Ok, so I'll be building a system in the next twelve months for Storm of War, but have no great need to sell myself short by buying components today, I'll wait.

However, I am getting my office/play space set up for a new rig and could certainly use a new screen to add to my laptop now and use as a gaming screen next year (I'm presuming display technology doesn't advance at the same rate as other components so I'll be safe buying now).

Any suggestions? Good flat panel, fast response, and one of the more important things (for me, as I've seen issues with this in the past on LCDs) would be good ability to handle very dark/completely black tones consistently in low light. CRTs always scored over flat panels here, are things better these days?

Cheers, Spinner

Edit: don't need integral speakers, probably 19-22in.

I just got a HannsG 28 inch 1920 x 1200 resolution, 3 ms response, built in speakers (probably minimum satisfactory), HDMI/Analog and all the other cables and software from Amazon.com for $329 and free shipping.

I should be getting my system in the nest 3 days, so I'll update on the monitor.

I've seen that brand HannsG here, but never really tried one. Looking forward to your review of that monitor!

I have two of those HannsG monitors for over a year now. Excellent.

Nothing beats two really big monitors with good repsonse and color.

Right now, $299 with free shipping from Newegg.

-Skater

OK, I've hopoked it up and given it a try. This is initial, but it's good.
No dead pixels. I likew the combination of on screen and manual adjustments. It was at 100% bright when I plugged it in, but I have it down to 55 right now. No odd color or brightness/contrast bands.

It's huge.

I will give it a better test when my new computer comes in. I'll see how it does on response and detail. I will adjust it better and see how the colors, white and black levels adjust.

It has a software disc that I haven't installed since it won't be used with this computer. It has a "game-mode", but I haven't looked into that yet. Might be part of the software disc.

i would recommend against HansG.at that screen size, 1920x1200 is too low res for me, and looked pixelated. i bought one from costco, thought the picture image looked like crap (and had very uneven color distribution unless one is looking directly at the monitor from a straight ahead position...something that is impossible if you and another person are looking at the monitor). basically, the HansG monitor is cheap because it's just not that good. better to get a 24" lcd that's much better quality for that type of money than a 28" that makes such compromises.

Benq seem to score well on reviews, anyone have one of them?

Hanns-G seem to get disapproval for being TN displays, although it seems to be tricky to determine exactly which displays use this technology as it's not always in the specs.

Interesting that monitor reviews are often so hard to come by on the hardware sites, where they're tucked away under 'miscellaneous peripherals', for me it's one of the most important bits of the system.

Cheers, Spinner

i would disqualify any 28" lcd with only 1920x1200 resolution...just too low. and i think it's the TN screens that look horrible from any other angle other than directly ahead.

Same here, but there are plenty of reports from those who find this acceptable.

sure, but the comparison btwn something like a 28" hansG at 1920x1200 and a samsung or dell 30" at 2560x1600...well, there really is no comparison. if a good 30" is beyond one's budget, better to go for a smaller monitor, say 24", that's equally good. someone who wants very good image quality would be making a mistake going with hansG or benq. why put a great system together to run games at high resolutions only to buy a sub-standard monitor? be like putting a great stereo together and buying cheap speakers.

What monitor are you running? I'm after good image quality. I've become accustomed to Apple displays but don't really want to drop another grand on an Apple LED cinema screen for a PC.

It's not that hard to understand which panel is being used by looking at the specifications. TN panels always have bad viewing angles, so when you see something like 170/160 it's probably TN. IPS and PVA are usualy at 178/178.Also, TN are the fastest of those three main types. Both IPS and PVA's have at best 5 to 6 ms lag. Good TN panels have 2-3 ms. That's why they are prefered for gaming monitors. That, and they much lower price.

Also, try http://www.prad.de/ for monitor reviews (it's in english btw).

Thanks Remon, great link, will have a browse through their reviews.

samsung syncmaster 305T--i like it a lot

i would recommend this Dell S2409W 24" 1080p Wide Screen LCD Monitor for $179 ,
Specs:
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (1080p)
Contrast Ratio: 1000:1 Typical
Response Time: 5ms
Viewing Angles: 160 Horizontal / 170 Vertical
Inputs:
1 x HDMI
1 x VGA
1 x DVI-D

Pepper, you definitely aren't speaking for anyone but yourself here.

