Small can be Beautiful - but how to find it

June 14, 2007 10:51 AM

Please help me find a new(ish) monitor. I'd like a small (15"?), inexpensive, glossy LCD that will work with my old VGA video card (max 1024 x 768), and would prefer it be "mountable" for future ease-of-fitting-somewhere.

Since I'd like a larger one pretty soon, I'd prefer not to spend much money on it now ($150/$200). However, the glossy monitors I've seen intrigue me and I see this necessary purchase as a chance to try one out.

I've had a hard time finding any monitors like this (even 17"), and I've spend a decent amount of time this morning reading reviews and doing various product/attribute searches through Google.

Are there any 15" LCDs out there? I'll get a 17" if I must, but it seems too large for the maximum resolution I can muster.

And does the glossy surface increase the cost by a lot? I can't tell by reading individual reviews.

I thought I saw a glossy HP monitor in a store the other day, but can't find "monitors" on HP's site.

If it were possible to get a big, nice monitor now (22", DVI, VGA), that would work well with my new laptop and old computer (not particularly interested in spreading 1024x768 over 22", but maybe there's some kind of cheap adapter or programmable monitor), that would be great, but replacing my video card is not an option.

posted by amtho to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Just to clarify -- I may have seen some 17" glossy LCDs, but I haven't found any 15" LCDs at all. Is that size even available, glossy or no?
posted by amtho at 10:57 AM on June 14, 2007

The browsing mechanism used at NewEgg allows you to filter individual features of a monitor. I couldn't find any glossy 15" screens, but there were quite a few non-glossy models for under $200.
posted by mkb at 11:00 AM on June 14, 2007

Have you considered upgrading your video card so you can support a larger monitor? You'd probably spend less money in the long run, as you can get a decent video card for $50-$60 and then save all your money for a nice, large, shiny LCD. A quick browsing of the NewEgg video cards section for $50-$75 shows that you can buy cards that get pretty high resolutions.

I'm assuming you have a desktop computer, though I don't know what sort of expansion ports you have on your motherboard. If you could find out, I could find something for you. It would probably be AGP or PCI-e, if you have a newer computer, and PCI if it's a bit older. (Mine's about 3 years old and has PCI slots.)
posted by liesbyomission at 11:16 AM on June 14, 2007

Ah, cancel my response, I didn't see the last part of your question. Sorry.
posted by liesbyomission at 11:17 AM on June 14, 2007

Yes, my authoritative friend tells me that upgrading a computer as old as mine risks breaking the whole system. I'm sure it's been done, successfully, but I trust him.

Can anyone tell me whether glossy-screen monitors are necessarily more expensive than matte-screen monitors? I.E., is "inexpensive glossy" an impossible combination?
posted by amtho at 2:52 PM on June 14, 2007

Glossy isn't that popular in desktop LCD's. I personally prefer the matte screens, and think glossy is more of a trendy/bling bling deal. The cheap glossy LCD's also tend to be pretty crappy, wavy, bad glare. I'd keep away.

2nd. You can pretty much run a 21"/22 wide (~1600x1200) LCD with 16MB of video ram, so pretty much any card made in the last 8 years or so will work.
posted by mphuie at 3:14 PM on June 14, 2007

The card is 11-12 years old, I'm afraid. The maximum resolution listed by the video driver seems to be 1024 x 768.

OTOH, I think it's really great that this system has worked for so many years; I like not throwing things away. But now I'm stuck; I want to have Windows 98 and my "old web browser collection" available/viewable, which to me means having a monitor work with the old system. But I don't really want to make space for a monitor that only has one use...
posted by amtho at 6:19 PM on June 14, 2007

I poked at NewEgg a bit, and it seemed that yes, glossy is more expensive than matte.

Here is a 19" glossy LCD, the smallest one they offer, for $250. (Found by searching for "glossy LCD monitor" sans quotation marks.)

For comparison, here are other 19" LCDs, many under $200.

You can choose cheap glossy vs expensive glossy on many laptop models, but it doesn't seem very available on desktop monitors.

And yes, there are many 15" LCDs, but they weren't significantly less expensive than some of the aformentioned 19" matte ones. But since this is a space issue, I guess the point is moot.

Also, wow, I am impressed it's still running after that long. Crazy.

Could you set up some sort of VPN system that lets you access the computer remotely? I don't know if Windows 98 will boot properly without a monitor, though. Alternately, create a virtual machine image of your old computer and run that from within your new laptop on your 22" LCD. That way you could easily access that within one window with plenty of space left for other tasks. That would mean retiring your old computer, though.
posted by liesbyomission at 2:07 AM on June 15, 2007

Follow-up - I ended up getting this 15" monitor ( ENVISION EN5600 Silver-Black 15" 16ms LCD Monitor) which is not glossy, but is small and light. I also preferred monitors which were not black; this one is mostly black, but has silver around the screen.

I ordered it through my PC-expert friend, and should pick it up today.
posted by amtho at 8:53 AM on June 22, 2007