Help me choose a monitor

October 9, 2008 3:48 AM

Help me a choose a widescreen monitor. The more I look, the more confused I get. Tell me what to do. Please.

OK, so I know there have been threads on this before, but new monitors appear almost as quickly as banks disappear.

I'm currently using a cheapo, old Dell R172FPt, 4:3 TN panel monitor. Nothing wrong with it, but advertising tells me that my display should make a more positive and aspirational lifestyle statement. And besides, I like the shiny.

I currently use my monitor mainly for office / internet with an occasional bit of photography (just playing around, nothing professional). I would like to be able to read two docs side by side. It's pretty unlikely that I will ever watch movies on it or play games. Generally I'm a fairly undemanding user, although I'd rather buy something that's reasonably good quality. But what?

I guess I want at least 20 inches, probably 22 or perhaps even 24. I thought the HP w2207h looked pretty nice as did a few Dells and some Samsungs. So, I started looking in earnest and this is why I got really, really confused. Here are the details of my confusion.

Resolution: Do I want 1680 x 1050 or 1900 x 1200? Remember, I don't watch movies.

Panel type: Do I want the cheaper TN or the more expensive other types - and if so, which one? Will I notice the difference? Will it rock my world? I currently have a geriatric TN and it seems OK.

Size: I've looked in PC World and, frankly 22 inches seems plenty big enough. I don't particularly want a TV on my desk and besides monster screens always seem a bit vulgar to me. Is there a compelling 24" argument, given my needs?

Style: I would prefer my monitor be relatively understated and not to look like something out of an 80s apartment or some bizarre geek-fetish object. It will be sitting with a brushed aluminium PC case, but black would probably look better than mismatched silver.

Various: It must have a digital input and I quite like the idea of one that can swivel through 90 degrees although, frankly, I'll probably use this feature twice. The graphics card I have is a GeForce 7900 GT/GTO and I am using Ubuntu. The PC is pretty new and well specced. I'm in the UK, so no esoteric US brands like Westinghouse, pls; also some monitors are somewhat pricier here than a direct exchange rate comparison.

Price: This is why I'm so confused. It would seem that I could spend anything from about £130 (ASUS VW222S) to about £400 (Dell 2408). Ideally I'd prefer not to pay more than £200. Is that enough? As I say, I'm not that demanding a user...


All in all I don't have a clue. About five months ago, I built a new PC and asked for advice here. People were terribly helpful and offered good, practical advice. Once again, lease cast the bread of your wisdom upon the waters of my ignorance. Hopefully we'll wind up with more than soggy bread.

posted by rhymer to computers & internet (21 comments total)

I'm a mac user, and bought a Dell 2408 a month ago for $684 (Canadian). I'm very happy with it. That would be about £350. For the £50 premium you're going to pay in the UK, I'd go for it. Bright, clear, sharp. If you can find an equivalent for £200, great, but I doubt it's going to match the quality if this monitor, and you're going to be looking at it every day. My two cents! Good luck.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 4:19 AM on October 9, 2008

go with the dell 24xx or 22xx series. wonderful screens (same as the apple cinema display), cheaper then apple though, and friggan GREAT quality. i love my 2405. it satisfies all the requirements you listed (swivels, is good looking, etc).
posted by Mach5 at 4:24 AM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have a Dell E248WFP (24") and it's great. Little bit over £200. It's digital, but it doesn't swivel. Not sure if you'd ever want to swivel such a big widescreen monitor into portrait orientation.

If you try 1900x1200, you'll never go back. It's fantastic, and you have enough space to get so much done at once. If you look at a Word document in reading mode, showing two A4 pages at once, they are physically A4-sized, which is great. (Actually, I tried now and it's even a bit bigger than A4).

Don't think I would go any bigger than 24", unless I had a giant desk.

If you're mainly doing office work, I wouldn't worry about colour depth and response times and so on.
posted by matthewr at 4:47 AM on October 9, 2008

I bought this one (Acer AL2216Wbd) just recently and love it. I think it's recently been replaced with a newer model number, and it's replacement would be worth looking into. You might also be able to get the same model somewhere else. I do some light gaming, looks great both in Ubuntu and Windows, and all in all it rocks.
posted by deezil at 5:05 AM on October 9, 2008

Go with the 1920x1200 if you have good eyes, the icons are much smaller compared to a 1280x1024 resolution (I assume this is what you're running, I could be wrong) but then you also get more space to work in. It took me two days for my eyes to adjust to my laptop's 1920x1200 resolution (admittedly on a 15.4 inch screen) when I was coming from dual 22 inch 1280x1024. But it's glorious, I love it, and I'll go for a 1920 widescreen monitor if my duals break.

