so i think with the new rig coming in its about time for me to upgrade from my 15 inch crt (14.8 viewable)

im fairly uneducated to lcd's and monitors in general but i figure i have to give the system its worth and get rid of my 15 inch.


cost IS an issue, im currently returning my 360 to get a monitor (im planning on buying a used one off craigslist(360)... )

i have a budget or around 200 or so. my needs are pretty basic id say but since i dont know too much i figured ill take all the advice i can get. id prefer an lcd with component/composite, hdmi, and dvi. also what do you guys think a good monitor size would be? keep in mind im about 15 -25 inches away from my 15 inch monitor, and i expect to be around that far away with the new monitor.

:-)

ice_73:

keep in mind im about 15 -25 inches away from my 15 inch monitor, and i expect to be around that far away with the new monitor.

15-25" is very close, Ice! A 17" LCD will be plenty for you at that distance, and it will seem like a monster compared to your CRT!

Super Dave:

ice_73:

keep in mind im about 15 -25 inches away from my 15 inch monitor, and i expect to be around that far away with the new monitor.

 

15-25" is very close, Ice! A 17" LCD will be plenty for you at that distance, and it will seem like a monster compared to your CRT!

 For the options that you're looking for, I'd look at least a 19" WS or so. At todays prices you should beable to find something fairly easy to fit your needs.

 yeah, can people explain ms response time, hdcp, contract, brightness, etc... i have no idea what to look for.

im gonna miss my 360 :-(

I say it is good that you are finally changing your monitor. It's about time. Well I would say maybe a 19" would work perfectly. The ms thing is how long does it take to show up a new picture on the screen, basically you should go for something that has a 5ms or lower. 2ms is very very good. If you have high higher than 10ms than you might start seeing ghosting where the picture seems to be smeared when you move in games.

For the Contrast ratio, get something from 800:1 plus. I recommend one that has a 1000:1 or higher. The contrast ratio is basically a thing that says how many different shades can the monitor create from one color. So let's say you have red color that moves through a white to black gradient, you would see much more richer colors.  Hope this helps a little bit.

 19 in is great. MS is basically the lag a term you should be familar with if you are an owner of the 360. Less ms = less lag, these arent specific terms but I think you get the point. 

well not quite. It is kind of like that but if you have higher ms then you will see ghosting instead of lagging. The picture will just smear. But it should not be the problem with the newer LCD's that are sold rightn now. My old LCD that I bought  about 5 years ago has a 24ms response time. I still like it. This should clear up some things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD Go to specifications.

 I bet you could get a 22" with >5ms and >1000:1

a few i found that are nice:

19's under 200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009139

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009127

22's under 250:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009102

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009138

^I like that one the best but its 250...

i got this one just unpacked it and i really hate it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8725819&productCategoryId=pcmcat143700050048&type=product&tab=7&id=1201306785562#productdetail

are lcd monitors supposed to differ in brightness between screen areas? like the top is brighter than the bottom? either way im really not liking it.... on specs it looked good and the reviews were good.... is it just me? i tried a ton of calibration tests and its never done to my liking. once i calibrate the test BANG monitor is too bright, lower brightness, problems with contrast arrises... i just cant seem to balance it out at all.

any ideas? should i just return it and get another one? or perhaps i just got a bad one, should i exchange it?

I was looking at the Westinghouse monitors when I was over at BestBuy about half a year ago, but then decided to go over to Fry's Electornics which is like next door and got a Gateway HD 22" widescreen monitor. At first it seemed like it was a bit bright, but I set it up and now it works great. Trully the best monitor I have used in my life so far. It has a nice mirror finish on the screen, kind of like what laptops have. It's just beautiful. Although the beauty pays in money. I payed around $340 for it with tax and everything.

If I were you I would try out another monitor. 

This is what I have. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824113011 This is probably the most expensive monitor I have bought in my life so far.

peti1212:

I was looking at the Westinghouse monitors when I was over at BestBuy about half a year ago, but then decided to go over to Fry's Electornics which is like next door and got a Gateway HD 22" widescreen monitor. At first it seemed like it was a bit bright, but I set it up and now it works great. Trully the best monitor I have used in my life so far. It has a nice mirror finish on the screen, kind of like what laptops have. It's just beautiful. Although the beauty pays in money. I payed around $340 for it with tax and everything.

If I were you I would try out another monitor. 

This is what I have. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824113011 This is probably the most expensive monitor I have bought in my life so far.

 becareful with westinghouse, i had bad luck with them the died on me after 3month+ =(

I am not a total expert on Flatscreens but this one looks very nice for a 19" http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116095 it has a very fast response time great resolution and no speakers which is a plus to me however it's only a 19". I just found this one on http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2430647&body=MAIN#detailspecs Tiger theere doing a memorial day special

Try these

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Envision-G22LWK-22-Widescreen-Monitor-G22LWK/sem/rpsm/oid/176132/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

 Here's a great deal on a nice Acer 19" LCD: Acer AL1916WAbd 19" Widescreen 5ms for $179.99 + free shipping.

