17'' LCD recommendations

[iparout]

Hi.

I'm thinking of buying a 17'' LCD monitor and I would really appreciate some recommendations. I do not care about gaming (I rarely play games, although I would appreciate it if the response time wasn't too big), I just want a monitor that would give out the best possible image and would be relaxing to the eyes since I am on the PC for many hours per day and I want to avoid dizzyness and eye damage, which I am both experiencing for the last couple years with my 6 year old Eizo F35 15'' CRT...

Generally, which is the best 17'' TFT overall ?

Fire away with any recommendations.

BTW, I am mostly surfing the Internet, doing office work (Excel, Office e.t.c.) and watching movies on my PC.

Thanks

 

[iparout]

BUMP

Since there are no replies as of yet, I decided to give a little more info. I am mostly interested in a TFT that is relaxing to the eyes and also offer good color reproduction and contrast. Most 16ms panels don't have true 24bit color, which is a disadvantage for me. I would prefer a 25ms panel with true 24bit color and good contrast, rather than a 16ms panel with mediocre performance in those two areas...

I have come across the Sasmung 173P, however it's a bit too expensive for me... Any other similar LCDs out there ?

 

[Grolandi]

I was going to say Samsung 173P, but you ruled it out. Other than that, I'm not so sure.

 

[saqdeez]

i have the same predicament and *think* i will get
SONY SDM-S73

$440 shipped at mwave.com
the hitachi 17" is $409 shipped at monitorsdirect.com through this weekend. I would get that but aesthetically i think it is ugly and saving $30 isnt worth looking at an ugly monitor as good as it may be

 

[jamestime88]

NEC 1760, we use them at school and they are rather lovely.

 

[iparout]

Thanks for your help so far.

I ruled out Samsung 173P cause it hasn't come to my country as of yet, and even when it comes, the pricing will be extremely high, judging by the Samsung models that are on sale now.

What I am looking for is a monitor that will have true 24bit color and high contrast. Low response time (16ms) comes second since, as far as I know, there are no monitors that have all three of them.

1) I know that the AU panels do not support true 24bit color, so I guess what I would like to know is which panels support true 24bit color, regardless of response time, and which LCDs use these panels... Does anyone know ?

2) I hear the LG panel used by the Dell 2001fp supports both 24bit color and 16ms response time... However that monitor is way out of my budget... Are there any other monitors in the 17'' category using a similar panel ?

 

[jamestime88]

Originally posted by iparout
2) I hear the LG panel used by the Dell 2001fp supports both 24bit color and 16ms response time... However that monitor is way out of my budget... Are there any other monitors in the 17'' category using a similar panel ?

the 2001fp is a 20.1" lcd. but you can get the 1801fp which uses a similar panel, just an 18" with 1280x1024. im not sure about the 1703fp but it may be what your looking for also.

 

[bob321]

iparout, I am in a similar situation, but after the research I have done, it seems like the Samsung 173P is the only option I have come accoss. I currently have a 1760NX (1760V with DVI) and it was dissapointing from the momoent I first turned it on last year May.

You could check out the Dell 1703FP, but image quality doesnt seem to be as good as 173P based on what I have read, but seem to considered acceptable. It does seem to get top rattings for adjustment/design, etc. though.

The 173P isnt available in my country either, I am currently trying to find a way to import one from the US. There is a place www.tigerdirect.com that ships internationally (I usually buy there), but they don't have it yet, and I am not sure when they will get it.

Good Luck, and please post if you do find an alternative, more affordable LCD.

 

[iparout]

Originally posted by bob321
iparout, I am in a similar situation, but after the research I have done, it seems like the Samsung 173P is the only option I have come accoss. I currently have a 1760NX (1760V with DVI) and it was dissapointing from the momoent I first turned it on last year May.

You could check out the Dell 1703FP, but image quality doesnt seem to be as good as 173P based on what I have read, but seem to considered acceptable. It does seem to get top rattings for adjustment/design, etc. though.

The 173P isnt available in my country either, I am currently trying to find a way to import one from the US. There is a place www.tigerdirect.com that ships internationally (I usually buy there), but they don't have it yet, and I am not sure when they will get it.

Good Luck, and please post if you do find an alternative, more affordable LCD.

Thanks for your input. Can you please be more specific on why you disliked the 1760NX ? It was one of my alternatives but I may have to rule it out if it appears to be dissapointing...

Fortunately for me, I have found the 173P in some local store, but it runs at 723 euros (!) which is a bit too much for me... As a good alternative I am considering the 173T, which runs at 612 euros and have read good reviews about it... There are only 2 concerbs regarding the 173T :

a. There is some ghosting in quick FPS games, which most reviews seem to find non-disturbing... Only the review at Extremeoverclocking seem to find the ghosting effect too much...

b. The newest 173T monitors (after 2004) will have a 450:1 contrast unlike to the ones that appeared in 2003 which had a 700:1 contrast ratio. I'm not saying of course that 450:1 is not enough, however I have yet to find a review out there featuring the newest models, so I cannot tell for sure how the newest models perform.

And a second alternative for me is the Sony SDM HX73 which features extremely low response times throughout all the greyscale (xbitlabs review) and the viewing angle is quite acceptable...Generally, from the dosens of reviews I've read, I have come to the conclusion that the Sony is the best low-response LCD out there, together with the 172X perhaps.