I have a 27" 1920x1200 Dell, and it is perfectly acceptable with 2x or 4x FSAA. It's still higher DPI than the very common 19" 1280x1024 so why shouldn't it be "gameable"?

The other argument which you are leaving out is that 2560x1600 to power a 30" require an awfully strong GFX card, so if one wants a large field of view (for immersion) but doesn't want to buy dual core GPUs, this is the happy medium. I came from a 20" 1600x1200 and that one actually was a bit too small for my liking.

I would recommend Dell for their very nice panels and dark black, but right now they are being stupid in doing away with 16:10 and pushing 16:9 which is unacceptable for PC use IMHO.

Hans G has great prices, but quality seems a tad hit & miss.

fair enough,to each his/her own. gotta say though, from my experience, it doesn't take a dual core GPU to power today's games at 2560x1600 and high settings (though at that res. i don't miss FSAA that much if i don't enable it). my radeon 4800 does it quite well, and that was around $200 i think.

I'm not sure 2560x1600 (on 30") without FSAA is much better than 1920x1200 with 4x FSAA as far as "blockyness" goes.

If you could run 2560x1600 at least with 2xFSAA fine - but that would cost 20% performance on most of today's cards.

Also price wise the advantage is clear - my 27" Dell was about half of the 30" Dell. There's no linear scaling here.

Going 24" 1920x1200 OTOH is too small a screen IMHO. It's not the TV-Feeling.

I may not have all the tech specs and other stuff, but the thing is fine by me. It has no pixel problems, no bands of different shading, is fast in response time, and has a large immersive view. I'm not doing graphic design. I bought the system and monitor to help with my next phase of Private Pilot training. Navigation, instruments, and cross-country. I wanted to be able to run FlightsimX and have a large monitor to get bettter impact than what I had. A 30 in was almost 2/3 of what I payed for the whole system. My main purpose was to save money on flight time by doing a lot of the procedure work on the computer. That and having a decent set-up for gaming etc.

Once I get it all set-up, software installed, etc I will tell you how it works for me. Right now they have delayed my shipping date until next Monday because of the ATI 5870 card.

Just did some quick math.

A 27" diagonal 1920x1200 monitor has 7033 pixels / square inch of screen.
A 19" diagonal 1280x1024 monitor has 7443 pixels / square inch of screen.

The screen aspect ratios are not the same so you have to do a more involved pixel per area calculation. Granted the difference is less than 10%, but the 19" 1280x1024 monitor has a higher DPI value.

Okay, I didn't do the math myself

It's still pretty darn close. Like I said, you can easily overdo it - 20" 1600x1200 is a common example of "too small" for me, so are some laptop screens.

This is the first reasonably priced monitor I can recommend from experience:

SAMSUNG F2380 23-Inch

At $333, it has a cPVA panel that gives excellent color gamut (100%), excellent off-angle view, and, despite the medium response time, I can't make it "blur" noticeably in a shooter test (where I really whipped the view around looking for "trouble"). After testing, my wife uses it as her primary display. She doesn't stress it game wise. She does photographic work and watches analog and HDTV shows on her computer.

Its our 4th LCD monitor, but the first one that meets all the requirements we have (including price).

Just another one to consider -- if one is looking for quality above the standard gamer's monitor -- but doesn't want to spend several hundred dollars.

Asus X243W (as in 24 inch). Cheaper than dirt. Top end performance. I've had mine now for over a year. It's just awesome for gaming.

Thanks all, I'm leaning toward a Dell 24" (like to stretch for the U model (16:10, 1920 x 1200) but at more than twice the price of the S (16:9, 1920x1080) it's a hard sell unless it comes up as a featured deal (which happens, from time to time). It's pretty much flight sims only so not too concerned about ultra-fast response times (I rarely fire up a first person shooter these days) and the reviews are great for color.

