Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

[shadow]

The title says it all!

I am going to buy an LCD monitor soon and I would like to know the best ones (preferably from experience). The LCD monitor that I am looking for should be around 19 to 20 inches in size and be in a widescreen format. Oh and the monitor should be easily available within the Australian market. I know there are good brands that are sold within the states and sometimes Europe and never make it over here in Australia in big numbers. This causes the product to be hard to find and rather expensive.

Any comments and recommendations are welcome! I am simply looking for the best monitor for the format that I am interested in! I used to know a good review site for monitors, the website has slipped my mind at this time.

Thanks to all those that help out in advance!!

[Topcat]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009108

great bang for the buck. I dont think they ship to AU thtough, but worth a look.

[stevo1210]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

I've seen that Acer one in Topcat's link sold in Australia. My friend has one, but his is silver, not black. My friend's Acer monitor has a nice picture and it doesn't blur as much in gaming....

When it comes to LCD monitors, I usually go with BenQ, Sony or Samsung. My BenQ is a 19" FP937s and has been working perfectly so far. The colours look nice, but the colours and contrast on the Sony SDM-73HS 17" that my brother has looks even better.

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

This is just a simple update.

The plan at the moment is to buy the monitor on Tuesday. I will most likely buy the monitor from a trusted computer store that I have done lots of business with in the past. Later on today when I have more free time I will post a list of 19-20 inch widescreen monitors that are advertised in that particular stores catalogue. Oh and by the way, money is not a big issue this time. I can buy a more expensive model if it is worth the cash!

That Acer monitor is available in Australia, however only in silver. I would prefer the monitor to be black however this is not essential.

I have found the review site that I was talking about before. It was "Toms Hardware", however they do not have any new reviews and I am unsure whether their reviews are way too critical or not.

In a couple of shops in the past I have seen two nice looking Asus monitors, the pw191 and the pw201 models. To me at least these two monitors are very solidly built and look quite good as well. The touch sensitive buttons look nice but are a gimmick. Every review that I have read has stated that these buttons are a bit hard to use (personally when I tried it myself I did not find it that hard). However Toms Hardware said that the colour reproduction quality of the pw191 is quite poor.
I am unsure whether it is a wise choice to get one of these two Asus models?

[Paul S]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

I would recommend a Samsung Syncmaster. The ones with more inputs are more expensive. So, if you only need a standard input, they are affordable.

[willawake]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

you mentioned colour reproduction. If you are very interested in that then it is likely a PVA or otherwise known as MVA panel will be what you want. Unfortunately they are not as fast as the TN+ ones.

interesting comment on the acer review

Cons: It's pretty bright, I have to keep the brightness way down. Not a big deal though.

well after a few years it will be significantly less brighter. that is why they start off excessively bright.

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

I am posting a listing on 19" and 20" widescreen monitors advertised at my local and trusted computer store.

* Asus VW192S
* Asus PW191WIDE
* Asus VW192T
* LG L194WT
* Phillips 190CW7CS
* Samsung 940BW
* Viewsonic VA1912W
* Viewsonic VG1930WM
* Asus PW201
* BenQ FP202W
* LG L204WT
* Viewsonic VG2030WM
* Samsung 205BW
* Samsung 206BW

I have done a little bit of research and currently I am very interested in purchasing the Samsung 206BW. This monitor looks impressive, has impressive specifications (I know that they are all inflated ) and has heaps and heaps of favourable reviews on the net. It costs more than most of the competition however I am willing to spend extra money on a better monitor. Especially since I will be using it quite alot!

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Colour reproduction is not a huge issue with me, however I expect it to be decent. I am no graphics professional.

I have stumbled across a feature that I may be interested in. This feature is 1:1 pixel mapping or any other form of pixel mapping. I am having huge problems finding a list of monitors that support this feature. I would like to know if the Samsung 206BW supports it (or any other monitor for that matter). The reason why I think it would be useful for me is because I do play games sometimes and with my current PC I will not be able to play most games at the monitors native resolution (since it is fairly old and consequently can not handle high resolutions). Therefore I could use 1:1 pixel mapping or a variant technology to scale the image down or in the case of a game not supporting widescreen I could play the game with the proper proportions. That is I could have black bars on the side.

Again I am not sure if this feature is useful at all for me. As I said I merely think it could be useful. I have read that NVIDIA graphics cards can have this sort of feature done by software via. the driver. Therefore the monitor does not have to support it in hardware. However I now own and use an ATI card. Do ATI cards have such a feature like NVIDIA cards?

Thanks for the replies!

[Fizzycapola]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

If you have blur in games you have been ripped off, that problem was solved since 16ms screens arrived.

Colors should be smooth with no graduation effect (this was solved since tft's became mass consumer goods)

3M sell privacy filters which should darken the screen if it's too bright. (like is popular - it draws attention in shops I guess)

Sometimes screens take a few days to settle and burn-in/normalise I suspect.

20" is quite big, in the old days we all used 12-14" screens and still got eye strain I think should not be forgotten. (although fake overlaying sciences can convince you why you now need 20" just like mobile phones are actually good for your health I'm sure.)

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Yes I remember the good old days. My current monitor is actually the biggest I have ever had. It is a 17" CRT monitor. In my experience, bad refresh rates on CRT monitors were the culprits of getting eye strain for me. However I guess I do not have to and do not sit in front of a computer for 8 hours like some have to do at work.