I haven't decided yet though...

 

[bob321]

iparout,

At the bottom is a consumer based review of the Viewsonic 171B. It highlights some of the faults I have with the 1760NX. It highlights the narrow viewing angle. It might not seem like much, but it can become very annoying. Everything looks good looking head on, but if you look directly at the bottom of the screen, the top will appear dark from that perspective. It is really bad. If you are looking at the screen directly while being about 2-3 feet away and move you head up or down 1 inch, the shades of colours change before your eyes. The viewing angle is so bad, you have no idea if the colour you are seeing at a particular point on the screen is the correct shade or not, as moving your head slightly will change it. The problem is mostly vertially, but even horizontally, moving from left to right will give some parts of the screen a faint pink tinit, but that isnt even too bad, if the vertial viewing angle was like the horizontal viewing angle, this might have been a great LCD. I don't use themes in XP, so everything has the plain old grey look from Windows 2000, and as I type this I can tell that the top has a different shade of grey from the bottom.

Another problem is that the gamma seems to have come set incorrectly and brightness and contrast are set too high out of the box (the last 2 can be easily adjusted). I was able to correct the gamma with the nvida colour management settings when I had my old Geforce2 GTS. It is a little more difficult with the ATI control panel, as it does look better, but not as good as I had managed to get it with the NVIDIA card. A colour calibration app may come in very useful. Of course its only useful for the part of the screen you are directly looking at as the other parts of the screen will be a different shade.

There is also uneven backlighting, as shown in the following link.
http://site45.150m.com/

My camera quality isnt too good, but it gets the point accross. You will not see this with a bright wallpaper. It could also be the terrible backlighting is contributing to the irregular colours at angles, but it is there.

I purchased this LCD in May last year, so I am not sure if there are any new revisions fixing the problems I mentioned. Another problem is the lack of height adjustment, but they did release a new model with height adjustment (I think) called NEC LCD1760NX-1 or something like that.

If anyone can post pics of their monitors under the same test conditions as the ones I used in the link I provided above. I would all be very grateful.

I don't have any ghosting problems though (but I only play racing sims), and most of the problems are rarely if at all noticeable while playing games (except the viewing angle), but since I use the computer for things other than playing games, it can be extremely annoying.

There is also no DVI cable, and there is a difference between DVI and analog, so I would suggest anyone buying this LCD ensure they can get a DVI cable separately from some source.

I hope I have not made this too long.

Below is the quote I had taken from a newegg customer review of the VP171B, that also goes for at least my 1760NX



quote
"Like most people, I did a ton of research and found most people to be happy with the VP171B and NEC 1760NX especially for gaming. I was initially disatisfied with the one lit red pixel near the center of my screen when I first plugged it in, but that is not the cause of my major disatisfaction. I find the 140' viewing angle too small especially because of the major problem I have with it, and that is the panel manufacturer, AUOptronics. This is something that cannot be measured and so looking at a bunch of stats would not tell you about it. Only reviews and looking at monitors can actually tell you, but sadly these high end ones don't seem to be sold locally in stores. The AUOptronics seem to make most of the 16ms panels but maybe some of the other ones are better such as the NEC 1760 NX. I find that I only get a good picture if I position my eye in the center of the screen. If I become eye level with the top of my screen, the bottom becomes dark and vice versa. So I find the viewing too constraining. I want to be able to move my head around any place on the LCD (when in front of it) and see the same image with the same colors."

 

[bob321]

Ohh and I forgot, looking at the screen from directly above everything looks very bright and some colours may have inverted. From the directly below the screen, everything is very dark, some parts too dark to see anything.

 

[stumpy]

My NEC 1760MX-BK-1 is coming Thursday, so I'll see how it goes. The -1 models supposedly have a little better viewing angle + the height adjustment, so maybe that will fix the problems bob was talking about.

EDIT: According to newegg's stats, the model has a 160 /160 (horizontal/vertical) degree viewing angle rather than the 140 mentioned above.

 

[iparout]

Hmmm, very helpful info there bob, thanks...

I am actually convinced not to buy a AU Optronics panel because of this matter. I have read about bad viewing angles, however I didn't know it was THAT bad... I'll most probably be getting a 25ms Samsung, perhaps the 173T or the 173P... There may be little trailing in games but these babys are rumoured to have the widest viewing angle of all 17''' LCD monitors.

Any more info by anyone will be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[bob321]

Glad to know I was able to be of help. Please tell which one you decide and how you like it.

 

[spacey]

if the 173P is out of your budget, i think the 173T will be a good choice. i have no problems playing UT2K4 and Far Cry on mine, as far as i know they would be considered fast action games

i think the viewing angle and colours are the best features though, and the small bevels. i don't think they were ever 700:1, but some sort of typo or they were quickly changed to 450:1 or whatever.

 

[iparout]

I called to order the 173T, however I was informed that this model was discontinued for my country (Greece) and it is replaced by the 174T... I did a google search for the 174T and found almost nothing about it. So any info on the 174T model (self-experience or link to a review) would be very helpful

P.S. : It sucks to have decided which monitor to get and find out that it's disconinued. Now I have to start the searching all over again.