Decision to make: 20'' wide monitor

[cabrilo]

Hello all!

I'm about to buy a monitor and my budget is up to 250€ (about £170). I spend good 8 or 10 hours a day looking at the monitor, so I need it to be nice on the eyes (e.g. not too bright). I also do amateur photography, so I'd like at least decent color reproduction, but I'm no perfectionist. I'm not really into gaming, so that's not an important point for me. I do watch a lot of DVD's on the computer though, so nice black is important.

Finally, I decided to go for wide 20'' (which makes my budget much tighter) than wide 19'' because it seems to give a decent native resolution increase for the money.

Looking at my local resellers (I live in a less-than-decent part of Europe) I have the following options:

Acer AL2016WBsd (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, 300cd/m2, 800:1, 160°/160°, 5 ms, DVI)
BenQ T201Wa (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, 250 cd/m2, 1000:1, 160*/160*, 5 ms, stereo speakers)
Benq FP202Wa (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, 300 cd/m2, 600:1, 8 ms)
LG Flatron L204WT (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, 300 cd/m2, 2000:1, 160*/160*, 5 ms, DVI, Silver/Black)
LG Flatron L206WQT (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, DVI, Silver/Black)

And these two are a bit out of my price range, but I could squeeze in if they are worth it:
Samsung SyncMaster 205BW (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, 300 cd/m2, 700:1, 160*/160*, 6 ms, DVI)
Samsung Syncmaster 206BW (20" Widescreen TFT LCD, 1680x1050, 300 cd/m2, 700:1/3000:1, 160*/160*, 2 ms G2G, DVI)


Which would you recommend? Any experience with any of these monitors would be great, really! I have hard time finding proper reviews for most of them otherwise

Thanks!

 

[realzeus]

As Jaguar will surely point, all of the monitors you have listed are inferior quality TNs. As such they lack in colour accuracy, viewing angles and real black compared to MVA/PVAs and IPSs; not that they are dreadful to watch, but surely not as good as the monitors using the latter panels. Problem is that in that price range there are no PVA or IPS monitors. You could go to a high quality 19 incher instead though. A good example is the Philips 190P7, which uses a high-quality P-MVA panel. Better image quality compared to those TNs but smaller size and resolution. Your call really...

 

[cabrilo]

REALZEUS, thanks for the reply.

I wouldn't mind downgrading to 19'' for better picture, though my budget is still limited. Which other 19 inchers (wide preferably) would you (or somebody else) recommend? I have hard time locating 190P7 in the stores.

Also, how do I know if a monitor is TN or something else? Specifications don't mention it, as far as I can tell. Is there a list somewhere?

 

[realzeus]

I would not recomment a 19'' wide as it is too narrow in my opinion; as a matter of fact 19'' widescreens are narrower than 17'' monitors.

The following site is a very good reference for monitors and their panels: www.prad.de/en