cheaper to make (cause theyre smaller) hence manufacturers prefer them to push them over 4:3

Ive noticed with widescreen monitors are evolving from 16:10 -> 16:9
i.e. for 24'' theyre downgrading from 1920x1200 to 1920x1080.

it wouldnt surprise me if we start seeing 1920x768 etc as standard in the near future

I doubt that; the reason for so many 1080 monitors is so they can tag "supports 1080p HD" on to it.

Even then, this hardly a new thing; there were plenty of 1080 monitors about at 24" when I picked my Dell's up and these are 1920*1200 and Dell are still doing monitors of that size they are just being drowned out a bit more by the 1080 ones as people see them and think 'ooo HD'.

I also prefer Widescreen to square as I can see more; human eyes work better in the horizontal than the vertical.

I'm using two 24" Samsung Syncmaster 2443BW screens (like this guy). It's max (and ideal) resolution is 1920x1200 (16:10). Tends to cost around €250 a piece here.

It's a matte screen, has a thin border (~1.6cm), touch-sensitive buttons and a single blue power LED.

I use them at home for coding, gaming and anything else and I can't say I have any problems with them. But then again, I'm not a videophile :)

Quote: Original post by phantom
I also prefer Widescreen to square as I can see more; human eyes work better in the horizontal than the vertical.

I've always wondered why that point keeps coming up in arguments in wide screen vs 4:3. Humans eye sight might be 'horizontal' in that we can detect motion and general shapes/colour on the far left and right of our vision field, but where we can actually focus (and thus read a screen) is a rather narrow cone.

And then there is the issue of perception for reading, which most languages actually generates in an up/down fashion. (Yes, we read left to right in English, but we still order things from top to bottom in narrow columns.) For the way most of us are actually trained to perceive the world a screen somewhat taller than it is wide would be more ideal.


Personally I'm rather fond of the 16:10 ratio, at least compared to 16:9 which is a horrible horrible format, but I'm still a bigger fan of dual 4:3. (But what I really want is a 4:3;10:16;4:3 setup or better yet to have the 16:10 on a swivel.)

Quote: Original post by Talroth
Personally I'm rather fond of the 16:10 ratio, at least compared to 16:9 which is a horrible horrible format, but I'm still a bigger fan of dual 4:3. (But what I really want is a 4:3;10:16;4:3 setup or better yet to have the 16:10 on a swivel.)

Are there actually any 16:10 monitors that swivel? That would be the ultimate programming monitor.