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712N purchased.

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pvtgoose

Limp Gawd
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Jul 8, 2004
Messages
228
I started out with a 192MP from BestBuy, it looked good on the shelf, and there were other advantages, mostly, I could use it anywhere as a TV also. It was great for anything but games (duh, motion on an older pva panel), so I utilized the return policy. I then thought I was doomed to a 600+ dollar 193P.

I then did some thinking, and, although I was trying to go 19, the difference in real estate is zero (talking resolution here) from a 17. At Circuit City, they had the 712N for 280 after rebates, so I thought I would try that. I have to say that for what I do, I am quite impressed. Black to grey to grey ghosting is negligible (aka Thief: Deadly Shadows), in fact, ghosting at all is negligable. If I want more real estate, I could always buy another one, and still have spent less. The advantage over a CRT? There is no comparison, for what you loose in viewing angle and color accuracy, you somehow gain with crisp and beautiful textures.

I have a 21" Sun GDM-5410 that has served me well, but just started bothering my eyes, which started this whole thing. So, if anybody has any doubts about going 17, I must say that I am happy that I did (so is my wife). It is an 8 bit panel... sure it suffers from minor viewing angle problems, but it is absolutely worth 280 bucks. In my 'planned replacement' cycle of computer parts, spending less than 300 bucks now in order to replace it in a year or two (maybe SED?), when the 19" (or more) technology is truly mature (that quality including bang for buck), I will upgrade. Meanwhile, however, this is a very nice computer monitor. I don't think I would want to watch (with more than me) any dvd's on it because of the viewing angle probelm, but for gaming, and for reading on the internet, it rocks.

John
 
Is there anything else better than this monitor in this price range ~(300 after rebates at most stores)? 12ms response time, 600:1 contrast ratio...I don't think there's another one out there, but if there are other opinions I would very much like to hear them.

Thanks.
 
Be warned:

This monitor has an unusable vertical viewing area.

I have one in front of me now, and looking straight at the screen, the top 2 inches of it are much much darker than the rest. If I move my head slightly up, the top brightens a bit and the lower part gets much darker.

There is no place you can put your head without getting this darkening effect on the top or on the bottom.

The matrix they use is completely ridiculous. I absolutely hate this monitor, and I'm stuck with it due to best buy's 14 day return policy (the first one had 9 bad pixels, and I didn't get around to returning it until the 14th day... I guess it's kind of my fault, but it REALLY sucks to be lied to by the manufacturer about it's vertical viewing angle).

So, I'm out $400... going to the store tommorow to get a cheap 19" CRT.
 
flyinj said:
Be warned:

This monitor has an unusable vertical viewing area.

I have one in front of me now, and looking straight at the screen, the top 2 inches of it are much much darker than the rest. If I move my head slightly up, the top brightens a bit and the lower part gets much darker.

There is no place you can put your head without getting this darkening effect on the top or on the bottom.

The matrix they use is completely ridiculous. I absolutely hate this monitor, and I'm stuck with it due to best buy's 14 day return policy (the first one had 9 bad pixels, and I didn't get around to returning it until the 14th day... I guess it's kind of my fault, but it REALLY sucks to be lied to by the manufacturer about it's vertical viewing angle).

So, I'm out $400... going to the store tommorow to get a cheap 19" CRT.
Click to expand...
Hmm, just got this thing and I don't notice that black area. What was your test setup to get that?

Anyways, how do I burn test this thing? Right now it's 1280x1024 with 75 refresh rate. I set my bground to a turqioise color (in my experience this always brings out the best results when looking for dead pixels, white spots, etc etc. Right now I think it looks nice, but I'd like to put it through its paces for the next two weeks.

Thanks again.

edit Contrast and brightness are at 100% too
 
pvtgoose said:
The advantage over a CRT? There is no comparison, for what you loose in viewing angle and color accuracy, you somehow gain with crisp and beautiful textures.


John
Click to expand...

There is no comparison between that LCD and a good aperture grille CRT. The CRT trashes it. That "crispness" is just artificial, the textures are dependant on your graphics card completely. My neighbor got one and is happy because it takes up less desk space than a CRT, but this particualr LCD has terrible picture quality and when my dad got one to save space, he took it back the same week, because even his old 100 dollar shadow mask CRT had better image quality. I think you're looking at the artificial sharpening and butchering of the actual image as improved quality, but if you saw the same image on a Diamondtron or Trinitron next to it you can obviously see the difference is that the CRT's are superior in every way. Thats why they use them at the printing and design company who do work for such names as Nike and Disney, where I and lots of professional graphics designers(who use the same sort of CRT I'm referring to) go to have their work printed large format. That LCD is good for web browsing but you shouldn't give people the impression its acutally superior to CRT's for anything but space effeciency.
 
I apologize, let me caveat. I needed an LCD because my eyes started bothering me, and only in front of a CRT. I think part of the problem was that my CRT was going, but I disagree with you on several levels in that CRTs are still the de facto standard. We use them at work in an imagery intel shop, of course, they are 3k a piece. Is this LCD perfect? By no means, it is however very good in that it is cheap. I agree 100% that LCD's, especially the bigger ones, aren't quite there, which is why I spent less than 300 bucks, and not 600.... aka planned replacement cycle.
 
I'm a tube guy, at least as far as my main screen goes (Sony GDM-FW900 on the way...), but LCDs are still good for some things. I'd very much like a couple 20" ones at work. LCDs are very good for text for example, and work quite well in "office" settings where color quality really isn't important.
The real hassle with LCDs is there are several types with varying qualities. The MVA or PVA panels that would be best for my programming job due to high contrast and good viewing angles aren't typicall good for gaming as they usually have a slow response time. Then the TN type panels with fast response times are (almost?) always 6-bit panels- worthless for graphics work- and generally have poor viewing angles. Somewhat in the middle there are (S-)IPS panels, which have "average" response times and viweing angles, the best (for an LCD) color quality, and generally poor contrast.
In an "ideal" world I'd have some PVA panels at the office and PVA panels as side screens at home. Then a top end CRT or maybe a plasma for my main screen at home.
I'm curious- what went wrong with that Sun monitor? Did it go blurry? I've seen that happen with a fair number of CRTs... causes massive eye strain. It might be fixable, but with monitor prices these days it's not really worth it unless it's a really high end specialty CRT.
 
As you can see my short post on the LG 17inch and I have to disagree and I think other than the dead pixel factor LCDs are much better. Being able to look at the screen without going blind is a huge plus, nuff said.
 
It is just before the go blurry point. The whole story is that I work in an intel imagery shop, color is very important. We used to have the same monitor at work, and then I bought one for home on ebay for 200 bucks. But at work, they are in use constantly, and they are all starting to die. There is a point when an analyst will start complaining of eyestrain when the blurriness isn't apparent, but I guess it is still there. Then they go super blurry, mine is just before this point.

I really like the new sun 24"ers though, I am just about sure it is an S-IPS panel, though I don't know who makes it. The power supply is bigger than my computer's in size, but the display quality is superb.

If I was going to pick on LCD's though. CRTs are superior in several ways, but not all. I am really a big fan of SED technology, which is sort of an lcd like crt.
 
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