choosing among 4 LCD monitors, especially Philips.

[aaarg]

(NOTE: I'm assuming that the Philips 150b3v monitor has the same screen as the rest of thier 150 line (ie the one in the hardware guide review here)).

I'm looking at 4 different 15" LCD monitors:

Philips 150b3v
NEC 1550V
Samsung 151v
Nec 1550X

I'm especially interested if anyone has any info/opinions about the Philips 150 line of LCD monitor. I've searched diligently throughout the web and it seems to have a fairly non committal set of reviews, a good solid monitor that doesn't ellicit excitement but doesn't cause premature baldness.

The first three monitors in the list cost around $400 --about right for middle of the road 15" LCDs, the NEC 1550X is about $550. The Philips (and NEC 1550X) has a pivot function which I think will be very useful. Am I correct that I'll most likely be happy with any of those three $400 monitors and that thier image qualities are about the same? Or is any of them spectacularly better or worse? Is the NEC 1550X as great a monitor as the latest PC World review makes it out to be?

I plan to do word processing (hence my interest in the pivot function), 2D page layouts, civilization (the original), and autoCAD work. I'm working on an architecture portfolio to show off for grad school and I'm a budding [lousy] writer.

I've thought about purchasing online but decided against it because I can't stand the hassle if anything goes wrong, I used to do a good amount of mail order shopping in my time. However, if I keep hearing gushing reviews for the NEC 1550X I might order that online because I can't find it locally.

thanks! I'll repay any comments with a subsequent review of whatever monitor I purchase...

Justus from the California Bay Area.

 

[Guest]

I don’t know the 150B3 but I’m satisfied with Philips 150P2. Especially for the “dvi” interface - this is really great.
And for me is also another benefit: this monitor has an optional “protective cover”.
It’s very useful. With it the risk to damage the panel is smaller.
The colors, the brightness and contrast are OK.
Bad pixels: superb (Guarantee 3 years - zero bad pixels).
And don’t forget the design.
In rest, if you need details, ask me.

 

[dodd444]

Boy, we're doing the same thing;----trying to make a choice among a group of 15" LCD's. My list contains the Eizo L365, Samsung 151p, Viewsonic VX500, and, yesterday I discovered a brand new "premium line" fifteen incher from Sharp,---the LL-T1520.

From what I've discovered so far (I have yet to search for stuff on the new Sharp), my impression is that the Eizo possibly has the best quality image. But, I like the appearance of the Samsung 151p the best. My "immobility" stems from the fact that if I ordered the Samsung, for example, and wasn't thrilled with the image, I'd assume that I made a mistake and should have bought the Eizo. But, if I bought the Eizo, even if the image was great, I'd wonder whether or not the Samsung had "just about" as good an image. It's really unfortunate that we're not able to go to a large retail outlet like Fry's and see the damn things hooked up and running.

Also, I'm about at the end of my ability to research as I think that I've read just about everything available on the 'net, not to mention PCWorld mag, PC mag., etc. Today, I'm going to try and see if I can find any info on the Sharp.

Good luck.

 

[aaarg]

yeah it really sucks that the local retailers, even the big ones like fry's and best buy, seem to have yesterday's monitors and the ones that they are showing off seem so beat up that you can't tell if the new ones would be any good. I finally ran into good examples of these things by going to the Gateway Store and playing around with thier computers...

Making things worse, at Best Buy they had a demo that was showing on all the monitors so you couldn't actually play with them -- AND THE DEMO WAS BLURRY!!! Every single monitor, both CRT and LCD had this shitty blurry demo showing on it....

 

[upec]

Personally I like Eizo LCD a lot. My company have been using Eizo LCD about a year and the LCDs are great.