LCD for $200?

[sigmo66]

I need a LCD for my mom and I want to spend 200ish. I'll do a little gaming on it, but it will mostly be used for surfing/email/movies. Would this monitor be okay in games, BenQ G2000WD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824014176)? Isn't the response time the only thing that matters in games?

 

[akhilles]

Not bad. Also look into Acer & Hanns-G.

 

[dirtmountain]

Saw this at Tigerdirect. not sure about quality, just noticed price
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3536725&Sku=V18-2112

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

http://www.benq.us/products/LCD/?product=780&page=features

^ go go go!

 

[robx46]

Basically, price depends on size. What size are you looking to get? A decent 1680x display (and definitely 1600x non-WS) will definitely be more expensive than a 1280x display of the same monitor quality.

For what you are doing, I might suggest a 1280x or 1440x display, which would likely mean that you would be looking at less than 20" size for both WS and non-WS because they are cheaper due to lower resolutions. For widescreen, some 20" displays and anything smaller you'll see as 1440x. Some WS 20" are 1680x, other are not, this is often reflected in price. As for non-WS LCD's, anything smaller than 20" will likely be 1280x.

Acer has been mentioned. For a bargain LCD, that is a good option. I know my brother got a 20" WS Acer for like $160 even. And that was like 10 months ago or longer. And I'm almost positive it is 1680x. The colors weren't a true 16.7 million though, which you'll often see on cheaper LCD's. It might say 16 million, or 16.4, but 16.7 is the number you want to see if looking for quality.

These cheaper LCD's can look just fine though, especially if mostly surfing the internet, email. Basically anything but hardcore gaming. If really into gaming then you definitely want a fast response time, like 2ms or no more than 5ms. Otherwise, 6ms to 8ms on the cheaper ones are fine. You also want something with good viewing angle specs (the higher the better), if possible. But again all these things, including size, are what separate cheaper LCD's from the more expensive.

However, still check out the specs as you don't want to be totally ripped off. Make sure they are within reason and similar to other LCD's in the lower end price range. Every now and then I still see an LCD try to be sold somewhere for super cheap, which is tempting to buy, but then you check the specs and it has a 30ms response time or something crazy like that, just awful!
My brothers acer had average to decent viewing angles (generally you want to see no lower than 160 degrees and higher if possible), 16 billion colors (which is fine by him), and a 6ms to 8ms response time, which again for what he does is fine. And the $160 price tag almost a year ago was a deal breaker.

For a non-WS budget LCD, I'm staring at a good one right now. A 17" (I think) Dell @ 1280x (although its set to 1024x). Dell makes good monitors all around. The Ultrasharps are super expensive, but they make good budget monitors as well like this one I have here which was in the $150 price range like 7 months ago. Size is still decent for sure, although not huge. Good if you sit just a foot or two away from the screen.

One thing about LCD's is that the higher the native rez, the more trouble it could be for people who can't see well because higher rez means smaller text (although sharper).
However, you can still switch to a smaller non-native resolution and it should look OK. In fact this dell does a great job at scaling.

Good luck!

 

[royalcrown]

you can also adjust font size in windows and leave the res alone, in the desktop settings.

 

[yadge]

The colors weren't a true 16.7 million though, which you'll often see on cheaper LCD's. It might say 16 million, or 16.4, but 16.7 is the number you want to see if looking for quality.

Is it really that noticeable? I bought my 22" monitor about 18 months ago, and just went with the cheapest one (the only one I could afford) at the time. It's actually pretty good, it isn't bad, but looking at the stats, it does only have 16.2 million. I've been thinking about getting a 24" to go along with my 22", and the one I'm looking at has 16.7 million.

So pretty much, I'm just wondering if you have two monitors side by side, identical except for the amount of display colors, would you be able to tell the difference? I'm just wondering if I should be excited about this aspect of the new monitor.