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Hmm I have given up of the hardware pixel mapping. It is simply not available for these 'small' monitors. Hopefully if I do need the feature, the ATI display drivers will work with my card. I have been reading all sorts of stuff about this feature not working well on all ATI cards, even thou this feature works so marvellously with the NVIDIA drivers for NVIDIA based cards.

Anyway are there any more recommendations!!

Is the Samsung 206BW any good. I found lots of good reviews, however I am not sure if these reviews are worth anything at all.

[Paul S]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

There are 201 customer reviews, on the NewEgg web site. I only read a few of them. but they seem to point out common "flaws" in it. Most still rate it as a good monitor, check for yourself.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001095

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Thanks for the link!

I really am not sure what to buy now.
The main complaints about that particular Samsung model is the lack of height adjustment and the fact that Samsung seems to be shipping this model with a few different outsourced LCD panels (which many claim are not as good as the original Samsung made LCD panels). Oh and some people got a 'buzzing' sound coming out of the monitor when the brightness in decreased, however most got a replacement and the problem was not present or that the buzzing went away by itself after awhile.

I guess I will go to the shop and have a look around and then decide.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Doesn't Samsung make most of the panels for other monitor brands as well? I think there are only a few manufacturers of the panels themselves. The ones I see most often are Sharp and Samsung.

[toastygoodness]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

I like those Viewsonics. they sell them here at Costco and they're really nice. The only con is that they aren't adjustable physically - no height, only tilt. the colour, brightness, and speed match my CRT when I watch any of the Bourne movies, known for the way they give people seizures. it was relatively expensive though, 200 USD for a 19in. the acer works too. i think both use either Quanta panels or BenQ, although i think ViewSonic makes their own too. i know the CRTs they make themselves.

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Well I went to the store today and they did not have any Samsung 206BW LCD monitors in stock. I ended up buying a Samsung 205BW, however just when I left the store I saw on the sticker that the monitor was silver and not black. So I had to go back inside the store to sort it out. Unfortunately they did not have any more 205BW's left.

I did not know what to get, and in the end I got my money back and left empty handed. Luckily I did not buy the 205BW, reviews seem to indicate that it is an alright monitor but somewhat expensive for what you get and that it does have some issues. I really did like the height adjustment on it thou.

Is height adjustment an important thing with LCD monitors? I have found that 90% of LCD monitors do not have height adjustment.

Would HDCP certification be important in the future?

I spent a long time in the store. I tried getting the 22" version of the Samsung that I wanted for a lower price (since they did not have any more 20" ones). However they did not drop the price enough for it to be in my price range.

Is the Viewsonic VG2030WM any good? They had those in the shop, however I did not know whether it was any good.

Oh and they did order a few Samsung displays for me (the 205bw and the 206bw), so if I really want to get a Samsung I can get it most likely on Friday or Saturday.

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

Doesn't Samsung make most of the panels for other monitor brands as well? I think there are only a few manufacturers of the panels themselves. The ones I see most often are Sharp and Samsung.

That is true however there have been reports of the Samsung 206BW using:
* Samsung LCD Panels
* AU Optronics LCD Panel
* ChiMei LCD Panels

[shadow]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

I have found a whole series of monitors with hardware pixel mapping by accident!!
* LG L196WTQ-BF
* LG L206WTQ-BF
* LG L226WTQ-BF
* LG L246WP-BN

The differences between the first three models is simply the size of the screen. The last one seems to be a different monitor all together. However in Australia, the perfect size for me (the 20" version) is not released yet!

Ok, it is not 1:1 pixel mapping but it is keeping the proper aspect ratio on the monitor. That is it will stretch a 4:3 ratio signal to the maximum size possible while keeping the proper aspect ratio. I have read the manual and there are some limitations to this feature. This monitor can not utilize this feature on some specific resolutions, these seem to be mainly confined to screen resolutions very close to the 16:10 ratio (I am not sure if they are standard resolutions even) and the native resolution (obvious reasons).

The resolutions that this monitor can not stretch according to the manual are 720x400, 1280x768, 1360x768, 1680x1050 for those that want to know.

I do not know how good these monitors are, however the specifications are just about exactly the same as the Samsung 206BW and 226BW. Incidentally the model number of this LG series is extremely similar to Samsung's model number.

Once I do some research, then comes several questions:

Should I wait for the 20" version to come out or buy the smaller 19" version or the larger 22" version? That is assuming that this monitor is the one for me.

The 20" version seems to have just come out recently and may take awhile before it gets released here is Australia, however the 22" version has been out for some time while I think the 19" version is also fairly new but it is available.

Is pixel mapping such an important feature to me that I would like to specifically buy this monitor for it?

Well it is a nice feature, however for me I guess it is not that urgent since I am going to be using it for PC use. However games will need to be rescaled because my computer on a whole is not good enough to handle 1680x1050 gaming and some games do not offer widescreen resolutions. The ATI graphics card drivers should be able to do this however it seems to be a hit or miss affair. I guess this feature would be a must for those hooking up their monitor to games consoles or other multimedia devices since most of these devices do not do widescreen scaling.

[toastygoodness]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

i dunno about the vg series of viewsonic, but the X series is good.

[Paul S]

Re: Recommended 19" to 20" widescreen LCD monitor

I just got an e-mail from mwave.com. They have the Samsung 216BW for $245 USD. there also are some more user reviews.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch...iteria=4411529