Help me replace my monitor

September 14, 2009 3:53 PM

My old Sony crt monitor died and I need advice on picking out a new one.

I have an older 733mhz power mac G4 with an NVIDIA GeForce2 mx video card (and also a ATY88800GX video card in slot 4?) and my old Sony 20 inch monitor has died. I know next to nothing about monitors so here is what I am looking for.

a) I have bad eyesight so I like to crank the font size up as much as possible. Screen size is a must. I am using a 17" el cheapo lcd widescreen a friend let me borrow and it is torture trying to use this thing)

b) I am on a budget (would like to keep it to around 350 dollars, but could go more or less if worth it) so refurbished or off brands are fine, but I would like to know which brands and dealers I can trust.

c) googling led me to this page which has some in my price range, but would I be happy with the I-inc 28" lcd for instance? I don't really understand a lot about contrast ratios and the like. I am not a gamer, but would like to watch an occasional dvd or you tube documentary on it.

any help or ideas on where to shop would be greatly appreciated.

posted by vronsky to Technology (11 answers total)

You want to go with a good brand for an LCD monitor. It's not about the name, really, but rather about where they source their panels. I have had very good experiences with Samsung, and Hanns-G has a good reputation despite their somewhat "off-brand" status.

A caution: make sure you're running these at a higher displayed font size, and not a lower resolution. CRTs allowed you to choose freely from a range of resolutions, but LCDs don't work quite like that; if you're using a lower resolution than the thing is designed for, it's going to make it horribly unclear.
posted by sonic meat machine at 4:22 PM on September 14, 2009

Oh, and Newegg is one of the best vendors of computer equipment out there. Some people swear by Tiger Direct, but I've had a few issues there and their selection isn't as good. Amazon is surprisingly good for computer equipment, too, but I've never priced monitors there.
posted by sonic meat machine at 4:24 PM on September 14, 2009

You'll almost certainly want an LCD monitor: they're lighter, cooler, take up less space, and use less power. If you're using the monitor at a lower resolution than its "native" resolution to make items on the screen seem larger, LCDs do tend to be a bit fuzzy, but OS X has reasonably useful ways to crank up the size of screen items without resorting to changing the resolution.

I always shop at Newegg for computer parts. Good prices, good selection, generally plentiful and accurate reviews. Many of the monitors will have free shipping, and I'm sure you can go way under your $350 budget. I would spend $250 or so on a large (22-24") LCD. You probably don't need a response time under 5ms.

In general, higher contrast ratios will give you "deeper" blacks-- maybe you could go to your local computer or electronics store and take a look at models rated with certain contrast ratios?
posted by aaronbeekay at 4:25 PM on September 14, 2009

Oh, I'm not as familiar with brands (I'm a Mac tech, not a salesperson), but I know that the very large university lab I worked in was filled with BenQ monitors, with few complaints. (It was a visual arts/graphic design lab.)
posted by aaronbeekay at 4:27 PM on September 14, 2009

If you like to use low resolution monitors that make the fonts look big, you want to make sure that the native resolution of the monitor is one you are comfortable with. LCDs unlike CRTs are sharp only at their highest resolution, and turning down the resolution induces blurriness. Getting a bigger LCD will not necessarily increase the size of the pixels at the native resolution, and everything could end up looking just as small. Rather than the size, the most important measure is dot pitch. This page shows the dot pitch of different resolutions at different screen sizes. A cheap 19" LCD at 1280x1024 will have a dot pitch of .294, but if you move up to a 24" at 1920x1200 the dot pitch will be .270 so things will actually look a bit smaller even though the screen is bigger. If things are too small on the 17" screen, find out its dot pitch and get something with bigger pixels. If you want things to be really big you might want to get an LCD HDTV.
posted by lsemel at 4:39 PM on September 14, 2009

Vronsky, I have one of the I-inc 28" screens. It's excellent value for money. Highly recommended as long as you are not a pro photographer/videographer.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:03 PM on September 14, 2009

Not joking: do you want one of the finest CRT monitors ever made for the cost of shipping from DC? I've got a used but in-box Cornerstone p1700 that I've been wondering what to do with. That's a 21" CRT monitor that was the Displaymate "best in the industry" winner until it was discontinued. Mac connectors, PC connectors, 1600x1200 at 100Hz. It's hardcore.

If you say you don't want it, then I'll still be looking for someone else that would want it...
posted by NortonDC at 7:57 PM on September 14, 2009

Response by poster: Just sent you a memail NortonDC :)

Thanks everyone for the answers. Digging around on the Tiger Direct website it looks like I-Inc is the new name for the Hanns-G line.
posted by vronsky at 8:22 PM on September 14, 2009

Those Cornerstones are nice. Pay for Norton's shipping.

Given your vision issues, do NOT buy any LCD monitor without using it in person first. Resolutions on LCDs don't work like resolutions on CRTs, because LCDs have literal, physical pixels that determine dot size.

So with an LCD display, there's really only one true or 'natural' resolution (it's the obviously-sharp one, and you will probably find it to be tiny). Any other size is a distorted 'zoomed' approximation.

CRTs will zoom to anything they have the frequency to support, and within practical limits, any resolution is just as 'true' as any other.

Repeat: do not buy an LCD without using it first.
posted by rokusan at 8:33 PM on September 14, 2009

That's a bit FUDdy, rokusan. It's very simple to turn up font sizes. Personally, I have ²⁰/₂₀ vision, but I use a larger font size than most people (so that I can keep it that way), and the only programs that generally have a problem complying are games. Heck, even games are improving at it these days.
posted by sonic meat machine at 2:10 PM on September 15, 2009

I just fired it up, and it still works, and it's still gorgeous. There is a potential wrinkle in that I only have the VGA style cable for it. Do you (or anybody else?) know if your Mac will use a VGA cable?

The cable detaches at both ends, so if your Mac can't use the VGA cable, we'll need to find the proper cable.

The box lists the original shipping weight as 90 lbs.
posted by NortonDC at 5:26 PM on September 15, 2009