Price is tough, you can get good monitors for cheap, but there are also bad ones. My dual 22 inch ones were some obscure brand who I can't even remember now, but they work wonderfully and were pretty cheap at the time. Just do your research, see what other people say about the brand, how many complaints there are, etc.
posted by Meagan at 5:21 AM on October 9, 2008

I've had a lot of luck out of samsung's monitors. They look very clean and perform really well. One consideration to make is you can likely get 2 19" widescreens for less than $400 US which will offer you a lot of screen real estate while still being managable. There are also several productivity gains for using 2 monitors. Be sure to post back to the thread when you make a decision.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001269
posted by justinlilly at 5:46 AM on October 9, 2008

It's pretty much the case that if you go with any of the known names you're going to get something perfectly suitable for what it sounds like you need. Samsungs seem to be good for high contrast ratios, they have a 20,000:1 on offer at overclockers, good refresh rate too.
Dell seem perfectly passable, though I would be hard pushed to recommend them over a number of other makes unless it's purely about price.

All this said, if I were to replace my Belinea today, I would get a Samsung.
posted by opsin at 6:13 AM on October 9, 2008

I bought a 22 inch Acer from NewEgg and am very happy, although I don't know if they deliver overseas. £200 is definitely the most you should pay for a monitor.
posted by billtron at 6:28 AM on October 9, 2008

Go on, you know you want to. £180 for a 24" monitor is amazing...
posted by dnc at 6:31 AM on October 9, 2008

Have you thought about dual monitors?

I have a Dell 24" at home, and two 19"s at work... I prefer the two 19" screens, except when I'm watching a movie. But then I spend all day with 35 text editor windows open... YMMV.

(and if you have a laptop, dual monitors may not be an option)
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 6:44 AM on October 9, 2008

Thank you all very much - probably not dual monitors although I can see why people like. That new dell is insanely cheap (s2409) - but is it any good, I couldn't find any reviews....
posted by rhymer at 7:14 AM on October 9, 2008

HP has good "SmartBuy" monitors that can be had for cheap. I would stay away from Samsung though.
posted by ijoyner at 7:17 AM on October 9, 2008

..and do keep them coming. It all helps. Inasmuch as almost everyone who posts here either knows more than me or has personal experience. Any personal exp of 22" monitors would be great too.
posted by rhymer at 7:22 AM on October 9, 2008

I went with an Asus. No idea if the webcam and speakers are any good (never plugged them in). I found that if you want to be a little "future proof" and have full 1080p support for your monitor (so you can hook up a video game console) you had to get a 24" or bigger. The smaller screen sizes just don't have the full resolution. My only complaint was that it was a little too bright. Especially for someone like me who has used nothing but CRTs until I owned this (still have CRTs at work).

I still have a tiny 14" LCD screen on the side which is useful when you want to keep your mp3 player open, or your email, etc. You can never have too much screen real estate.
posted by inthe80s at 7:44 AM on October 9, 2008

Samsungs seem to be good for high contrast ratios, they have a 20,000:1

I'd just like to point out that there is no standard for measuring contrast ratios, so they are only comparable within brands. If Samsung offers a 20000:1 and a 1000:1, the 20000:1 is the obvious choice, but Samsung's 20000:1 could conceivably be no better than $OtherCompany's 2500:1, depending on how they calculate it.
posted by owtytrof at 7:48 AM on October 9, 2008

I used a 22 inch LCD as my main screen for a year or so (until I got an iMac), and it was a great size. Now I have a 24 inch screen and it's noticably bigger, so spring for it if you can. You really can't have too much screen space. But the 22 inch one was plenty big enough for my needs.

Are you sure you don't want to try dual monitors? Once you try it, you probably won't want to go back!
posted by DMan at 8:20 AM on October 9, 2008

Does anyone have any experience with the Lenovo L220x. It's a 1920x1200 22 incher, non TN and priced about £280. Is it the answer?
posted by rhymer at 9:46 AM on October 9, 2008

I bought the same monitor as deezil (Acer AL2216Wbd) and am very happy with it. If you're not a gamer though I would be tempted to go with dual monitors. I use dual 19" 1280x1024 monitors at work and I think it's more useful for routine office stuff than the widescreen is.
posted by pombe at 12:08 PM on October 9, 2008

If money is not disposable for you, if at all possible, go look at the monitors you want to compare. This holds for HDTVs as well. All the stats in the world won't help you decide any better than seeing as many monitors as you can, preferrably hooked up to a video-projecting device you own/control, like a laptop or a digital camera with the right cable interface. If at all possible, apples to apples, compare default settings to default settings. THEN let the salesdroid (if any) tweak it and show you whatever model they want to sell you with best settings.

For my LCD HDTV, even though Samsung had better specs/stats, we ended up going with a Sony based on performance and appearance.

If you cannot get things set to your satisfaction, I recommend seeing as many models as you can, and then deciding based on price and appearance and warranty.

That said, if you haven't marked this thread resolved by the time I get home and check again, I'll check the model of the monitor my sweetie and I picked up for her and her Mac Mini at Cosco a few months ago.
posted by kalessin at 12:12 PM on October 9, 2008

Maybe I will try dual monitors....could be fun. Or is it an incredible pain in the ass with ubuntu?
posted by rhymer at 3:32 PM on October 9, 2008

In the end I chose a Lenovo L220x, which, I think is the only 22" 1920x1200 monitor. It's also the only non TN 22". It has a very nice screen and I like it a lot.
posted by rhymer at 7:13 AM on October 23, 2008