But seriously, you could get three 20" monitors in a triple-head array for the price of one 24"....

We shall see.

Cheers, Spinner

Dell are absolute suckers and need to be punched hard. The production cost of the U model is certainly not twice as high as the S model, but they can produce cheaper and make more profit per unit on the 16:9 so their pricing reflects a policy to push users onto inferior 16:9 widescreens. Why do they want to dictate us that we lose vertical estate and suddenly 24" screens barely show more vertical information than 19" screens?

Maybe look for a Samsung or LG. I can only compare Austrian prices in EUR, but I see Dell is asking 190EUR for the 16:9, 550EUR for the 16:10 (which is insane), jet LG and Samsung have a 24" 16:10 for about 200EUR, so at the price of the inferior Dell. Samsung makes decent displays and has good support, LG doesn't suck either.

Believe me, one of our CEOs has a 24" 16:9 Acer at the office here, and you will likely hate the format for gaming and serious work. Dell has really nice panels, no argument, but not worth twice as much or twice as good as the Samsung which may after all be a decent screen. Look for online reviews on them.

Cheers for the opinions chaps,

At least I've narrowed down what I'm looking for:

• 22-24in
• 1920x1200 16:10 (although the choice at 1920x1080 is far higher)
• Dual digital in (shared monitor, dual DVI preferable but DVI+HDMI Ok)
• USB hub would be a plus for shared peripherals but I guess I can buy a switch

Potential candidates thus far:

• Dell U2410
• Samsung 2493HM
• LG W2452V/T-TF
• NEC CD24WMCX/GX-BK
• NEC EA241WM-BK

I've been using my Sony GDM-FW900 for years. Absolutely great. And at 95+ lbs., I'm still recovering from hoisting it up onto my desk.

plug_nickel (Al)

Check the reviews for those particular Samsung and LG models and take the better one of the two. I haven't had NEC in years, they may not be bad but I've never heard anything particularly good about them either, in contrast to Samsung.

Very happy with my LG Flatron W2600HP, IPS panel, 1920x1200, almost no input lag, great colors and cheap for an IPS panel(500 euro), 1 drawback, may be hard to find in N-America. Europe plenty.
There is also a 30inch version (LG Flatron W3000H) with higher resolution 2560x1600. The apple 30inch uses the same panel inside.

Ok, if anyone is still interested I think I'm going to get an HP LP2475w.

Seems to be be one of better prices for a well-reviewed 1920x1200 S-IPS panel and it has all the USB hub and multiple digital-input goodness of an equivalent Dell but for somewhat less cash (still a chunky $600 outlay, mind). May be a little slower than some of the TN panels but shouldn't be a problem for flight sims and I do intend to be using it for development work also.

Cheers for your help.

Spinner

Why on earth would you want to spend $600.00 on a computer LCD ? Just hook it up to your wide screen LCD tv that you paid $2000.00 for.

I am VERY happy with this one but have only 1 complaint. The labeling for the controls suck. You can not see them in low lite. Granted you are not gonna mess with them much after it's set up but, it is annoying.

Image quality is outstanding. Make sure you get a beefy vid card if you want to play your games at 1920x1200 with all of the bells and whistles. I did not realize how bad my old 8800 was doing until I got a 5850. I am LOVING me some Modern Warfare 2 right now

The TV is several rooms away, alas, and cost less than half of that. Re: splashing out on the right monitor - generally they last for years, and will outlive more than a few graphics cards which cumulatively cost a lot more. It is the main interface between you and the computer, so for me is a priority above other components. Plus you spend a great many hours looking at the thing. Things like decent color reproduction are important for photographic work etc. If it's just games, fair enough, but this is a display for a couple of systems I have and has to be able to handle a wide variety of tasks, and handle them all well.

That said, if I can get that sort of utility and performance for less cash, I'd be more than happy to. Thanks for the note about the Samsung, it's a shame the different online vendors (e.g. TigerDirect, NewEgg) have such patchy coverage of monitor models in Canada. Stores like FutureShop barely have any choice outside of 16:9.

Cheers, Spinner