Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 6/26/2009, 7:33 AM
Lots of good ones, let your eyes not the specs make the choice.

I tend to like Viewsonic. Pros: Accurate picture. Cons: Brightness, viewing angle not quite as good as others.
Probably stay away from Samsung and its OEM clones. Not the best picture.

A very important feature is the number/type of inputs. Make sure it has enough for any tuner / player / game device you may also want to plug into it. HDMI is a must.
InterceptPoint wrote on 6/26/2009, 8:30 PM
I actually took your advice and walked out of Fry's with a Viewsonic monitor. Great price ($249 or so) and 1920x1200. But when I got home and looked up the specs on the Viewsonic website I found out that it was really a 1920x1080 monitor. Not good enough so back it went. I should have know better. The price was a giveaway that it wasn't really a 1920x1200. Another lesson learned. Never trust Fry's specs.

So I'm back in the hunt. Acer, Asus and Samsung seem to be the price leaders. But I'm still digging.

BTW, the Samsungs actually looked pretty good in the Fry's lineup. I wonder if anybody out there in Vegasland has a 24" Samsung or any other low cost 1920x1200 monitor. If so, speak up.
musicvid10 wrote on 6/26/2009, 8:44 PM
"Not good enough . . ."

I've never known Viewsonic to cheat on it's specs. Please set me straight. Did Fry's misrepresent or did ViewSonic misrepresent those numbers? What did it say on the box ??

Also, 1920x1080 is the highest HD / BD resolution I know of. Why on earth would you want more than that, or are you just ticked at Fry's for misstating it? If it's resolution you're concerned about, most people can't see a difference between 720 and 1080 on a 36" screen, and that is well documented. It's a given that no one could ever see a difference between 1080 and 1200.

So, the question remains -- why would anyone buy a 16:10 screen? So you can watch 16:9 video with black bars top and bottom?

Also, my advice against Samsung OEM was based on experience, not idle speculation. I bought a 26" thinking I would use it for video editing and HDTV in the master bedroom. Never again! Others here have shared my sentiment (do a search).

Good luck, I'm sure you'll be happy with your eventual choice. Like I said, there are other good ones. There are some bad ones too.

EDIT:
BTW, I think $250 for a 24" 1920x1080p is pretty incredible. And it is clearly stated as such on Fry's site. Maybe some kid in the store printed the sale sticker wrong?
InterceptPoint wrote on 6/27/2009, 5:06 AM
Viewsonic shows 1920x1080p on the box but does not include a list of resolutions available so it was a bit ambiguous given Fry's assurance that it was 1920x1200. But on the Viewsonic spec sheet on their website it was clear that 1920x1080 was the maximum resolution. So Viewsonic was clean. Good company. I've had many Viewsonic monitors over the years.

But the Fry's database shows 1920x1200. So Fry's was just wrong and they were misrepresenting the specs. I don't think it was malicious, it was just your typical Fry's incompetence. Although I related the spec problem to the salesman who promised to tell his supervisor I will bet you dollars to donuts that they will not fix their database and product marking. That's just the Fry's way.

OTOH, I shop a lot at Fry's and love the store. Return policy is the best. But you have to be careful when you shop there.

As to the question of 1920x1080 vs 1920x1200 it is simply a matter of screen real estate. This monitor will not be used as an HDTV. It will mostly be used for Photoshop and InDesign work so the extra 11% in terms of screen real estate is worth the $50-$75 that it costs to go from 1920x1080 to 1920x1200.

And, BTW, the price for a 1920x1080 monitor is amazing compared to what these things were going for a few months back. But I want my 1920x1200 so it's going to be a few more bucks for me.
InterceptPoint wrote on 6/27/2009, 8:45 AM
I finally settled on the HP L2445w - 1920x1200 with a USB hub built in. No way to actually see this monitor in action so I bought it on reputation and reviews. I've had two HP monitors and loved them both. $379 with free shipping and no tax from PC Connection.
musicvid10 wrote on 6/27/2009, 9:01 AM
HP is generally an excellent choice. Very faithful image reproduction, which is what I look for first. Congratulations, I suspect you will be very happy with it.