HOW TO CHOOSE A W-I-D-E-SCREEN MONITOR

[shockwave1831]

DO WIDE SCREEN PC MONITORS HAVE BLANK SPACES ON THE SIDES OF SCREEN OR IS THE SCREEN ALWAYS FILLED 100%? I WANT TO KNOW BEFORE I BUY ONE.
THANKS!

 

[RichPLS]

In windows, apps or video?

I have a dell 2405FPW and never have bars.
On 4:3 vids, I stretch the image tho...
Works for me...

 

[neax]

all the widescreen monitors under 20" have crap resolution for a start....what size are you going to get? I don't know about the blank areas to the sides....fine for normal things....but it may be possible in games or certain applications.....will need advice from someone who owns one!

 

[RichPLS]

Most games support widescreen natively, the old ones stretch fine if you chose... Either way, Widescreen is the only way to go, imo.

 

[neax]

do any 19" widescreen LCD's exist with anything above 1400x900 for a decent price?

They come better in 20" but way to expensive for what i have seen so far...

 

[steveosazninvazn]

They stretch to fill the screen, but if your going to do some gaming, don't bother getting one. My friend made that mistake, and because we play CS pretty competitively, we run our systems pretty tough, and the monitor has massive smearing. Hold off for a while until companies make better WS monitors.

 

[NumenorLord]

Dell's 2005fpw is about $450, if memory serves. It's 1680x1050 and beautiful, and it has awesome performance. There are three different aspects - 1:1 (which will have widescreen for widescreen and black bars for full screen), stretch (which makes everything widescreen), and something else, which I can't remember. Also, if you'd ever have need for it, there is picture-in-picture capability. Whatever that is useful for is beyond me though.

 

[shockwave1831]

THANX 4 UR ADVICE!

 

[enewmen]

Get at this:

20" +
1900x1200 W I D E
500+:1 contrast ratio.
has VGA and DVI inputs.
Viewing angle and responce time should not be a problem for new monitors.
A monitor like this should cost more than $500 though. I suggest don't skimp on the monitor because it will probably out last the rest of your system.

Never get a 1280x1040 WIDE! It might look wide, only because the dots are wide.

I always get good monitors and never have blank spaces problems.

Getting a wide screen is a good idea. I don't see the world going back to 4:3

 

[MisfitSELF]

Dell currently has their 24" 2405FPW for $799.20. I bought this monitor last month and it's very impressive. You should check it out. Also check www.epinions.com for other peoples opinions of wide screen monitors but becareful as I think there are a lot of corperate shills who post on that site, too. It looked like there are a couple of other makes and models of large(er) wide screen that are also coming down in price.

I'm using a mere Nvidia 6600 and it supports Windows XP in native 1920X1200!!

Microsoft Flight Sim allowed me to select 1920X1200 and that wide view ROCKED for flying light aircraft. (I also have a 17" Samsung that serves as my left forward view ). After Lent I'll can give you more game reviews with this monitor. I imagine I'll have to get a more powerful graphics card to play BF2 at 1920X1200

I've played two DVD's using two different programs. Microsoft's media player didn't do a perfect job of filing whole screen but that may have been an artifact of the DVD being a "TV aspect" rather than a wide aspect. I can't recall the name of the other DVD player I used but SAW II was very impressive.

The best features, IMNSHO, of this monitor is it's stand. It's very easy to turn this montior 90deg (1200X1920) to view documents and web pages. In that orientation, you can read the front page of foxnews.com on one screen without scrolling! 8)

Now with all that, I guess I sound like a Dell schill.... :roll:

 

[sirkillalot]

MisfitSELF
im thinking of getting 1 of those as soon as my 21" hitachi dies. im still tossing up bewteen the 24" or the 30"
have you played oblivion i would be interested to see how the graphis look on that game.
thanks

 

[woodchuk]

I'm still looking and learning because I wanted a 26" or larger which would play everything, satellite digital signal (MP4), DVD and HDDVD(coming) and still have full featured VGA. So far, none have been a perfect solution, because most new 26's come with 1366 x 768 and as far as I know there is no video card that can render that. The monitor interpolates to fit the screen, and the higher end ones handle it better, but not the way you would like for gaming. Any input would be appreciated, esp which video card might be the best here, as well as hi end monitors. I realize 4:3 won't ever fit 16:9 perfectly and there will be bars on the side, I want to know what setup performs best overall...

 

[Sonic_Reducer]

hey great topic i'm thinking of buying a 19" asus pw910 if i'm not mistaken , this is a wide monitor and it looks good but i'm also afraid it will not perform very well in gamming or something can anybody tell me if it's any good choice because it's that or a 19" normal one.

 

[MisfitSELF]

The Dell 30" is still out of my price range but if you can afford it .... bigger is always better, right?

Next month, I'll try a few more games on it and pass on a review at the risk of hijacking this thread. I gave up computers games for Lent (what a mistake, and I'm not even Catholic!)

But in reality, the monitor's performance in games may be more of a function of the graphics card than the monitor. I've yet to play a fps on this so ghosting may be an issue. Dell advertises a 12ms response time with their 24" monitor. But given that, I've never noticed a problem with my Samsung 17" with a 25ms response in BF2, I don't suspect I'll have any problems with the Dell 24". Your milage may vary.

The Dell monitor is suppose to have some picture-in-picture functions too, but I haven't tried these yet. One feature that I really wished it had, but it doesn't was a TV tuner like my 17" Samsung.

 

[mdd1963]

"So far, none have been a perfect solution, because most new 26's come with 1366 x 768 and as far as I know there is no video card that can render that."

You need only look at the Dell 30" widescreen, 3007fp, for 2560x1600 res goodness!

 

[woodchuk]

The Dell you mentioned would be great, but with a list price of $2200....
discounted it still breaks the bank.
In fact the Enquirer said LCD prices were going to drop dramatically later this year due to over production, so I might get a cheapie LCD 26 with 1024/768
for now, which can be had for 5-600. At least the native resolutions work.