New monitor.

After 4 or 5 years with the same Iiyama 19" CRT, I decided it was time for a change. So I've murdered my overdraft and ordered a 24" Dell TFT.

I am going to seriously regret spending that amount of money, but at least I will have Shiny New Stuff for a while.

Has anyone else splashed out on new hardware when their wallet + bank balance really ought not permit it? Was it regret city, or a case of 'but it's so coooool'.

..money given for good monitor is never wasted...

Check my sig. I just did the same thing a month or so ago. :)

You won't regret it. Unless you are evicted that is... :)

You will regret it.

Between now and getting the monitor, you are going to need the money for something else.

You will, after using it, realise you have been a bit greedy with stepping up to 24" when you really didn't need to.

You will then proceed to (probably within a week or two) accidentally break the monitor and thus waste your money.

You will regret bragging about your new monitor on the forums - especially when you have to go back to using your old one.

So, let us know when you break it - just so we can have a good laugh.


I was actually Googling for a 42" plasma screen yesterday - but, then again, I can afford to buy several of them.

I just bought a Samsung 24" and I am quite pleased with it. Don't regret it for a moment, even though it was a bit expensive.

puki: We're not all rich like you. However large we may become, your enormousness will defeat us. I will, of course, let all and sundry know how excessively good my monitor is. I will, however, keep any breakages entirely to myself :)

zawran: I didn't shop around, I just went for the Dell because I knew it was good. Had my eye on it for a long time. It's a good job I don't have a bigger overdraft because I would have bought a Sharp Aquos 45" LCD TV instead (costs £4k and does 1920x1080 natively, one of the few LCD TV's that do).

Actually, we were doing a simple color quality check on several screens at work half a year ago. Seeing if ther was banding in gradients and the like. The 24" Dell was no good at it, it had very clear banding in a gray gradient going from black to white. The 19" Dell surpsiingly did a lot better and the CinemaDisplay (the plastic style one, around 24" too) came out best of the LCD screens. Of course, the good ol' CRT screens had the best color performance of all.

I currently have a 24" CRT screen at home, got it used for around $200-300. Very nice screen, except for that it's huge and weighs 48kg (106 pounds). Hope I don't have to move any time soon. :-)

Ragnar

Well, I had the Apple Cinema in mind myself, but Dell's not too far behind on my list:

http://www.apple.com/displays/

What are the differences in response times, would there be any significance between Apple's display, and the Dell Ultrasharp Widescreen?

I also like Gateway's 21" LCD (the automatic display rotation when you pivot the screen):

http://accessories.gateway.com/AccessoryStore/PC+Accessories_316441/Monitors_316684/LCD+_Q1_Flat+Panel_Q1_+Monitors_316694/20_D1_21+inch+LCD_381955/1534243_proddetail.htm?ref=merch

No 37" regret here. Actually, now i'm pretty happy 'cause it's basically paid off. Sure, it's a big purchase, but what's wrong with having a little luxury in life. Besides, I was fed up with burning my retinas out on a postage stamp sized 19" crt. You won't regret it either. It's only a few bob, not like buying a house or anything.

I'll let you know tomorrow :)

the dell has a 12ms response time. And I haven't seen anything at all that looks dodgy while playing BF2 or EQ2 (which are the only games I've loaded on to my machine since the rebuild a couple weeks ago)

Well, believe it or not, I have my desktop hooked into a Westinghouse 32" LCD HDTV myself, and it rocks, just needs to use it's "brain" to reconfigure the PC to a widescreen, so to speak. It features an 8 ms response time, if I'm not mistaken, it's the LTV-32w1, to be more specific. Rather good HD Monitor, if you ask me.

only thing I don't like about hooking a pc up to a tv is that most of them won't do more than 720p (lcd's that is) which is usually 1280x720 or 1344x768... which is a very low res for as large as the tv is. And it's also a pretty unorthodox resolution that some games just flat out don't like. I thought about using my 30" Dell tv for that and just couldn't deal with the low res.

It's strange, you can't get 1920x1080 TV's at anything under 45" (the Sharp Aquos, just under £4K). Why this is, I just cannot fathom.

Consider that a 26" Samsung 1366x768 TV will cost you almost the same as a 24" Dell which does 1920x1200... it just is not easy to reconcile. Then you have the Dell 30" at the same resolution as a certain higher-than-high-def digital video format and it costs less than £1300. DVI input only, but so what?

Also, can anyone tell me what happened to the so-called 'LCD and plasma killers', SED's?

I so very nearly bought a Samsung TV instead of the Dell. I was literally a mouse-click away. The thing that swung it for me was that I could use the Dell of just about anything. The Samsung was going to be for the Xbox 360 alone (I do not watch broadcast TV and there's no way I'm getting Sky or cable).

Dunno about how banking works over there, but over here by the time you get done paying overdraft fees, etc it ends up being an an expensive way to get a short-term loan.

Cool purchase though.

One never regrets buying Shiny New Stuff.

Shiny New thing arrived today :)

It's so coooool.

Everyone should have one.

doncha just love that 1920x1200 doesn't strain your eyes? :)

I really do appreciate that 1920x1200 doesn't result in teeny tiny text. I've left ClearType off on the assumption that a crisper image is better for my eyes than one deliberately smoothed (i.e. blurred) to make text look nicer.

Couple of shots showing the monitor's output when hooked up to my Xbox360: