Happy Birthday to Me!

[Stephen Coates]

Its that time of year again.

I am now two decades old.

Fortunately, our family's celebrations are more or less over now until Christmas 2011 .

[Harrison]

Happy Birthday Steve!

Have you bought yourself any presents? Or was your bike the main one? Anything nice from family and friends?

[Demon Cleaner]

Happy bday Stephen!!!

[Stephen Coates]

Happy Birthday Steve!

Have you bought yourself any presents? Or was your bike the main one? Anything nice from family and friends?

Just got a few cards and a bit of money. The bike was my main present, which I bought myself. I am considering buying an LCD monitor though once I have saved up some more wages.

[Harrison]

What specific needs to you have for an LCD?

I would currently recommend the Iyama Prolite E2210HDS. Around £150 for a 22" widescreen FullHD monitor is a great price, and it has a very nice display and doesn't have the horrible reflective coating a lot of them have these days. Also has VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs, so useful for a cheap HD display to hook up to a source if you wish in the future.

[Demon Cleaner]

The Iiyama Prolite E2210HDS seems to be a good buy. Although on the 2 sites I checked (I read the 2 first I found, and it's quite strange that both of them mention almost the same), they recommend the BenQ G2222HDL, here's what they wrote:

While the E2210HDS-1 isn't a bad monitor, lots of minor flaws combine to make it less appealing than its rivals. Overall, it can't compete with the excellent picture quality and low price of the BenQ G2222HDL.

The only crucial obstacle in the path of the ProLite E2210HDS is BenQ's cheaper, A-Listed G2222HDL. There isn't a whole lot between the two in terms of image quality, and if a wealth of features isn't required we'd stick with the BenQ.

[Stephen Coates]

I have been looking at HP's ZR24W monitor. Unfortunately though, it seems to be out of stock everywhere.

If I am going to spend money on an LCD, it may as well be bigger and much better resolution than the 4:3 CRT which I have now and use for web pages, photographs, documents, programme listings etc. Hence any of this 'Full HD' crap is no good due to it being limited to a 16:9 ratio an 1920x1080 resolution. That vertical resolution (which is most important to me) is barely more than what my CRT is set to now. Yes, I know I can watch HD movies and HD games on a Full HD monitor, but how often do I do that?

If you are wondering why I am after an IPS type panel, as in the HP, they appear to still be better than TN type panels (except for the response time which is of little importance to me), and are the reasons that Apple's displays have always looked spot on whereas others just don't look quite right. I haven't seen the HP monitor in real life, nor have I seen its Dell equivalent, but I gather they are pretty much just as good as Apple displays but without the huge price tag. And it isn't shiny.

[Harrison]

The Iiyama Prolite E2210HDS seems to be a good buy. Although on the 2 sites I checked (I read the 2 first I found, and it's quite strange that both of them mention almost the same), they recommend the BenQ G2222HDL

The BenQ is a very good budget offering, so for anyone on a tight budget you could do much worse as you can find it under £100. It doesn't have an HDMI port though which limits it, so you only have DVI and D-SUB amd it does look a bit budget and plastic. The stand doesn't move either. The Iiyama looks a lot smarter in my view, and the image quality is better. It's also an ECO model which uses a lot less power, as low as 12W, and only 24W on full brightness. Earlier in the year there was only £10 between these 2 makes so the Iitama was worth the bit extra.

Regarding resolution. I understand what you mean, but in reality FullHD 1920x1080 is a very usable resolution. The extra width really does make a huge difference compared to older 4:3 format monitors, and going back to those now really feels restricted and cramped. It is true the move vertical dimension would always be useful, but the only realistic other resolution is either 1600x1200 or 1920x1200, unless you start looking at much more expensive monitors, with 30" having 2560x1600. I also don't see the point in buying larger screens with the same 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 resolution because you are getting the same dimensions but magnified with larger pixels, so the image quality drops. A compromise would be something like the Del Ultrasharp 27" with 2560x1440 resolution, which is a great size.

[Stephen Coates]

Regarding resolution. I understand what you mean, but in reality FullHD 1920x1080 is a very usable resolution. The extra width really does make a huge difference compared to older 4:3 format monitors, and going back to those now really feels restricted and cramped. It is true the move vertical dimension would always be useful, but the only realistic other resolution is either 1600x1200 or 1920x1200, unless you start looking at much more expensive monitors, with 30" having 2560x1600. I also don't see the point in buying larger screens with the same 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 resolution because you are getting the same dimensions but magnified with larger pixels, so the image quality drops. A compromise would be something like the Del Ultrasharp 27" with 2560x1440 resolution, which is a great size.

I don't really have much use for the extra horizontal resolution, though it may come in handy if it was there. But because of this I can't see any point in getting any extra horizontal resolution if I don't get a considerable increase of vertical resolution.

Fortunately, the HP monitor I mentioned and its Dell equivalent are 24", 16:10 and 1920x1200. HP do make a 22" one which is a bit cheaper, but that is only 16:9 and 1920x1080.

[Harrison]

Quite a few FullHD monitors also swivel for portrait mode, and quite a few people have started to use them in this mode for web browsing, reading documents etc... Definitely something to consider as you are not forced to use them in landscape.