 I have a Chimei 22" LCD, i hadent heard any thing about the company when i bouth it, but its a great LCD

As one of the few non converts out there ice, i can tell ya, i have looked for years about getting an lcd, mulled over specs, read reviews, etc to try and learn alot about lcd's to eventually get one when and if ill get one.  I have a 17" CRT 16" viewable, that i use on my home computer.  At work we have a ton of 17" dell 1707FP lcd screens, some nice 19" screens and widescreens, then we have some bigger fancier monitors, even a Dell 2407FP widescreen monitor. Most of the monitors at where i work have TN panels, and this is what is being used in just about every unit due to cheaper prices to make, vs the MVA/PVA panels and the S-IPS panels.  TN panels have crappy viewing angles, usually around 160 degrees or lower in their specs, if you dont have your eyes dead center, then parts of the screen with white will look yellowish and color washout happens.  The backlighting is not uniform usually and some places are darker than others, and this happens on just about all LCD's unless you buy real high end stuff.  Color reproduction is not the same as it is on a CRT, unless you get a real expensive s-ips panel. 

The other issue with LCD's is that the refresh rate on a lcd is not the same as on a CRT.  On a CRT the refresh rate is basically how many times the screen is drawn line by line every second.  To low and you get flicker, to high you get flicker, but this is dependent on your own eyes.  On LCD's the whole screen doesnt refresh line by line, each individual pixel gets hit by an electric charge to change colors, so the refresh time is an average of how long it takes to transition from one color to another.  There are two types of response times used on lcd specs, the black to white transition time, and the grey to grey transition time.  The grey to grey took a long *** time back in the day of old lcd tech and some shade transitions can take nearly 50ms to happen.  Our eyes our sensitive, and can pick up on this.  Everyone's eyes are different so your mileage may vary with lcd's.  The newest TN panels use Response Time Compensation RTC to kinda overclock the lcd by adding more juice to the screen to force the pixels to change faster.  This gets you the real low resposne times, but there usually is a price for this in the form of RTC errors where sometimes you get transitions that take alot longer cause your juice takes the pixel to far and has to scramble to put it where it needs to be.  So these errors usually show  spots and speckles here and there that are out of place, almost like your vid card is artifacting, though not nearly as severe in most cases.

Another thing to remember panel wise, TN's are the most common, PVA/MVA panels are the next, usually cost more have better picture, but their response times are usually higher, but in reality performance wise, a 5ms pva panel can match up with a 2ms tn panel.  S-IPS panels are in a league of their own for color reproduction and mainly used in large lcd screens and for photo work. They have the laregest viewing angles of 178 degrees for both up and down and side to side.   S-IPS panels response times are very high compared to the other panels, but a 8ms S-IPS panel can smoke a 2ms TN panel, but the s-ips panels cost in upwards of 700 dollars usually.  Sometimes you can find them on lower end panels since the technology is getting cheaper and the s-ips are being used without RTC and dont need to to achieve the same results.  

The bad thing about LCD's is that the response time is something any manufacture can throw out there as there is no standard for that test.  You really want to go to the store and see one in action and ask to hook a compy up to it and let some fast paced vids play on it to see if you get ghosting, and if you can play some sort of game on it do so to see what happens first hand.

 The LCD you have might be defective if there is a big diff as one of the back lights might be going out.  I would take it back and get your money back and just wait a while and do some more looking and playing with the monitors.  What you also need to know is that there are lots of dimensions screen wise out there that have the same resolution.  A 17" and 19" regular square LCD's have the same resolution of 1280x1024, but their pixel pitch is diff as the 19's is bigger.  So things look bigger on a 19, but can be fuzzy and you can and probably will see more jaggies in games than with a lower pixel pitch.  20 inch wide screens have the same res as 22 inch wide screens but the pixel pitch is diff since  they have the same number of pixels, just the 20s are smaller than the 22s.  Really you need to see them first hand and play with them and see what your eyes can handle and tolerate.  If all else fails, just find a bigger crt like a 19incher.   Sorry for the long post, just been looking for an lcd for 3 years and have yet to find one that im willing to part with  a few hundred bucks when my crt does what i need it to do now.

I guess LCDs are where it's at right now, but I have one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SyncMaster-997MB-Display-1920/dp/B0009ROYXI and love it. Any time I've used an LCD at friend's house etc I always notice the ghosting and poor colour, at levels that almost make me sick. So really, with the price range you're talking about, I'd recommend getting a CRT, if of course you have the desk space, and can find one that isn't discontinued, lol.