Monitor Question

[Damnidge]

OK, so my wife has been looking at my 19" LCD for the past year and a half and now really wants one over her 17" CRT (understandably). I was going to just buy a 160 on-sale dollar 19" for her, but then I saw how cheap some of the larger ones are and started thinking pass-me-down.

The one I currently have is an Acer, and so is my wife's laptop, and I really like their products (although I'm not married to them). I noticed there is a 22" widescreen monitor from Acer on sale for 225 on newegg that has a max res of 1680 x 1050:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824009094

I remember when I purchased the 19" regular screen a bunch of people told me to not get widescreen unless I was getting a 22" or larger (which I agreed with once I went to Fry's and looked at a 19" widescreen). I looked at the dimensions and it seems like I would be getting a screen that is almost the same height as my current 19", but 4 " longer. If that's the case, would that be a good bet for UT3 and my games, or should I stick to regular screens still?

I know I want 16.7 million colors, 5ms or faster refresh, and 700:1 contrast so any idea monitors would have to have those.

[zeus]

I got an Acer AL2223WD 1.5 months ago from BB for $180. I have been perfectly happy with it. It is much nicer than my $100 19" LCD I had purchased.

Newegg's Page: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... k=AL2223WD


Toxic will want you to get some Ginormous 24" Trinitron. :cyclopsani:

[DW_Snaggle]

As you point out the diagonal measurement on wide-screen monitors actually indicates a 'shorter' screen. Here's a table to help:

Code: Select all

Diag    WxH (16:10)     WxH (4:3)
=====  =============  =============
19.00  16.11 x 10.07  15.20 x 11.40
20.00  16.96 x 10.60  16.00 x 12.00
21.00  17.81 x 11.13  16.80 x 12.60
22.00  18.66 x 11.66  17.60 x 13.20
23.00  19.50 x 12.19  18.40 x 13.80
24.00  20.35 x 12.72  19.20 x 14.40
25.00  21.20 x 13.25  20.00 x 15.00
26.00  22.05 x 13.78  20.80 x 15.60
27.00  22.90 x 14.31  21.60 x 16.20
28.00  23.74 x 14.84  22.40 x 16.80
29.00  24.59 x 15.37  23.20 x 17.40
30.00  25.44 x 15.90  24.00 x 18.00
31.00  26.29 x 16.43  24.80 x 18.60
32.00  27.14 x 16.96  25.60 x 19.20

HTH

Snaggle.

[d2frob]

22" @ 1680x1050? I have a 17" and 21" at that but no 22" lol. My 21" dell rocks size wise (not too big etc etc). So yeah...22" is a recommendation from me.

the http://www.widescreengamingforum.com has a load of stuff you might wanna browse

Ps my laptop is 17" widescreen, i hate square monitors :)

[Damnidge]

Wow thanks for the great and fast replies. From the info that Snaggle posted, it looks like the 22" WS has more space than my current 19" normal screen:

19.00 WxH (4:3) = 15.20 x 11.40
22.00 WxH (16:10) = 18.66 x 11.66

Looks like I would gain 3.46" width and .26" height - am I reading it correctly?

If so, then I think I'll knab it. The one you have I saw zeus, but the one I have linked is pretty much the same one except it has 16.7 million colors vs 16.2, its black instead of silver, and it has HDCP support.

BTW - what is that - IS HDCP good? Is that like an HD tv?

[zeus]

I am talking off of the top of my head, but I believe it is a newer form of copy protection. Basically, windows approves a media file to play and it protects the physical output to the monitor.

Essentially, you are not supposed to be able to record off of the link. Nobody uses it right now that I know of.

BTW... I can put my 19" and 22" next to each other and they are identical except that my 22" is obviously wider. Unfortunately, thanks to Nvidia's lovely drivers, it crashes my PC when I have them both plugged in at the same time.

[KillaDEATH]

Depends on what you like. I personally will never buy another 4:3 screen again. Think of it this way, you can open 2 browsers at once on a widescreen. You can play UT in a square window while having Vent open on the side on a widescreen. Browsing can be really cool if you turn the screen sideways on end for a full page display. There are many advantages of even a 19 inch widescreen that you'll never know about until you get one. I have many monitors and projectors with widescreen being the only ones used around here. I have a 26",22",2X19", desktop monitors with 15.4" and 14.4" laptops.

If you have a Compusa near you they have an Envision 22" for under $200 after rebate. Not a bad monitor but I hate the store.

[KillaDEATH]

You're in luck!!! Newegg has the Acer 22" on sale today for 229.00 straight up no rebate. Picture shows silver though but it maybe black as well. Look into it....

[Damnidge]

Dude!

I went back to newegg this morning and the monitor I listed in my first post dropped to 219.00, and the shipping dropped from 13.99 to 9.99! With the stupid $8 CA fee I was able to get it out the door for almost exactly 250.

I just purchased it - I'll have to do some juggling with my finances for the funding of my new computer, but from what I heard Toxic say last night it sounds like I am going to wait at least 2 weeks past when I was expecting to buy the parts anyway to see how much time it will take for price drops after the new 45nm processors come out from Intel.

I am looking forward to loading this thing up and seeing the difference. The main question I have is will it let me see more in UT - that is does my virtual character's viewpoint have it's peripheral vision increase? Or does it just scale the image to fit? I figure I will get the increase, but want to be sure.

[zeus]

if you run it at its native resolution than you should see more "stuff" than you previously did. If you try running it at say 1024x768 full screen, than it will look extremely stretched.