Any quality (small, like 19" to 20") 2nd or 3rd displays?

[Lasercat]

Hello

I have a 32" Asus as my main display. My desktop doesn't have limitless space, and this 32" is quite wide. I do own a 24" 1920x1200, a 22" 1680x1050, a 20" 1680x1050, a 17" 1280x1024 (or two), but they are all CCFL backlighted and therefore use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat. Some don't have VESA (which I need for my stands) and some are too big to fit onto my desk.

Therefore I am looking for a good maybe 19" 5:4 (1280x1024) W-LED backlighted display. I have almost settled on Asus VB199T (or VB199TL or VB199T-P). It has a LED backlight and an IPS panel.

Does anyone happen to know the differences between the three models?

Or does anyone know a better possibility to get a 19" 5:4 or a 20" 4:3 or a 20" 16:10 with nice picture quality (IPS or VA), low power consumption (W-LED) and a VESA mount?

I got very much used to working with three displays when the computer was on my temporary desk, so this feels a bit constrained now.

 

[Lasercat]

There are a few options.

20" 1600 x 1200 is mostly a failed attempt. There is some company in China that produces monitors of this size in bulk. Minimum 50 pcs. Of some other sizes you can order a sample.
19" 1280 x 1024 has good choices from Philips and Asus. Philips has three models, of which the middle one has quite low power consumption.
20" 1440 x 900 is lovable for two reasons: The 1440 is a match for the 1440p vertical resolution in portrait orientation. And it is a 16:10. There is Asus BE209QLB, although other possible models do exist. BE209QLB has VGA, DVI and DP, the other model is without DP.

Then there is 17" 1280 x 1024 which is almost exactly 96 DPI. And 15" 1024 x 768. I think that if I could (or as soon as I can) afford it, I'll go with one 20" 1440 x 900 and one 19" 1280 x 1024. If this 32" were any smaller, I could use a larger 2nd and 3rd display. But I don't plan to get rid of this anytime soon. Besides, it is difficult to imagine anyone wanting to have three widescreens in landscape. Therefore it must be either something narrower or widescreens in portrait mode. But they are easily too high. I have maybe 20 inches worth of vertical space above my table surface. That makes 20" 16:10 maybe the maximum I am willing to have in portrait mode.

 

[Archaea]

I wish there were va or ips 1440x900 panels with freesync to match with a 2560x1440 setup

In a portrait landscape portrait eyefinity arrangement.

 

[Lasercat]

I wish there were va or ips 1440x900 panels

According to Asus, BE209QLB is IPS. Of all 1400 x 900 panels, all 19" are TN, but most 19.5" or 20" are IPS. But since it is a "business" display, there will probably never be any "gaming" features.

 

[DanNeely]

There are a few options.

20" 1600 x 1200 is mostly a failed attempt. There is some company in China that produces monitors of this size in bulk. Minimum 50 pcs. Of some other sizes you can order a sample.
19" 1280 x 1024 has good choices from Philips and Asus. Philips has three models, of which the middle one has quite low power consumption.
20" 1440 x 900 is lovable for two reasons: The 1440 is a match for the 1440p vertical resolution in portrait orientation. And it is a 16:10. There is Asus BE209QLB, although other possible models do exist. BE209QLB has VGA, DVI and DP, the other model is without DP.

There're two problems with 1440x900. While your using a 32 display largely sidesteps the first (the more common 27" size would need a 15' sidepanel to height match) for general use you'd still run into a second problem it won't work well to host a web browser; you'll be getting desktop page layouts and a lot of them have horizontal scroll below 1024 wide. Some have a minimum width of 1280; these'd be affected enough that you probably would end up having to scroll side to side just to read the page instead of just having a sidebar hidden (as is the case with my old 20" 1200x1600 side panels). While it will require fiddling with different DPI scaling settings/monitor I think a 19" 1280x1024 would be a better choice just because the increased width means fewer page layout problems.

As is the webpage width issue is annoying enough even at 1200 wide that I'm probably going to keep my NEC 2090's until they die. Or at least until I can get height matching high DPI side panels and address the issue by fiddling the DPI scaling levels...

 

[DanNeely]

I wish there were va or ips 1440x900 panels with freesync to match with a 2560x1440 setup

In a portrait landscape portrait eyefinity arrangement.

Is PLP supported in Eyefinity (or WTH nVidia's version is called), or is that wish making as much as the availability of a suitable monitor?

 

[Archaea]

Is PLP supported in Eyefinity (or WTH nVidia's version is called), or is that wish making as much as the availability of a suitable monitor?

Nvidia doesn't offer PLP -- only AMD does. That's a long standing gripe.
I used to have PLP and it worked great -- save for screen tearing on my left and right Dell 2007FP monitors. (Dell 3014 in the middle)

I personally would still say that PLP 20/30/20 is the Cadillac of multimonitor use. It's great for productivity and great for gaming!

I made this video when the AMD 285 came out which was the first card to support PLP in hardware. Since then every AMD card has supported PLP.


I now have 32", 32", 32" in landscape with freesync (landscape for all three) --- and while I wouldn't give up freesync to go back to tearing issues --- its just far too wide for productivity, and a bit too wide for gaming - if hud elements are on the left and right of the screen - forget about it. It's extremely immersive if the HUD is in the middle of the screen! (which newer games are better about doing!)

 

[DanNeely]

Thanks for the update. I've been 20/30/20 for productivity and gaming on just the 30 for the past half dozen years. Not sure how I missed the PLP announcement - other than being on an NVidia card that generation - at the time.

Even just on the 30, huds in the corner can be an issue at times; I can't imagine what it'd be like on a 3x landscape setup.

Cost/space reasons mean I'll probably never go 3x32"; but might swap my 30 for one of the 20s as a side monitor when I get one 32" 4k screen. OTOH my NEC 3090 is DVI only and I've seen that the DP-DL DVI adapters are still flakey. (And my experience with an DP-SLDVI active adapter that mostly worked on nvidia but never the 5870 I originally bought it for doesn't fill me with joy there.)