> Seeing my wife's shiny new(ish) 18.1" LCD monitor has got me
> thinking that I need to treat myself to a new monitor or two.
> I like the crisp display and low power cunsumption (and weight!)
> of LCD monitors, so that's what I'm looking at.
> I currently have two 21" CRTs, each running at 1600x1280. My
> question is: what do people who have compared them think of Sun's
> 24.1" widescreen LCD monitor vs (say) a pair of Samsung 21"s?
> I like a lot of screen space, so one 21" monitor probably wouldn;t
> be enough.
I recently upgraded from an aging 21" CRT to a new 21" LCD.
The interesting thing is, despite them both being nominally '21"'
monitors, the new LCD is actually about 1.5" larger in actual
monitor area. And that doesn't count the *truly* viewable
area, because on the CRT, the edges of the picture are not
exactly straight and not exactly square, so I have to give it
about a 1/4" safety margin on all sides so that I can see the
whole thing from all reasonable angles; whereas, on the LCD,
the picture goes RIGHT up to the edge of the display -- I mean
about 1/8" away.
The next result is that the actual image you see on the screen
is nearly 2" larger on the '21"' LCD than it is on the '21"' CRT.
Add to that the the LCD doesn't flicker at all, and I feel fine
running it at full resolution, whereas I was never happy running
my CRT at 1600x1200 because the refresh rate wasn't good enough.
Anyway, the point is that a LCD actually gives you a tad more
real estate, and (if your eyes are good), things are much sharper,
so you can stand using a bit smaller font in some cases, making
the real estate you have more helpful.
The other point is that the LCD got is a Samsung 213T, and I
*really* like it. Right now, they have a rebate, and at
newegg.com (for example), they are only $570 after rebate.
For that price, you really could get two and not feel bad
about having spent the money. They even swivel 90 degrees,
so that you could put them both in portrait mode next to each
other if you wished. (However, the OS has to support this.
I tried it with Mac OS X and found that, while it does support
it, it's VERY slow to do screen updates, so it's totally not
worth it.)
If you are interested in the Samsung 213T, be forewarned about
one thing: the rebate form says the rebate takes 10-12 weeks
instead of the usual 4-6 or 6-8, and from what I can tell,
they're absolutely not exaggerating. My $100 rebate has been
in the "processing" stage (according to the tracking web site)
for something like 2 months now. (I have a feeling they just
process everything, then intentionally wait 10 weeks and accrue
some interest on the money, then send out the checks...)
- Logan
by